by Master Chu-hung Buddha-remembrance is a method to attain the state of samadhi. Samadhi is the practice of centering the mind in a single sensation or preoccupation. It means concentration, meditative absorption. Samadhi is the particular final stage of pure concentration.

Samadhi is like pure, clean water, for it can wash away all defilements.

The Great Treatise on the Perfection of Wisdom.

To remove oneself from outer form is called meditation. To be perfectly interiorized and still is called samadhi.

Hui Neng, the Sixth Patriarch of Chan

Buddha-remembrance is discipline, concentration and wisdom:

Discipline means preventing wrongdoing. If you can wholeheartedly practice buddha-remembrance, evil will not dare to enter - this is discipline.

Concentration means eliminating the scattering characteristic of ordinary mind. If you wholeheartedly practice buddha-remembrance, mind does not have any other object - this is concentration.

Wisdom means clear perception. If you contemplate the sound of the buddha-name with each syllable distinct, and also contemplate that the one who is mindful and one who is object of this mindfulness are both unattainable - this is wisdom.

Visualize the image of the Buddha. Why the Buddha? Because Buddhas, Tathagatas, have cosmic bodies, and so enter into the meditating mind of each sentient being. For this reason, when you contemplate a Buddha, that mind itself takes the form of his thirty-two physical characteristics and eighty secondary marks. Your mind produces the Buddha's image, and is itself the Buddha. The ocean of perfectly and universally enlightened Buddhas thus arises in the meditating mind. For this reason, you should single-mindedly concentrate and deeply contemplate the Buddha, Tathagata, Arhat and Perfectly Enlightened One.

Shakyamuni Buddha

If you repeat anything constantly and generate enough faith to believe that what you are saying is correct, your mind will become what you are repeating.

Annamalai Swami

Recite the buddha-name morning and night. Recite it when you are walking and when you are sitting. When your mindfulness of Buddha is continuos, then it spontaneously becomes a samadhi, that is, a stable state of concentration. The mind which has long been in confusion is hard to settle down all at once. If your mindfulness of buddha as you recite the buddha-name is not pure, do not worry. All you have to do is deepen your effort, reciting every syllable of the buddha-name clearly in your mind.

If you are tired of the troubles of physical incarnations, just carefully recite the buddha-name and visualize the image or a statue of Amitabha. If you singlemindedly recite the buddha-name, you will be born transformed in a lotus flower in the Pure Land.