I decided to give a short explanation of the following passage from the Contemplation Sutra that many find it difficult to understand or have the tendency to misinterpret it:

“Buddha Tathagatas have cosmic bodies, and so enter into the meditating mind of each sentient being. For this reason, when you contemplate a Buddha, your 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.”[1]

 If we really have a vision with a Buddha, that vision appears because of two reasons:

1) the Buddha himself who influences us, and 2) our innate Buddha nature.

 The first is explained in the passage above as the cosmic bodies of Buddhas entering the meditating mind of sentient beings:

“Because Buddha Tathagatas have cosmic bodies, and so enter into the meditating mind of each sentient being. For this reason, when you contemplate a Buddha, your mind itself takes the form of His thirty-two physical characteristics and eighty secondary marks.”

Because Amida enters our minds we are able to see His image and we are imbued with His presence.

The second is explained by the statement that our mind produces the Buddha’s image and is itself the Buddha:

“Your mind produces the Buddha’s image and is itself the Buddha”.

By virtue of having the same Buddha nature with all Buddhas and due to the Buddha’s influence, the image of any Buddha can appear into our minds:

“The ocean of perfectly and universally enlightened Buddhas thus arises in the meditating mind”.

Our innate Buddha nature is the base of the vision, while the influence of Amida Buddha on us is the action that makes the vision possible. Thus, an image of Amida Buddha can appear into our minds because we already have the same Buddha naturelike Him, and because He decides to enter our minds.

Here “the meditating mind” refers to our unenlightened mind which is thus influenced by Amida who enters it, and the mind in the sentence “your mind produces the Buddha’s image and is itself the Buddha”refers to our innate Buddha nature or the original true mind. We cannot see a Buddha if we don’t already have Buddha nature and if we are not influenced or helped by one who already dwells in His Buddha nature – that is, another Buddha.  

The advanced practitioners of the Contemplation Sutra become open to Amida’s influence and may have a vision with Him by doing the 8th contemplation on the image of Amida, while ordinary people without any spiritual capacity do this by simple faith and being in accord with His Primal Vow. This is why even ordinary people are sometimes reported as having visions, dreams or various spiritual experiences with Amida Buddha.