A member of the Amida Order put forward a question: "One way to formulate the question is as a comparison of Amida with the Christian God. As I understand it the Christian God is a creator - thus the creation myth. I can regard this in two distinct ways. Historically, God created the world, long ago. Phenomenologically, God is continually creating the manifest world out of the unmanifest. From a Buddhist perspective, this could be regarded as experience arising out of the void, and Amida being identified with that void - measureless - until it actually manifests and is specific. We can then have access to the experience at different levels, in different dimensions, the everyday, the archetypal, and the ineffable - our relationship to the sublime. So my question is, can Amida be understood as a creator in this sense of the ground out of which experience arises?"
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