The nembutsu is Buddhism's largest practice and its strangest. Honen taught that in a degenerate age the old routes are closed and calling on Amitabha is the one remaining; Shinran, his student, took the argument to its end — if you are relying on your own effort even in the calling, you are still relying on yourself, so the recitation must be understood as Amitabha's activity arriving in you. What follows is a Buddhism with no monasticism (Shinran married), no meditation requirement, and salvation entirely by other-power. Western readers reach for the Protestant comparison immediately, and it is not a bad one, but the two developed with no contact whatsoever.