Whatever's out there, it is all Amida (Bloom)

...Shinran identified Amida Buddha as the eternal Buddha, similar to how Shakyamuni is portrayed in the Lotus Sutra. That means that Amida has no beginning and no end. There's never been a time when there was not Amida Buddha. So he symbolizes reality.

When I discuss Amida Buddha with Christians, they often ask, "Is Amida a god?" and I say, "No, he is not a god, he's reality." Amida is the Buddha of Infinite Light and Life, and in this sense of things draws one's mind out beyond boundaries to contemplate the infinite. Shakyamuni is from the Shakya clan, and that can be a limiting concept; Amida, though, is not just a being, not just a concept; rather, it's a mythic symbol, a window through which to contemplate reality and to see ourselves better in relationship to the whole. It's a way of focusing our understanding about reality and how it embraces us. We live within the infinite, the infinite lives within us. The totality of life, of nature, of the world and the universe - whatever's out there, it is all Amida. (Alfred Bloom, in Tricycle)