A Sukavati is a service done by Himalayan Buddhist traditions (including the Shambhala Buddhist tradition) that is based in the older Pure Land tradition. The Pure Land tradition seems to date back to the beginning of what became the Mahayana lineages.
The Pureland is said to be a Buddha realm created by one of the 2 earliest other Buddhas mentioned by Shakimuni (the other being Maitreya, the coming Buddha of the future, who has since had many of the "Messianic/ coming savior" traditions identified with him).
Amitabha is said to be an aspect of the Buddha that, out of his great compassion for all Sentient beings, created a place when one who merely remembered his name or aspired to go there could be reborn.
When I first heard about this, as a early 20-something nihilist, I was disappointed. This sounded to me like the sort of folk belief-via-Christianity "happy hunting ground heaven" bullshit that I had turned against.
However, there is a big difference. In the basic Heaven myth, people who believe in a certain deity would go and dwell there eternally in bliss while everyone else (the infidels/ non-believers) would burn as sinners.
In this case, those who aspire to be reborn there in Amitabha's pureland of Sukavati aka Dewachen are doing so because the conditions are very ripe for easy enlightenment - and then one would come back to whatever realm needed in whatever form was needed to help others get free of samsara. Aspiring to go there does not insinuate that everyone else is inferior to you for not believing in Amitabha, and that they will suffer the wrath of a vengeful angry Buddha.
Far from it. If one has taken the Bodhisattva vow properly, instead of feeling superior to all the sheep, one is dedicated to helping every single last one of them attain the same realization.
Anyway, the Sukavati itself consists of a bit of sitting to focus everyone's minds, an explanation of what is going to happen, a period of tonglen - taking and receiving meditation - for the consciousness of the dead person, and then some remembrances about them by friends and family.
It ends with the burning of a picture of the deceased. It is supposed to help the dead person by getting rid of the image of the body they have left. It is said in the Bardo Thotal (aka Tibetan Book of the Dead) that the dead may not know they are dead, and seek to be around reminders of their just-past life. Burning the photo is supposed to make the deceased realize "oh, I'm dead."
I have heard from at least one lama that the real reason it is done is to make the survivors quit their painful grasping to the deceased by driving it home that "this loved on is dead, time to start moving on with life."
I'll add more details about how Jann Jackson masterfully lead Lucinda's tomorrow morning, IAGW.
-LWWD/JTR.
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