Sandōkai Seven Plates: The Harmony of Difference and Equality
The Sandōkai: Seven Plates-A Contemporary Encounter with Sh t u Xīqiān's "Harmony of Difference and Equality"
The Sandōkai (參同契), composed by Tang-dynasty Chan master Sh t u Xīqiān, has long stood as a central poetic expression of Eastern spirituality. For more than twelve centuries it has served as both doctrinal compass and living reflection of non-dual insight-the meeting of form and emptiness. Distinctions do not negate unity, and unity does not erase distinctions. Monastics have chanted it, scholars have studied it, and meditators have relied on it as a guide to the Middle Way.
The Sandōkai: Seven Plates offers a layered encounter with this classic. Instead of a single translation, it presents seven "plates," each with its own tone and interpretive texture. This mirrors the poem's message: clarity emerges through multiple perspectives.
The first five plates render the poem in modern Japanese, providing accessible entry points that ease the density of Classical Chinese while preserving contemplative rhythm. Plates Six and Seven shift into bungotai, the older literary Japanese used in sutras and pre-modern Zen, echoing how the poem resonated in monasteries for centuries. Together these versions show the poem's movement across languages and time.
The original Classical Chinese text appears at the core of the book. As a refined literary idiom capable of profound compression, it conveys multiple dimensions-philosophical, meditative, sensory-within a single line. Including it allows readers to encounter Sh t u's exact phrasing and the poem's original texture.
This edition seeks balance. Some translations lean toward doctrinal analysis, others toward poetic looseness, while still others sound like formal Zen instruction. This work aims for accessibility without flattening nuance. The plates invite comparison and contemplation, allowing readers to engage at their own pace.
Using "plates" rather than "chapters" is intentional. Each plate is an impression of the same reality viewed through a different surface. As the poem teaches that phenomena interrelate without losing their own forms, the plates interrelate without collapsing into a single authoritative reading. Readers may explore linguistic shifts, use the plates as meditative companions, or examine them as examples of translation.
The book also speaks to modern concerns. In a time when difference easily becomes conflict, the Sandōkai reminds us that opposites are related, not hostile. Wisdom arises not by erasing distinctions but by perceiving the unity in which they appear. Its message remains timeless.
In this sense, Seven Plates is a contemplative companion as much as a translation project. It encourages readers to slow down and treat the poem as a mirror for the mind's movement between unity and distinction. Repeated reading reveals new layers; simple lines open into insight. Sh t u warns against clinging-even to understanding-and this book honors that subtlety.
For practitioners, it offers a fresh resource for study and chanting. For students of East Asian religion, it presents a cross-linguistic view of a foundational Chan text. For translators and scholars, it demonstrates interpretive possibility. For general readers, it provides a welcoming doorway into a contemplative tradition that still speaks to contemporary life.
Ultimately, this book is an offering of devotion-an effort to honor the transmission of Sh t u's teaching and make it newly available without diminishing its depth. The Seven Plates are invitations to pause, breathe, and recognize the harmony present within experience. Standing between languages and eras, The Sandōkai: Seven Plates opens this timeless insight for new generations.
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