Not One Single Thing

A commentary on the Platform Sutra

Wisdom Publication 2018

by Shodo Harada

Tim Pallis

”Not One Single Thing” is a commentary on the Platform Sutra by the modern Rinzai Zen master Taigen Shodo Harada Roshi. There are three traditions of Zen Buddhism in Japan: Soto, Obaku and Rinzai. Harada Roshi belongs to the Myoshin-ji branch of Rinzai Zen.

The Platform Sutra is attributed to the Chinese Zen master Huineng (638-713) also called the Sixth patriarch of the Zen tradition, founded by Bodhidharma. Huineng’s Japanese name is Eno.

Harada Roshi has illustrated the book with his own calligraphy. He is the Dharma heir of Yamada Mumon Roshi and is the abbot of Sogen-ji Monastery in Okayama, Japan, where he trains mainly western Zen monks, nuns and laymen in the Zen Buddhist way of life.

Shodo Harada is the founder of the international Zen community ”One Drop Zendo” (ODZ), which has centers in 15 countries and headquarters in Japan, USA, India and Germany.

The book is translated from Harada Roshi’s talks (taisho) about passages of the Platform Sutra at Tahoma monastery on Whidbey Island, Washington by Priscilla Daichi Storandt, transcribed by Mitra Bishop and edited by Jane Shotaku Lago, who has made an invaluable work as regards to removing of the repetitions and selecting the present texst from the original material of the lectures. The book is provided with a thorough index and a meticulous Glossary, but there are no notes, and it is fortunately not an academic work.

I have read too many books about Zen and have a vast library of books by the worlds great mystic. Moreover I have studied and practiced Zen Buddhism for 50 years beginning with the works of Daisetz Taitaro Suzuki.

Gary Snyder’s book ”Earth House Hold” with the chapter called ”Spring sesshin in Shokoku-ji” brought me to Kyoto i 1969. I began to do zazen under Sohaku Kobori in Daitoku-ji, a pupil of Suzuki, who learned to speak English from Suzuki’s wife Beatrice Lane Suzuki.

Now I don’t need to read anything more about Zen, because I have just read ”Not One Single Thing”. It is definitely the best book on Zen ever – yes it is the only book you need to read about Zen, if you need to read any at all. I am happy to have found the book, that abrogate all other books on Zen.

There are scholars and Buddhist philosophers, who have used most of their time researching the history and teaching of Huineng’s Platform Sutra, because it is such an important Zen Buddhist work especially for the one, who is not seeking knowledge, but the realization of our true nature.

It describes with words the essence of the Buddhist awakening. And Harada Roshi’s fresh and lived experience of its wisdom is incomparable to any other attempt to clarify that text.

Many of the Zen Buddhists, who has contributed to publishing this book are students and trainees of Harada Roshi. They are people who have dedicated their whole life to Buddhist awakening and teaching, and the publication is therefore a group work of many western Zen Buddhist. That is in the spirit of Harada Roshi.

Priscilla Daichi Storandt has been with the Roshi since they together undertook the great task of making Sogen-ji a center of Zen Buddhist training for westerners. I remember her as a competent extempore translator already in 1978 in Mumon Yamada Roshi’s temple in Myoshin-ji. Now she is truly a Zen-nin and heir of Harada’s dharma. I am deeply impressed about her faithful work.

I shall here refrain from quoting some the countless words of wisdom, that comes from the Roshi’s deep understanding of the true nature of any sentient being, because I would rather tell the reader of this commentary to buy the book and find the wonderful passages themselves. But here is one exception, that I like to share with you:

”We need to keep going nonstop, without a break, asking ”What is it?! What is it?! What is it?! Otherwise, we are wasting our precious time. Keep that question going to the point where it becomes what is seeing and what is being seen, what is hearing and what is being heard, what is smelling and what is being smelled – all melted into one and merged completely to the point where you cannot even know whether it is you sitting in the zendo or if it is the zendo that is sitting. You have to let go of every single one of your mental concepts. And then you will realize that life energy that fills your ears and fills your eyes and does the hearing and does the seeing, and you will know its deepest root not from your head but from your experience.”

I wish that the people, who one day stop up and begin to quest their identity and ask, what they really are and then want to awaken to their true nature, would take a little time to read this book and begin to practice what it tells them to do. There are teachers and masters today, who can help them to begin a spiritual practice. This is the one thing needful.