NOT ONE SINGLE THING

Explore the seminal Platform Sutra, with one of the greatest living Zen masters as a guide.

A lodestone of Zen Buddhism, the Platform Sutra presents the life, work, and wisdom of Eno, or Huineng, the fascinating and much-loved seventh-century Sixth Patriarch of Chinese Zen. An illiterate woodcutter who famously attained enlightenment after only hearing a single line of a sutra, and who went on to decisively upstage senior monks with a poem that demonstrated the depth and clarity of his insight, his example has demonstrated to generations of students and spiritual seekers worldwide that enlightenment is attainable regardless of education or social standing. His exhortations to directly perceive one's true nature, right here and now, still reverberate in contemporary Zen.

Shodo Harada Roshi's fresh reading of the Platform Sutra offers both the history behind the work and the lived experience of its wisdom. In a plain-English, conversational voice, Shodo Harada brings the sutra to life for his students, discussing and explaining its central points chapter by chapter and illustrating it with his own beautiful calligraphy. This is far from a collection of dry lectures; it is an essential Buddhist text brought to life.

Shodo Harada Roshi is an established Zen teacher, whose students include many American Zen teachers. He is the disciple and Dharma heir of Yamada Mumon Roshi, a renowned Zen master and Zen calligrapher. In this lineage, calligraphies such as the ones in this book are used to teach the Dharma. In teachings available to Western students, the overall meaning of the sutras is often addressed, but little is available on the deeper meaning of specific passages. Harada Roshi is the abbot of Sogenji Zen Monastery in Okayama, Japan, and travels frequently to Tahoma Shogenji Monastery on Whidbey Island in Washington State, Hokuozan Sogenji Monastery in Asendorf Germany, and Indozan Sogenji near Adillabad in Andrah Pradesh in India.