The Sandōkai () is a poem by the eighth Chinese Zen ancestor

Shitou Xiqian Shítóu Xīqiān (700-790) () was an 8th-century Chinese Chán (Zen) Buddhist teacher and author. All existing branches of Zen throughout the world are said to descend either from Shitou Xiqian or from his contemporary Mazu Daoyi. Biography Lif ...

(Sekito Kisen, 700–790) and a fundamental text of the

Sōtō Sōtō Zen or is the largest of the three traditional sects of Zen in Japanese Buddhism (the others being Rinzai and Ōbaku). It is the Japanese line of the Chinese Cáodòng school, which was founded during the Tang dynasty by Dòngshān L ...

school of

Zen Zen ( zh, t=禪, p=Chán; ja, text= 禅, translit=zen; ko, text=선, translit=Seon; vi, text=Thiền) is a school of Mahayana Buddhism that originated in China during the Tang dynasty, known as the Chan School (''Chánzong'' 禪宗), and ...

, chanted daily in temples throughout the world.

Title

The poem's title, "參同契", is pronounced ''Sandōkai'' in

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

or ''Cāntóngqì'' in

Mandarin Chinese Mandarin (; ) is a group of Chinese (Sinitic) dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language of ...

. The characters, in particular the first, 參 (''san'' or ''cān''), can have several quite different meanings, and therefore the poem's title is susceptible to a variety of interpretations and translations. English translations of the title, some more and some less literal, include "Merging of Difference and Unity", "Merging of Difference and Equality", "Agreement of Difference and Unity", "Harmony of Difference and Sameness", "Harmonious Song of Difference and Sameness", "Identity of Relative and Absolute", "Harmony of Relative and Absolute", "Harmony of Difference and Equality", and "Ode on Identity". The title of the Sandōkai is the same as that of a 2nd-century

Taoist Taoism (, ) or Daoism () refers to either a school of philosophical thought (道家; ''daojia'') or to a religion (道教; ''daojiao''), both of which share ideas and concepts of Chinese origin and emphasize living in harmony with the ''Tao'' ...

text on

alchemy Alchemy (from Arabic: ''al-kīmiyā''; from Ancient Greek: χυμεία, ''khumeía'') is an ancient branch of natural philosophy, a philosophical and protoscientific tradition that was historically practiced in China, India, the Muslim world, ...

, which is also known as the

Cantong qi The ''Cantong qi'' is deemed to be the earliest book on Taoist alchemy in China. The title has been variously translated as ''Kinship of the Three'', ''Akinness of the Three'', ''Triplex Unity'', ''The Seal of the Unity of the Three'', and in se ...

; in reference to the Taoist work, "參同契" is often translated as "the Kinship of the Three".

Text

Another translation by Rev. Master Jiyu-Kennett:

Text commentary

Toward the end of his life Shunryu Suzuki Roshi gave a series of lectures on the Sandokai. These have been published as the book ''Branching Streams Flow in the Darkness''. Sheng-yen published a commentary in English on both "Sandokai" ("Inquiry Into Matching Halves") and " The Precious Mirror of Samadhi" under the title ''The Infinite Mirror'' ((1990), Dharma Drum Publications ).

References

External links

Sandokai
medieval Japanese and translated into English

* ttp://terebess.hu/zen/shitou-eng.html Various English and Hungarian translations of the Sandōkai and another work by Shitou Xiqian, the Sōan ka {{Authority control Zen texts Chinese poems Buddhist poetry Chinese Buddhist texts Tang dynasty poetry

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See also

References

External links