Throw Yourself into the House of Buddha

June 19, 2023
In this illuminating entry, Buddhist monk Czarnik collects the teachings of Zen master Tangen Harada Roshi (1924–2018), spotlighting his invigorating “dharma talks.” Roshi’s early years were marked by grief and unpredictability: his mother died before he turned one, he joined the Japanese army in WWII at 19, and he was held in a Soviet POW camp for nearly a year. After the war, Roshi’s anguished search for meaning led him to Buddhism, and he was eventually ordained as a monk and became the abbot of Bukkoku-ji Temple in Obama, Japan, a role he occupied for the rest of his life. There, he challenged students to “throw everything” into their Zen practice and embrace life’s “constant sermon of change.” Harada taught aspiring Buddhist monks, local rice farmers, and foreigner visitors alike, and his down-to-earth spirit pervades these talks, as when he invites practitioners to “release the desire to look this way and that way outside of yourself, the desire to arrive at the answers rather than to be the answer.” Readers will relish these striking insights into the value of a sincere and devoted Zen practice.