023-09-02 Life and Teachings of Tangen Harada Roshi 1

6:11PM Sep 12, 2023

Speakers:

Sensei Amala Wrightson

Richard von Sturmer

Keywords:

roshi

tongan

zen

life

years

practice

harada

mountain

bodhisattva

figures

zen master

mother

stand

arose

called

chair

teacher

felt

japan

beings

The talk you're about to hear is by Roshi Amala Wrightson, teacher at the Auckland Zen Center.

This is the first day of our spring seven day sesshin - second of September 2023. And we're going to spend the next few teishos, exploring the life and Zen teaching of Tangen Harada Roshi. We'll be reading from a new book that's just come out called "Throw Yourself into the House of the Buddha." This was a favorite favorite saying of Tangen Roshi's.

This book is edited by a Kogen Czarnik. I don't think we've got any, maybe any information on him. No. Sounds like a European surname.

He has gathered together translations of Tangen's talks by Belinda Attaway Yamakawa and the book has an afterward by Bodhin Kjolhede, my teacher.

This Tangen Roshi is very important figure for our lineage of Zen. He was a mentor to rush Roshi Kapleau during his difficult early years at Hoshi Ng, in Obama in the Japan Sea. And Roshi Kapleau has himself said that he doesn't know if he would have lasted it lasted the distance if it hadn't been for the kindness in so many ways of Tongan Roshi. In Roshi is forward, afterward rather, to the book, he tells some of the stories that we heard over the years and which some of which appear in the three pillars of Zen and this one in particular, which actually illustrates Tongans Spirit and His kindness. He says now this is Roshi Kjolhede, writing. Tongans demands on Kapleau matched his faith in them. Once when the American Eucommia was sitting in the dokusan line, Tongan who alone at the monastery had learned a little English. English, was sitting behind him, ready to go in with him as his interpreter. No sooner had Kapleau struck the bell and stood up that Tongan without warning struck him violently behind the air. Kapleau in raged took a swing at him, but with no time to lose storm straight in to see Harada Roshi. For the first time Kapleau was able in his aroused state to respond to the Roshi no mindedly from the guts rather than from the head. Harada Roshi signaled his delight from then on Kapleau found himself offering and this is quoting him operating on a higher energy level. And at DocuSign was no longer afraid of the Roshi tangan had known well, that compassion can take the form of harshness. And then there's there's another story which which is in the three palaces in Tonga and meted out his special compassion for the American even when doing so cost him precious sleep on the last night of a seven day sesshin after the formal schedule had ended for the day, Kapleau secluded himself in the bath house to continue his setting. And my guess is the reason why he went to the bathhouse with as a traditional Japanese bath would be because it would be warmer, he's Kapleau. So Kapleau Stokes suffered terribly from the cold and in the bath would have a would have a fire in church and most likely in that small space it was it was warmer. Tongan ever solicitous of his struggling foreign charge, following him in and spend hours urging him on with the Kosaku. By the end of the night they had bonded to a good degree and unique in such to such shared exertions. As dawn broke, they silently embraced and Kapleau remained even further and dated his mentor, friend and dharma brother.

over the over the years, Tongan welcomed many students from the Roshi SR Zen Center to stay with him and training at Macaca Ji was one of the few places when my teacher went, it was one of the few places that actually accepted foreigners. He says, My teacher says a verse that Tongan Roshi was willing to go the extra distance to give even those with no Zen experience a shot, no Zen experience often no Japanese and very little understanding of Japanese culture. One of those follow up foreigners was Belinda Ottaway. Yeah Yamakawa she for many many years was the interpreter at Macaca Ji and especially helpful to foreigners going to stay there helping them to navigate things and and translating Tanga Roshi his TV shows and going to dog sign with students as well. She's sadly passed away a few years ago quite prematurely from I think it was the liver cancer or stomach cancer. Anyhow, we'll get to the actual the actual text and

read a little bit of the preface before getting into the his life story.

die sets who Tongan Harada Roshi called Roshi summer with respect and affection by his students. Summer is is a honorific that gets tacked on to the names. So it's it's son as the more familiar honorific Samos much more differential, a greater kind of honor to be called have this, this suffix. So dissect su Tongan Harada Roshi called Roshi sama with respect and affection by his students was born as also RB, in the city of Niigata. On August 24th 1924. So he was 12 years Junior younger than Philip Kaplow for look at where I was, was born in August 1912. But very much his his senior in the Dharma Heir narrowly surviving World War Two and we'll come to that later, he was haunted by his war experiences, human suffering in the question of life and death. He entered her Shinji, a famous Zen monastery in the town of Obama, where he practiced under one of the most significant Zen masters of modern Japan, Dion Sogaku Roshi, his name also as Harada because he, at a certain point adopted Tongan and so Tang and took his his family name. So die would die on Sogaku Sogaku Harada Roshi who ordained him and gave him the name tengan. After intense training, his realisation was confirmed, and he received Dharma transmission and Inca Shomi at the age of 27, very, very young age. Tongan Roshi then served as a personal attendant to Daya. Roshi for several years co leading practice at her Shinji while living together with his teacher in a small hermitage just outside the gate. In 1955 Tongan Roshi became the abbot of the neighboring temple of Bekaa koji in at the request of his teacher and at the time, but because he was pretty much pretty rundown, close to being a ruin and the first few years there, Tongan Roshi had to do a lot of fundraising and hard work to repair it. And it remained a modest collection of buildings we went there and in 2001, and compared with many of the, the temples that one visits in Japan, it was it was quite small, but very much a training center not not part of the the big bureaucracies that you find in Soto especially, but also Rinzai. From that time, on almost 60 years, Tongan Roshi received at Brit cockatoo anyone who was willing to follow His austere lifestyle and his guidance and practice not discriminating between lay and monastic or by gender or by nationality. He didn't travel the world to spread the Dharma. He just sat in his small temple nestled in the shadow of a little mountain on the outskirts of a fishing town by the Sea of Japan. Yet slowly word of Him spread around the world bringing 1000s of people from all continents to practice there is a very, very powerful image this of of this master just staying in one place for almost 60 years and the world coming to him.

Now let's skip forward to the count of Tongans live this is in in Tongans own words. This has been sort of stitched together from various sources in his TV shows to to create a good, inter integrated account of his life. He says, I came into this world with a great debt. My mother gave her own life in order to give birth to me. She already had three children and when she was pregnant with me, she was diagnosed with stomach cancer. The doctor urged her to apologize to the baby and to have the cancer removed from her stomach. Those around my father as well tried to persuade her to do it. But she stood firm, vowing this baby in my belly is going to be born

I was born on August 24. The day we wish the date. The day we worship Jesus Oh bodhisattva. After that it was too late to the for the surgery. Just before she died, she very clearly expressed herself to those close to her. Even after I die, I will care for and protect this child. She must have prayed fiercely for my protection. She died before my first birthday and left me in the care of Jizo bodhisattva there's quite a bit to this, we'll just explore just this notion of coming into the world with a great debt, his mother dying in order to give life to Him. You can you can probably understand that this this sense of of having a debt to one's mother might be a powerful fuel for the practice and this is what it proved to be. It's not unusual in the story of Zen teachers and Zen masters, that there is something like this in in there Master Dugan lost both his parents. By the time he was I think it was six or seven and was struck by the impermanence and ephemerality of life when he saw the smoke rising from the incidence pot on the his father's altar at his funeral was the great 20th century Chinese master Xu Yan great cloud whose mother died in childbirth with him, she had a prolapsed uterus. And he is one point may long pilgrimage taking him doing a prostration after each step, as a way of requesting his debt of gratitude to his mother. Or since Aki Roshi who as I recall, I worked in wasn't able to look this up, but pretty sure he. He was, he was a pioneer of Americans in and I recall it rightly he was rescued from the arms of his dead mother who had died in a in a snowstorm storm. They think that somebody like me may have possibly Manchuria.

These very, very dramatic things made you can make a deep impression on us and fire up our CLI religious seal that really if we if we think about it, we're all indebted to our mothers and fathers and others that none of none of us would be here if it weren't for the care of, of some people, not necessarily biological parents, but somebody fit us somebody looked after us when we were hopeless, helpless and unable to do this for ourselves. He mentions in this passage also that he was born on the day that Jizo bodhisattva as is worshipped or remembered. Jesus Oh, is the jeopardised name of cheetah garba bodhisattva what he'd sang in Chinese, he's a very much a beloved figure in Japan, protector of women and babies in particular, but more generally are more widely beings in transition. In China, he's associated more with funerary rites and protecting beings and hell in particular. Find him in a lot of Chinese temples. In Japan, he's, he's evolved into a beloved folk figure. Often you see in Japan, at cross roads or an hour at busy intersections, a little shrine, which which have six or more Jizo figures, the six is is is representing one for each of the six realms of unenlightened existence. That's the hell beings hungry ghosts, animals, humans, fighting gods and heavenly beings. So really what it means in short, is all all beings suffering and samsara and the endless round of birth and death. Copying keep strikes me that Tongan Roshi looks a little bit like Jizo very sweet, expressing compassionate expression

and he obviously felt that he was he was under Jesus protection

He continues, when I was still very young. When I came to understand what my mother had done for me, I wrote on a piece of paper, my mother laid down her life for me. What does she mean for me to do with this gift? I continuously wondered what it was that I should do with this life? Was it my mother telling me? What was my mother telling me? That's that's a good question for for each of us to ask ourselves. What am I to do with this life? What What have I received from those before me? And what might I pass on to those who come after me?

Yet I was a terribly dissatisfied child. I could not be calm. Of course, I was guided by greed, anger and ignorance. I was overtaken by once creating seeds for pain. I lived immersed in dualistic thinking, it was a miserable childhood. When I was about 12 years old, a deep questioning arose in me, whenever I felt a touch of wind, or looked up at the sky overhead, I would ask myself, what is the down deep beneath the surface of things? When I would eat an orange, for instance, I wouldn't think of its taste or color. But I would wonder, what is there? There is something I feel but don't understand. I sense its presence, but can't take hold of it. My inability to answer these questions was a source of much discontent. And I always felt separated from people and things. I think very many of us, come to the practice, having felt had bouts of this feeling of alienation of being on the fringe of things on the edge of life not truly participating in it. And for some of us, it's not so intermittent, it can be feel like it's all the time that we stand apart or, or just a spectator rather than a player in, in life. Around that time, I was playing tennis. And as I was good at it, I was asked to join the team, I gave all my all to practice, even in the rain, when it grew dark, I would stay with it. I would ride home on a bicycle after dark past shops, with their lights shining brightly, the streets were still bustling with people at that time, there were old people, young people, people in between, and as I rode through the streets, with groups of people passing under the bright lights, I would be asking myself, there is life and all these people are living it, but what is this life, there is something there is something. So, this is this is already in him at the at the age of 12 is the sense of, of doubt, great doubt, that the so valued in Zen was growing a sense of wonderment, which you could say that really was there from from from the very beginning of his life.

Next chapter read from is called be like a chair. I was still young when I vowed to myself that I would always do what really needed to be done, that I would pour myself into whatever was before me to do. At about 16 years old, I became driven to really question myself to reflect upon myself asking, Who is the most good for nothing person around the weakest, the laziest, the most useless one around? I knew deep in my heart that it was I the weakest willed one of all and I beat myself up over this. There was a time I struggled so hard that I actually managed to knock my own drawer out of place. I couldn't stand myself for thinking ill of others. I couldn't stand it that I would dislike others. I saw myself as so pitiful my own habits my own character were unbearable to me. This is quite quite shocking to imagine him somehow punching himself in the face and and actually dislocating his jaw. But we can also take it as an encouragement, we can go to the depths of self hatred, deepest places of depression, and even self harm, as Tongan did here and come back from all of that, find our way find the path

he goes on. At 17 years old, I had the good fortune to read a book called in shitzu Roku by inreal been a noted scholar from the Ming Dynasty. The Chinese name of this author

has a footnote about it. In Rio Bong is the Japanese name applied to us only fun 1533 to 1606. The book's title in English is Liao fans for lessons. The funds for lessons

he goes on this is a book of instruction, the author compiled for his son 10k. The term in shitzu of in Shihtzu, Rocco means to be decided without one's being aware of it. That is to say that the fortunes that will before a person, sunshine and shadow ups and downs are naturally determined without his knowing it by his own past actions, virtue advice. Upon carefully reading this book, it became clear to me that there is a path to be followed. And I resolved that, then to follow that path. According to the book, in real born, first came to deeply believe in karmic retribution through a fortune teller named Cove. He then met with Zen master on Kwaku, who impressed him upon him that karma is only one side of the picture, I don't have the Chinese name of this master on Coco. Thus, he writes to 10k, that one can take responsibility for the construction of one's world. It is not a matter of livering out of one's out one's life wedged into a predetermined mold. But rather, by virtue of one's own efforts, it's possible to move if even just one step closer towards one's aims, towards one's highest aspirations, we could say here. Another way of phrasing this would be to say that if our present is shaped by our past actions, then our future is going to be shaped by our prison actions. So it's a dynamic process. It's not fate, it's not set in stone, but fluid and dependent on on how we respond if we, if we face injustice of some sort. How do we respond to that? How do we work with it?

Techno town has a has a book called for the future to be possible. We we shape our future right now. There in a real sense, that only is this moment.

From childhood on, I had been in search of something and had always been a rather rebellious youth. I kept thinking that I had never really been given the opportunity to understand the reason for living. I did not care much for Buddhist priests. I had the concrete preconceived idea. Dear, that they were funny clothes, talked a lot of nonsense and lead lives of comfort and ease. But in your bonds book really addressed its self to that something I had been searching for. And it surprised me to realize that the lesson came through a Buddhist priest. Although in Shih Tzu Roku is at heart a Confucian text rather than Buddhist, it is a Zen master who clearly points the way. Incidentally, the man who translated the book into Japanese die on Harada Roshi was to become my Zen teacher five years later. Good good. Take this as an example of, of karmic affinity.

Tongan is finding his way towards a teacher who can respond to his is. Questions about what this is that we this life that we are living is. I then resolved to become like a chair. A chair doesn't refuse its services to anybody. It just takes care of the sitter, and lets them risk their legs. After it has served its purpose, no one gets up and gives thanks or offers words of kindness to the chair, it's will more likely get kicked out of the way the chair doesn't grumble or complain or bear a grudge, but just takes whatever is given. A chair doesn't plop itself down on top of the sitter right? When there is a job to be done, it puts forth all its energy without picking and choosing according to its desires. I thought wouldn't it be great to have such a heart. I wrote on a big sheet of paper, be like a chair. And every day I took note of how close I came. If even a little dissatisfaction arose, I would regard that as a disgraceful state of mind for a chair. I considered how thoroughly I was abused to others. What was positive about all this was that if I possibly could, I wanted to put others before myself. The endeavor was not at all forced or unnatural. It arose from life itself and was enjoyable, not painful. This is you could say that the spirit of bodhichitta arose in Jung Tongan. This this aspiration to be of help to others in the most fundamental kind of way. And when we hear about bodhichitta, about compassion and bodhichitta literally means the heart of awakening.

We might think of this about practicing compassion as being being miserable. But it gives rise to this aspiration to help which which is joyful. When we chant the Khans eon, we say Buddha Dharma Sangha eternal joyous, selfless, pure the joy of responding to a need and fulfilling it which he had talked about earlier, doing what is necessary.

During the time that I was following this practice, I went to cloud climb Mount Kimball aku, a rather small mountain of the Ducati paths near the town of Hugo Barra. As I came climb that day, I could think of nothing but my own selfishness shedding tears I repeatedly reflected and repented and thinking I'm no good I'm no good as I made the 30 Minute ascent to the mountain trail I think this the we can fairly say that this I'm no good, I'm no good is not coming from the same place that was the source of his punching himself in the face. It was more like to go, an assessment of of his, his aspiration and where he where he wished to take that

there was a large stone statue on the flat crest of the mountain. If I saw it today, I might know what it is. But at that time, I had no idea. Along the way, there had been a number of figures of cannon. So I think perhaps the statue was of Shakyamuni Buddha. In those days, I knew nothing of Buddhism or of paying homage to its founder. I had, however, committed to memory, a text by showing Yoshida that was an inspiring to me. And I began to chanted in front of the Buddha statue. Through chanting, I must have entered into a pure state of mind. Just a footnote, footnote on this show and Yoshida showing Yoshida 1832 1859, one of the most distinguished intellectuals in the late years of the Tokugawa Shogunate doesn't say what what this this poem was that he was reading, reciting, but the reciting in itself, took him into this altered state, and it will be what he calls a pure state of mind. Then I crossed to the other side of the mountain, which formed a precipice a valley had been gouged out below, and beyond the valley stretched the Pacific Ocean. To one side, I could see the rolling hills of the Izu Peninsula, transfixed by the mountain landscape. I was standing just on the edge of the cliff. There, I was asking for nothing I wasn't thinking or analyzing. I was adding nothing. The wind began to gust up toward me from the valley below. I became enveloped by the wind. I felt as if I were growing bigger and bigger. At that moment, I realized that I was supported by heaven and earth, by all things. I was being told, all things are becoming you nurturing you. Looking at that mountain, the mountain was me, the wide wide valley became me. I realize that whatever I heard whatever I saw, everything is always and forever supporting me, caring for me. Happiness gushed from the depths of my belly. My joy was uncontainable, I began to shout my own name. At the top of my lungs seven or eight times. My name rang out over the horizon over and over, I could not stay still. I it was with unsuppressed joy that I began to race back down the mountain. I couldn't, it could have been dangerous. But my steps were natural, my feet was sure. I sped down the mountain was such force. It was my body moving, but not my own body. At the same time, I ran toward the town of Itami, where I boarded the train for home. But my world was changed. Everything now was so intensely intimate. Everything that I encountered was so profoundly close. I remember picking up a small stone beside the path, and carefully holding it and turning it in my hands as I encouraged it to be strong and steady. Good, good. Then I laid it carefully back down in its place, a bright and changed world unfolded for for me, for one or two months after that experience everything down to the pebbles along the roadside brilliantly glistened. I thought, it is an intimate, friendly life. What a turnaround from saying not not was it he said, I'm no good, I'm no good. Who's probably most spectators to his picking up this stone and talking to it would think he'd gone mad. But it's, it's as you could call it divine madness touching into a truth which is all around us, and yet we miss it. Most of us I was filled with the knowledge of being together with all things part of the same life. At the time, I still knew nothing of Zen. But the walls separating me from others had collapsed. My world had become some without discrimination, so I felt as if I could even chat with the chirping sparrows. Without my any Reddit theoretical understanding, and without being able to explain what had happened, I had tapped into the very joy of life. And I determined from then on that I would dedicate myself to repaying my gratitude. I returned to the preparatory school where I was boarding, everything had become different. I felt no I had no feeling of dissatisfaction or disharmony with others. I only wanted to help everyone however, however I could. Everything was so much fun. I was filled with energy and enthusiasm. At that time, I was living in a dormitory room with three or four other boys in the mornings when my roommates and I would get up, and they were slow to get into the day, I would bounce up fold up and put away their futons while they got ready and do my own last, I would then be the last one out to put on my wooden sandals, but I had so much energy that I would still arrive at the sports field first, I was propelled by a joyous life force.

Somebody said to me recently that they thought Zen was supposed to be hard and difficult and harsh. Perhaps we can be misled by the forms such as the use of the QSR goo or perhaps by the scowling face of of Bodhi Dharma figures can seem so grim and and and scary. But actually if you look closely at Bodhi Dharma figures they're kind of funny more more so they're a little bit irreverent they often play up his his

quirky nature

more broadly border figures if you look closely at them they're they're radiating kindness quiet kind of joy

think we'll just stop here now and recite the Four Vows and continue with this account tomorrow

all beings without number two liberate and spline Pasha.

The teaching you have received is offered freely. If you would like to make a donation to support the continuation of this podcast service. Or learn more about practice opportunities at the Auckland Zen Center. Please visit dub dub dub dot Auckland zen.org dot INSEAD