Harada Tangen Roshi on Samadhi and Zen Practice

[Simon]

I was reading Harada Tangen's book "Throwing Yourself Into the House of Buddha", and I found a very interesting description of Samadhi and Zen practice. It feels very similar to Shikantaza but with a slightly different flavour. By digging into Harada Tangen's biography, I've found out that his teacher, Harada Daiun Sogaku, trained under both Soto and Rinzai masters.

This is what he says about Zen practice:

In the beginning, practice seems to be a matter of personal will, but along the way, it clearly becomes the will of the Dharma. There are limits to your own personal will—from the outset you decide how much you can do, how far you can go, how much strength you have, and you restrict yourself. And in restricting yourself, you start out in your practice already defeated even while you are practicing something that is unrestricted and limitless. The real way to start in practice is by dropping off body and mind. Let go from the beginning. Of course, your mind will still try to haggle and struggle, and it will still be painful physically—running and zazen are the same in that way. Cast off body and mind; forget about them; throw yourself into the house of Buddha and everything is done by Buddha. Then zazen simply does zazen; there is no controlling.

For Harada Tangen we don't do zazen, zazen does zazen. I believe this is very much in line with the Soto Zen style. Harada Tangen continues saying:

On the cushion in zazen, we settle into this practice, become one with it, are permeated with it. Off the cushion, we continue to practice while acting in accordance with the time, place, and circumstances, doing what there is to be done. So maintain your practice no matter where you are or what you are doing. It always comes down to just becoming one with it—now, here; now, here. Naturally, we continue our practice. This is what we call samadhi.

Again, this is very close to the Soto Zen view. However, I personally feel that saying "becoming one with it" is not entirely accurate. It gives me the impressions that there is something to do to move from a state of not-one to one. In reality, we don’t become anything other than what we already are. So there is no becoming, we are already.

What do you guys think about this?

Gassho
stlah

[Junsho]

Hi Simon,


I am not a teacher, but I would like to share my understanding based on my practice. As I can see, Samadhi is a state in which you drop both body and mind. In the beginning of our practice, we tend to focus on ourselves. However, with continuous practice, the distinction between the self and others begins to blur, until neither you nor others are present. No reading is necessary; samadhi is something that can only be understood through direct experience.

Gassho!
Satlah

[Jundo]

Thank you for sharing, Simon.

Harada Tangen and Harada Daiun Sogaku were excellent teachers, but in an small corner of Soto Zen, heavily inflected with Rinzai ways, that tended to emphasize Kensho experiences and attaining deep samadhi experiences, with "hard push," a bit outside the Soto mainstream. So, their writings and teachings will come from that approach, and have such flavor sometimes.

I do not feel that what they recommend is really Shikantaza but, of course, they might feel the same about what folks like here, Nishijima, Kodo Sawaki, Uchiyama, Okumura Roshi, etc., recommend. I think that it is more RInzai approach than Soto Zen really, or some kind of Rinzai spiced Soto.

Gassho, Jundo
stlah

[Jundo]

PS - Biographies of Tangen tell stories like this, very Rinzai in approach although a Soto Lineage ...

It has been said, “Anxiety is like a match—light it and it will show you the way out.” At Hosshinji, Tangen’s angst drove him to sit like a house on fire. For his first three years there, he wouldn’t lie down to sleep, instead doing zazen through the night. He would sometimes sit in a bamboo grove on the mountain behind the monastery, gripping one of the trunks and roaring, “mU! mU! mU!” He once became so exasperated that he punched himself in the face, dislocating his jaw. Later he would surely have realized the absurdity of punishing himself. Through his long-sustained exertions he had lost much weight and grown increasingly weak. But one of the wondrous effects of wholehearted zazen is its self-correcting power, and like Siddhartha after his own period of fanatical asceticism, he finally found a greater balance in his efforts, and subsequently came to his first kensho ...

... Tangen also must have seen that [Philip] Kapleau-san, his senior by 12 years, had the full package: the compelling need to come to realization, and the determination to do so. His demands on Kapleau-san matched his faith in him. Once when the American newcomer was sitting in the dokusan line, Tangen, who alone at the monastery had learned a little English, was sitting behind him ready to go in with him as his interpreter. No sooner had Kapleau-san struck the bell and stood up than Tangen, without warning, struck him violently behind the ear. Kapleau-san, enraged, took a swing at him, but with no time to lose, stormed straight in to see Harada Roshi. For the first time, Kapleau-san was able, in his aroused state, to respond to the Roshi no-mindedly, from the guts rather than the head. Harada Roshi signaled his delight. From then on, Kapleau writes in Zen: Merging of East and West, he found himself “operating on a higher energy level, and at dokusan was no longer afraid of the roshi.” Tangen had known well that compassion can take the form of harshness.

... Before accepting someone as a student, usually I [Tangen] want the person to have come to at least half a dozen dokusans. This gives both of us the experience of working together in that context, which is the heart of the teacher-student exchange. Once we’ve formalized that bond, I prefer that the student not dilute our collaboration by taking dokusan with another teacher. ... In dokusan itself, I don’t distinguish between students and non-students except with regard to assigning the person a koan; usually I’m disinclined to start a non-student on a koan since it demands a bit more of him (and me).

https://www.rzc.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/zb-summer2018.pdf

So, their ways are a bit different, and more about Koan introspection and a Rinzai approach. However, as the above link makes clear, he was also a very caring, most dedicated teacher beloved by so many students.

Gassho, Jundo
stlah

[Kokuu]

Hi Simon

Just to add, if it wasn't made explicit in the book, that the phrase "Throwing Yourself Into the House of Buddha" comes from Dogen's text Shoji (Life and Death) in Shobogenzo which is a very short and lovely piece: http://www.zenki.com/index.php?lang=en&page=Shoji

The longer part of this runs (from the Nishijima/Cross translation):

"When we just let go of our own body and our own mind and thrown them into the house of buddha, they are set into action from the side of buddha, and when we continue to obey this, without exerting any force and without expending any mind, we get free from life and death and become buddha."

This speaks to me of a developing of trust in our own buddha nature in terms of our innate ability to naturally respond with wisdom and compassion to what arises, rather than directing our actions through our ideas of self and ego. It takes time but we learn to let go and trust in this innate natura wisdom.

Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday/lah-

[Shui_Di]

Hi Simon,

I want to give little opinion about the words

"Becoming one with it"

I think you are right. The becoming one, is just like we are becoming from separation and change to become one. While in our Soto perspective, we might ask, becoming one with what?
Because actually we never be able to "becoming" one, because we are the one.

But, I think Tangen Roshi have Rinzai POV. In my opinion Just like Jundo said, Rinzai way is to push hard to try to be one. Push harder and harder until nothing you can do and in the time we surrender to give it a try, in that moment, the person just sit and realize he/she is the One.

In Soto way, we just sit and drop the body and mind. For beginner, people might "try" to drop things. But later, we might understand that even the mind of "wanting to drop" should be drop too. So sit to accept whatever it is as it is, but then we realize sometimes we cannot accept thing as it is, and later we realize that accept or not accept is just the play of the mind. Accept or not accept, we "accept" both with open mind. But sometimes open mind, sometimes close mind. So which mind we use to sit, and aaaarrrghhh......

Just Sit. Simply Sit, simply hear, simply see. Simply walk, and simply live.

Becoming one with what?
None becoming.


Gassho, Mujo
Stlah

[Houzan]

Hi Simon,

I want to give little opinion about the words

"Becoming one with it"

I think you are right. The becoming one, is just like we are becoming from separation and change to become one. While in our Soto perspective, we might ask, becoming one with what?
Because actually we never be able to "becoming" one, because we are the one.

But, I think Tangen Roshi have Rinzai POV. In my opinion Just like Jundo said, Rinzai way is to push hard to try to be one. Push harder and harder until nothing you can do and in the time we surrender to give it a try, in that moment, the person just sit and realize he/she is the One.

In Soto way, we just sit and drop the body and mind. For beginner, people might "try" to drop things. But later, we might understand that even the mind of "wanting to drop" should be drop too. So sit to accept whatever it is as it is, but then we realize sometimes we cannot accept thing as it is, and later we realize that accept or not accept is just the play of the mind. Accept or not accept, we "accept" both with open mind. But sometimes open mind, sometimes close mind. So which mind we use to sit, and aaaarrrghhh......

Just Sit. Simply Sit, simply hear, simply see. Simply walk, and simply live.

Becoming one with what?
None becoming.


Gassho, Mujo
Stlah

Gassho, Hōzan
satlah

[Simon]

Thank you everyone for your replies!

In Soto way, we just sit and drop the body and mind. For beginner, people might "try" to drop things. But later, we might understand that even the mind of "wanting to drop" should be drop too. So sit to accept whatever it is as it is, but then we realize sometimes we cannot accept thing as it is, and later we realize that accept or not accept is just the play of the mind. Accept or not accept, we "accept" both with open mind. But sometimes open mind, sometimes close mind. So which mind we use to sit, and aaaarrrghhh......

Shui Di, here you described exactly what goes on my mind when I sit. Thank you.

Gassho
stlah