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Harada Sogaku, Roshi

1870-1961

Harada Sogaku Roshi was a Soto priest who studied under a Rinzai master. He is Chozen and Hogen's Great Dharma Grandfather. He entered the temple when he was seven years old. After training with a number of Soto and Rinzai masters, he settled at Hosshin-ji, a temple whose intense cold he believed helped drive people out of their heads and into their haras. He said that it took many kensho experiences to make him at last tranquil in his heart, and that, at age 86, "On the path I am just a two year-old child, still wet behind the ears, a most humbling state."

"The Great Way of permeating oneness is that all living beings are intrinsically Buddha, that all living beings are emancipated from the beginning. It is just that because of delusions and discriminative concepts it is hard to recognize this fact. The main point in Zen is to just get rid of these delusive consciousnesses, that is, to become completely naked, to become completely one, to experience the "great death." Even though there are incomparable differences in depth and shallowness from the beginning of quiet meditation to the end of self-nature, it is a depth and shallowness of the state of consciousness, not the depth and shallowness of Zen itself.

Zen is the one Dharma which penetrates through from the beginning to the end. Although there are hundreds and thousands of means in Zen, the main point of it is merely just sitting, the content is nothing other than becoming one. This becoming one is not only the essential element for entering the Way but in fact the Great Way itself."

©2006 Zen Community of Oregon
Updated: January 11, 2007
Designed by Michelle Bagley

January 11, 2007