Throw Yourself into the House of Buddha The Life and Zen Teachings of Tangen Harada Roshi

From narrowly surviving World War II through enduring the profound rigors of traditional Zen training, Tangen Harada’s fascinating life story and teachings present a classic picture of the Buddhist journey from suffering to realization.

On August 15, 1945, at the age of twenty, Tangen Harada stood on an airfield and prepared to board the airplane on which he would undertake a suicide mission for his country. Only the voice of Emperor Hirohito on the radio—never before heard by the Japanese public—announcing Japan’s surrender saved his life. After returning from a Soviet POW camp in 1946, overcome with questions about the meaning of human life and suffering, Harada sought out the counsel of a Zen master. He thus embarked on the path of awakening and liberation to which he would commit the rest of his life, eventually teaching thousands of people from around the world.  

Throw Yourself into the House of Buddha includes Tangen Roshi’s life story in his own words, as well as twenty-four teachings conveying the heart of his Zen understanding. Each chapter, paired with a beautiful calligraphy by the master, conveys his direct, uncompromising, yet encouraging message about the possibility of Zen realization. 

“Wake up,” writes Harada, “and you can say for yourself, ‘The sun is my eye, the wind my breath, all of space my heart, the mountain and ocean my body. The sun shining brightly, vividly, is the eye of my life. The vastness of the sky is my heart.’ Who is the master of this boundless heart? No one else but you. This is your reality. Heaven and earth—same root, all things—one body.”

Born in Niigata Prefecture, Japan, in 1924, Tangen Harada trained as a kamikaze pilot during the Second World War and came within hours of losing his life. In the aftermath of this and other wartime traumas, he turned to intensive monastic Zen practice to make sense of the war and his life. Following a series of realization experiences, he became abbot of Bukkoku-ji temple, where he practiced and taught for the next sixty years. Never deviating from a strict, traditional approach to the practice, he accepted all manner of students—monastic and lay, Japanese and foreign, women and men—and influenced Zen teachers around the world. “He was a simple, kind, happy man, who lived his teaching,” notes one eulogy of Harada, who passed away in 2018.