Chisan's History of Tahoma - written in 2011
The Past
While Shodo Harada was finishing the last parts of his training and his koans at Shofuku-ji Monastery, a request was made that he teach Dharma in the Seattle area.He has been planning to go to Italy to help another of Yamada Mumon Roshi’s disciples, Mario Luigi. But circumstances intervened, complicating that plan and opening the possibility to say “yes” to going to Seattle.
At almost the same time, the elderly abbot of Sogen-ji Monastery in Okayama reminded Mumon Roshi tha he had long ago promised to have one of his disciples succeed him as the abbot there. Thus, becoming abbot and teacher at Sogen-ji became the clear next step for Shodo Harada.
Since Harada Roshi had already agreed to go to Seattle, he made Sogen-ji into a training place for people from all over the world, while building a particularly strong bridge to the Northwest of the United States. He saw this as a way to help fulfill Mumon Roshi’s long- term vision of traditional Zen practice being made available to men and women of all ages and nationalities in a traditional, uncompromised, classic training setting. He requested that I [Daichi] also go to Sogenji to assist as translator and facilitator.
Sogen-ji was perfect for this: huge, open, designed hundreds of years ago for training monks. Harada Aroahi moved to Sogen-ji, and shortly after, Daichi followed to help him as translator and facilitator. Three of the first five people to train the were Westerners. From hat beginning, the number of people training there increased steadily.
During this time (1982) Harada Roshi prepared and sent to Seattle one of his very first disciples, Heidi Shojun Marcus. There she made the very first One Dro Zendo in the WLlingfor neighborhood of Seattle. Harada Roshi traveled to America for the first time in 1989 to lead a sesshin at the first One Drop Zendo. After that, he visited annually. His visits soon became twice yearly to do sesshin every September and February. As the number of students grew, sesshin were held at Cloud Mountain Retreat Center, at Bastyr College, even at an island church camp. All this theme, Harada Roshi held a plan to establish a permanent, residential monastery in the Northwest. He explored various locats, searching for one that would be appropriate in all aspects to develop in the best possible way as a place of monastic training.
Close in time to his first visit in. 1989, Harada Roshi was invited to Whidbey Island. Following that, he also looked into land in the Cascade Mountains. People consistently told him that South Whidbey area would be an excellent place for a monastery because people there would appreciate its importance and support it. They would be willing to contribute generous effort to help establish it and give it life with their ongoing participation. These elements of community are critical for a monastery. A Zen monastery is not cloistered. It’s not a totally open community, either, but it does rely on and encourage dynamic interaction between the monastery and its neighbors.
Once the decision was made to locate in the very positive and supportive community on Whidbey Island, it still toook several years to find the right place to build the monastery.
In an astonishing manifestation of support, numerous people used their resources creatively to make possible the acquisition of that land. Many of the people who began with the Roshi when he first came to Seattle have continued to support the monastery, sustaining it as it has grown and evolved to its present form.
The first residences were camping tents. The first building to be put up was the small hermitage. No one had guessed how long it would take for the permits, zoning, and all the required legal matters to be put into order. The people who had come to start enthusiastically building the entire monastery put up the tiny hermitage, glad to be actually able to build anything at all. Building codes and restrictions had slowed the monastery’s progress considerably - good for environmental reasons but difficult for eager builders.
The hermitage was built when the resident monks were living in tents and a travel trailer. Zazen was happening in raw, muddy conditions. Finally, plans were approved by island County; construction could begin. First to be built was the kitchen, followed by modular homes adapted for use as a Zendo and dining hall. A small cottage was built as housing, with the amenities of a bathroom and a laundry. The Old Awl Hermitage was built for Roshi, just in time for his sixtieth birthday. Many, many people of the sangha and the community donated time and effort to craft this beautiful cottage for Roshi.
Once the kitchen, zendo, and dining hall had been built, the monastery could be used for sesshin every year. While construction was going on, we had been able to make use of a residence down the road, a home of the Rhine family. It was a big house which could be adapted for the osessh8n. There were rooms large enough to serve as Zendo and dining hall. Food was prepared at the Tahoma kitchen and brought over. Later, this house became Enso House, an important arm of Tahoma Monastery. Enso House fostered a deepening connect between the monastic and local communities.
In Japan, there is takuhatsu, in which monks walk a neighborhood route, accepting alms. Residents can make offerings to the monastery for the people trInong there and receive the merit of those offerings. Much good will is shared in doing that. Such alms-gathering practices are not familiar or common in America.
Harada Toshi was always considering mutually beneficial ways to connect the community and the monastery.He believed it would be very good for Tahoma’s monks and people of training to offer the community care and help with the process of dying. This work would also give the people of training direct, care- giving experience at the deepening time of physical death. Harada Roshi felt this should happen at a place with comfortable rooms and where the dying person’s family could be close by - as if they had come home. The Tahoma house offered the perfect opportunity.
Disciples of the Roshi obtained the use and land and made it available for the realization of this vision. Three years of care and deep consideration went into the preparation for the arrival of the first guest at Enso House. Since that first guest, nearly sixty people have come to be cared for by he Enso House staff, community volunteers, monks from Tahoma, and people of training sent from Sogen-ji in Japan.
Harada Roshi’ s consistent vision has been that a place of training is needed not only in America, but in every country. As a starting point, he wanted to give people a place to go to for realization of their deepest state of mind - somewhere to find out what Mind actually is. He perceived the need for young people, especially, to have a place to explore the traditional Zen way of realizing the boundless aspects of Mind. Simultaneously, the monastery was conceived of as a place to live with environmental consciousness, to work on restoration of trees and forests. Life at Tahoma pivots on those two points. First and foremost, it exists as a place to cultivate the deepest Mond of youthful seekers. It provides a a place to do that important work while caring for the environment in thoughtful, healthy ways.
The sesshin at Tahoma have continued, and the monastery has been supported very naturally. Tahoma has grown, along with the unfolding of Enso House. Over the years, Harada Roshi’s goal and deep vision have endured while he worked to take all the steps necessary for him to be able to leave Okayama Sogen-ji temple in good hands. This is the story of the past of Tahoma.
Since its beginning as a place for international students, people from at least thirty different countries have actively trained at Sogen-ji Monastery in Japan.Many of them have also joined the practice at Tahoma. After all these years,a successor has been well cultivated to serve as abbot of Sogen-ji in Okayama. We can now honor the day when Harada Roshi can be installed as Head Abbot of Tahoma-san Sogen-ji Monastery on Whidbey Island.
Dairin zenji will person who takes care of maintaining Tahoma-sanSogen-ji and ensuring that it functions well. [In 2023 this role is carried out by Tendo san]. This would be difficult for Harada Roshi, who is not familiar with the ways of doing things in America and must spend time each year traveling to support his other monasteries. To help bring things together, Daichi zenni will translate and facilitate at Tahoma.
The Present
Now we can begin to see the fulfillment of the vision for Tahoma-san Sogen-ji and a realization of Mumon Roshi’s vision for making training available to all people. This is part of an unbroken continuum, beginning with Shodo Harada’s first visit to Seattle in 1989. Shodo Harada adheres closely to Muon Roshi’s uncompromising, essential teaching of the Buddha’s most basic tenet: all sentient beings are Buddhas, all beings are born to become awakened.
We are blessed to have the Buddha’s teaching about how to awaken. This teaching is not limited only to ordained people or to full-time monastics or to people who are good at sitting zazen. The deepest purpose of each human life - to become awakened - is innate in every single human being, without exception.True awakening is commonly considered possible only for people willing to give up their usual social involvement and lives. Mumon Roshi grew his hair while he was still ordained, living among priests and Zen teachers. This gesture emphasized his clear point that awakening is for everyone, for every single human being, not just ordained, monastically trained people.
That said, it is necessary to find ways of using that awakened life in society. Needed is a way of being that allows us to realize the true, deep Original Nature with which each of us is endowed. We need to experience, learn, familiarize ourselves with a way that allows us, no matter where we are, no matter what kind of life we are living, to realize our True Nature. Is is extremely helpful to have a place to go where we can learn how to live in ways that bring about a realization of our deepest Self. For this, we have a Zen monastery.
A Zen monastery is not a place to retreat to for a whole lifetime. A person goes ther to learn how to live in a state of clarity, then returns to the world outside the monastery gate — back to family, social commitments. Responsibilities, work. The monastic training is rigorous and requires singular commitment.when needed, we return to the teacher or the monastery to build on or refresh what we have learned — to polish and deepen. We review and we re- connect; we revitalize our inspiration. The Zen training monastery is not somewhere for people to permanently renounce societal responsibilities or active efforts to end the suffering of all. Rather, it is a place to experience clarity and learn to use that clarity to realize the deepest, awakened potential of all beings.
Shodo Harada trained for over twenty years in the monastery of Yamada Mumon Roshi, one of the greatest Zen teachers of the last century, and is very experienced in how to teach this Zen way of life. Throughout its development, Tahoma Monastery has always had one of Harada Roshi’s top disciples to lead and guide the people coming to do zazen and Zen practice there. Now this tradition can be built upon by the leadership of the three new abbots.
Harada Roshi has always expressed the intention to cultivate a system of practice at Tahoma Monastery very similar to that of Sogen-ji Monastery in Okayama, Japan. It is important to emphasize that this will present an opportunity not only for people who come for residential monastic practice. It also offers the extremely important opportunity for people in the community to interact with thos spending time and concerted, consistent effort in training to deepen and realize their True Nature.
The present includes plans for building a traditional zendo. This traditional Zendo is to be of a size and design that will accommodate people in addition to those living at the monastery. People from the community will be able to participate I; the daily Zen training under the guidance of these three teachers. This will help spread the karmic affiliation of what is being taught at Tahoma throughout the whole community.
Many people have come to Sogen-ji Monastery in Okayama to experience training and to realize deepening practice with concentrated intensity before returning to their lives and their roles in society.This will no longer require a trip all the way to Japan. Rather, people will be able to participate in practice at Tahoma-San Sogen-ji Monastery — for a day, a week, a month, or a year.
This is the present and a bit of the future for Tahoma.