Within Shodo Harada Roshi’s Zen, kōans function as the central, living instrument for realizing one’s true nature. They are not treated as philosophical riddles, but as sharp tools that cut through conceptual thinking and self-centered views, directing attention straight to the mind itself. Harada Roshi emphasizes that authentic engagement with a kōan requires one’s entire being—physical, emotional, and spiritual—rather than mere intellectual effort. Through such complete absorption, the barrier between the one who questions and the kōan itself is gradually worn away, allowing a direct encounter with reality that transcends discursive thought.

This intense grappling with a kōan is closely linked to kenshō, the breakthrough experience of seeing one’s true nature. In his training, students bring all their life-energy to a single kōan in zazen, especially during sesshin, until the discriminating mind is exhausted and a deeper, intuitive insight can emerge. The answer sought is not a clever phrase or conceptual explanation, but an embodied understanding that transforms how one stands in the world. In private interviews, Harada Roshi uses kōans both to test the authenticity of such insight and to guide students further, tailoring the practice to each person’s unfolding realization.

Kōan practice does not end with an initial awakening; it continues as a systematic discipline to clarify, deepen, and stabilize that insight. Working through classical kōan collections in a structured way, students are repeatedly brought face to face with subtle attachments and lingering delusions. Each kōan becomes a mirror, revealing where self-centeredness still operates and where freedom has yet to fully penetrate. In this sense, kōans serve as ongoing catalysts, ensuring that realization does not remain a single peak experience but matures into a stable, reliable wisdom.

For Harada Roshi, the true measure of kōan realization is how it is lived in the ordinary fabric of daily life. The point is not to “pass” kōans as if they were academic tests, but to become a “living kōan” whose actions are clear, compassionate, and responsive to circumstances. When kōan practice is taken up with total commitment, it burns away ego-clinging and reveals the non-separate nature of self and world. In this way, kōans are not ornamental features of the tradition; they are the backbone of training and the primary vehicle through which awakening is both realized and embodied.