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Mitra Bishop Roshi

Mitra Bishop Roshi

MITRA BISHOP ROSHI is the founder of Mountain Gate-Sanmonji. She first encountered the practice of Buddhism while living in Asia and began practicing Zen in 1974 while living in Turkey. Later she trained at the Rochester Zen Center with Roshi Philip Kapleau. Mitra-roshi received a B.A. from Indiana University, and worked in graphic, interior, and architectural design for many years. She has two children, three grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.

In 1986 Mitra-roshi was ordained by Roshi Kapleau (top photo, right). In 1992, after completing her formal training in Rochester, she went to Okayama, Japan, where she continued to deepen and broaden her practice at Sogen-ji, a Rinzai Zen temple, under the guidance of the Ven. Harada Shodo-roshi.

When Mitra-roshi returned to the United States in 1996, she was formally sanctioned to teach by Roshi Kapleau as a Dharma Heir. In that same year she was asked to come to Hidden Valley Zen Center in San Marcos, California to guide the Sangha there. Concurrently, she established Mountain Gate as a monastic practice center in the mountains of northern New Mexico.

Taking to heart the admonition, “There’s no beginning to enlightenment, no end to practice, no beginning to practice, no end to enlightenment,” she continues to train intensively with Harada-roshi. Mitra-roshi also travels to other locations, including Mountain Gate’s sister temple, the Hidden Valley Zen Center in southern California to offer guidance in sanzen and lead sesshin and other Dharma events.

Mitra-roshi is an accomplished calligrapher whose works hang in Zen temples and are for sale through this website. She also writes regularly for “The Oak Tree in the Garden,” the bimonthly journal published by Mountain Gate’s sister Sangha, the Hidden Valley Zen Center. Her writings have also appeared in the book Mu, edited by James Ford, in Kenneth Kraft’s, Zen Teaching, Zen Practice, in Blossoms of the Dharma, edited by Thubten Chodron and Sylvia Boorstein, and in Record of the Hidden Lamp. She has also written for the website Sweeping Zen and for Buddhadharma Magazine.

Harada Shodo Roshi and Mitra Bishop Roshi

Lineage Teachers

Roshi Philip Kapleau and Mitra Bishop at her ordination

Roshi Philip Kapleau

Roshi Philip Kapleau was one of the pioneers of Zen in the West. It was his fervent wish that Zen Buddhism would be as accessible to western cultures as it had been in the East for a millennium. After a successful career as a court reporter, Philip Kapleau spent thirteen years in Japan training under three Zen masters. In 1965 he was ordained by Hakuun Yasutani-roshi and given permission by him to teach. In 1966 he published The Three Pillars of Zen, the first book to explain the practice of Zen to Westerners. Shortly after the publication of his first book, Roshi Kapleau came to Rochester, New York to found the Rochester Zen Center. Roshi Kapleau passed away peacefully in Rochester on May 6, 2004 at the age of 91 surrounded by his disciples.

Shodo Harada Roshi

Shodo Harada was born into a Zen temple in 1940 in Nara, Japan. While still in high school he met his teacher, Mumon Yamada, while running an errand for his father to Myoshin-ji. After college he entered Shofukuji and began his training in 1962 under Rinzai master and Japanese calligrapher Mumon Yamada, from whom he received Dharma transmission in 1982. In 1982 he was sent by Mumon to Sogen-ji to help an elderly abbot tend to the building and training schedules. In September 1989, Harada came to the United States to provide instruction for students and in 1995 founded One Drop Zendo on Whidbey Island in Washington, where the practice mirrors the practices found at Sogen-ji.