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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 January 1, 1974 while living in Turkey. From 1976 on she trained full-time at the Rochester Zen Center under Roshi Philip Kapleau. Mitra received Jukai (the ceremony of taking the Buddhist Precepts) in the late 1970s and was ordained as a Zen Buddhist priest in 1986. She was given the name “Mitra,” which translates to “spiritual friend.”

After completing 20 years of intensive meditation, she chose to continue her training at a Japanese monastery, Sogen-ji, in Okayama, Japan. In 1996 she returned briefly to Rochester Zen Center and underwent the formal ceremony in which Roshi Kapleau authorized her to establish her own Zen Buddhist center. In that same year she was asked to go to Hidden Valley Zen Center in San Marcos, California to guide the Sangha (community of Zen Buddhist meditators) there. Concurrently, she established Mountain Gate as a monastic practice center in the mountains of Northern New Mexico.

Mitra-roshi received a B.A. from Indiana University, and worked in graphic, interior, and architectural design for many years. Her final work in that line was for an HVAC engineer designing heating and cooling systems for buildings. This personal history served her well in designing the first buildings at Mountain Gate.

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, abbot of Sogen-ji where she trained in residence for many years.

Before the Covid pandemic, Mitra-roshi would travel to other locations, including the Hidden Valley Zen Center in southern California and Turtleback Zendo in New Jersey to offer guidance in sanzen (one-on-one personal guidance from teacher to student) and lead sesshin and other Dharma teachings based on the traditional guidance of the Buddha. It’s important to note that Buddhists do not worship the Buddha, but do revere the teachings of the original man who became the Buddha. Since the Covid pandemic, out of state students tune in to Mountain Gate via Zoom to attend sesshin and receive spiritual guidance. On November 14, 2025, Sozui Stephanie Schubert took over Hidden Valley Zen Center as the successor of Harada-Shodo Roshi.

Mitra-roshi is an accomplished calligrapher whose works hang in Zen temples. At this point, however, her eyesight has deteriorated to the point where she can no longer do calligraphy. She still writes for the digital-only, free quarterly publication, The Mountain Gate Journal. If you would like to have a subscription to the Journal, which includes the current sesshin schedule, refer to the “Resources” tab in this website.

Mitra-roshi’s writings have also appeared in the book Mu, edited by James Ford and Melissa Blacker, 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. She has most recently written two books on intensive Zen training, Deepening Zen: the Long Maturation, Book 1 and Deepening Zen: the Long Maturation, Book 2.

Mitra-roshi has two children, three grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.

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.