Shōdō Harada

, or Harada Rōshi, is a Rinzai priest, author, calligrapher, and head abbot of Sōgen-ji — a three-hundred-year-old temple in Okayama, Japan. He has become known as a "teacher of teachers", with masters from various lineages coming to sit sesshin with him in Japan or during his trips to the United States and Europe.

Biography Shodo Harada was born into a Zen temple Aug. 26, 1940 in Nara, Japan. While still in high school, he encountered his teacher, Mumon Yamada, while running an errand for his father to Myōshin-ji.

Among those Western teachers that study with Harada Roshi are Hogen Bays, Jan Chozen Bays, Mitra Bishop, Alan Hozan Senauke, and Paul Haller.

Roshi flew to the United States to perform the Jukai ceremony of Damien Echols. Echols (a member of the West Memphis Three) was wrongly convicted of the 1993 murders of three eight-year-old boys in West Memphis, Arkansas. Whilst in prison, Echols began practicing Buddhism.