
Calligraphy demonstration by Harada Roshi, October 2011, Morikami Museum, Delray Beach, Florida. (Photo by Alan Gensho Florence)
Los Angeles County Museum of Art will invite world-class master of Zen calligraphy Shodo Harada Roshi from Japan for its program on Saturday, Sept. 15, at 2 pm at Dorothy Collins Brown Auditorium at the LACMA campus, 5905 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90036. Admission is free, but tickets are sold out.
Shodo Harada Roshi is internationally recognized both as a Zen teacher and as a world-class master of the fine art of Zen calligraphy.
A revered Zen Master in the Rinzai tradition, for the past twenty-five years Shodo Harada has served as the Abbot of Sogenji, a seventeenth-century Rinzai Zen monastery in Okayama, Japan.
He is also the Abbot of Tahoma-san Sogenji monastery on Whidbey Island, in the state of Washington. From the beginning of his tenure at Sogenji, Harada Roshi has welcomed Westerners to study with him.
His clarity and skill as a Zen Master have drawn international requests to offer training, and inspired his students to establish sanghas (spiritual communities) all over the world.
In addition, accomplished Zen teachers from across the globe come to further plumb the depths of Zen through study with Shodo Harada, earning him a reputation as “the roshi’s roshi” – which is to say, the master’s master.
The East Asian Art Council of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art is offering a rare opportunity for the general public to learn about calligraphy and observe the skills of a master Zen calligrapher.