Share a Memory or Photo of Tomoe Katagiri
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Please note that your submission will not appear immediately. Andrea will post them as quickly as possible.
Your Remembrances
Tomoe Katagiri
Remembrance from Paul Hanke
My wife Jan and I first met Tomoe-san in the 1970s when Roshi came to Monterey, CA. We had been attending a small weekly sitting group of younger folks in nearby Carmel hosted by Jean Ross (a student of Suzuki-roshi and a Board member of SFZC). Soon after Katagiri arrived she moved to Michigan to care for her aging mother and aunt. We practiced in the new Monterey zendo until the Katagiris moved to Minneapolis and we moved to Vermont. During their time in Monterey we recall seeing the whole family enjoying the annual Obon festival.
One time in Monterey I remember Tomoe-san asking me if I could repair a bicycle for one of the boys (I don’t remember which). This led to a humorous anecdote where young Katagiri-chan said something to the effect that his father was good at meditation but not at fixing bikes. I don’t know what his mother would have thought of this remark, but she did ask me for help and not Roshi.
When we came to Minneapolis in 1984 for lay ordination, I was one of those who had to undo and redo my rakusu stitching many times under Tomoe’s watchful guidance, but after we returned to Vermont I found that I was able to make a zafu by hand even though I had previously never done anything more difficult than maybe hemming a cuff.
And Jan remembers Tomoe saying that when she returned to Japan the city had changed so much that she couldn’t find her old home or neighborhood! She also remembers her mentioning that she eventually came to feel more at home in America than in Japan.
Finally, for many years after we returned to Vermont we received kind homemade New Year’s greeting cards from Tomoe with handwritten notes. One said that she was taking piano lessons, which interested us because our son was studying piano. I wonder if anyone ever heard her play, or if it was just for pleasure.
So farewell Tomoe-san, and thank you.
Remembrance from Diane Yudo Plath
Tomoe san has earned her wings. Open hearts can feel the whisper of her wings as her spirit soars.
Yudo San - Sokuji - Bemidji MN
Remembrance from Yuko Okumura
I would like to share my tribute I read for Tomoe-san at a memorial service we had on June 14th at Sanshinji, Bloomington Indiana:
Before the memorial service I’d like to say few words about Tomoe Katagiri. She was one of my sewing teachers. I met her in the summer of 1982 at Minnesota Zen Center and made this rakusu with her. It’s been 44 years.
Visiting MZMC led me to meet my husband later, at the end of 82, so in my mind there’s a thread of Dharna Connection, which looks like clear cause and result. So, to me, it’s not a far-fetched idea that if I didn’t meet Tomoe-san we would not be here today like this, gathering together at Sanshinji where we sew and wear Nyoho-e okesa and rakusu, and practice.
Tomoe Katagiri was born on February 16, 1932, and passed away last month on May 30th. She was 94 years old. She came to the US in 1965 with her 4 year old son. Her husband Dainin Katagiri roshi was already in San Francisco as an assistant to Shunryu Suzuki Roshi.
In 1970 Eshun Yoshida roshi was invited to SFZC to teach Nyoho-e okesa sewing. Tomoe-san, Blanche Hartman and many other students received the sewing instructions from her. Later Tomoe-san went back to Japan and studied the okesa sewing with Yoshida roshi at Kaizenji and received lay okesa.
In 1972 Tomoe-san moved to Minneapolis, MN with Katagiri roshi and two sons, Yasuhiko and Ejyo, when Katagiri roshi established Minnesota Zen Center. Since then she taught Nyoho-e sewing over 50 years.
I met Tomoe-san in 1982 when I visited MZMC and stayed there for 2 months as a student.
I had previous experience with Nyoho-e kyakushi stitch, or namukiebutsu stitch, but never made rakusu before. So I asked her to teach me how to make one. That was the beginning of my Nyoho-e sewing practice.
As I said this visit to MZMC led me to meet my husband later in Japan. We married in 1983 and I studied okesa sewing at Antaiji. Then Katagiri roshi passed away in 1990. My husband was asked to be an interim head teacher at MZMC so we moved to Minnesota from Japan in 1993. But at that time in 1982 I had no idea that I would come back to MN after 11 years with my husband and two kids, but I did, and the rest of the story led us here.
I always say my okesa sewing is a hybrid of Kaizenji style (which is Tomoe Katagiri style) and Antaiji style. But Tomoe-san was always my role model and her teachings and dedication to the Nyoho-e practice was my foundation.
I would like to write more about my memories of Tomoe-san and her teaching, but for now I’ll stop here. Thank you very much.
Nine bows with deep gratitude
Yuko Okumura
Remembrance from Phil Martin
Around 40 years ago some friends, knowing I was studying Zen, went into a Japanese imports and art shop that was in downtown Minneapolis looking for ideas for a birthday gift. When they told the proprietor I was a student of Zen, she asked if I was also a student of tea ceremony. They told her they weren’t sure, and she responded, “If he isn’t, he should be.”
So, on my birthday I opened up a box containing a beautiful ceramic bowl, and some odd implements primarily made of wood or bamboo—a whisk, a ladle, and a small scoop. As I didn’t yet know much about the tea ceremony, they read the look on my face and explained what the woman had told them. With the imperative added to her “he should be” they essentially said, “None of this was cheap, so you WILL be learning tea ceremony!”
With just a few questions, I discovered that Katagiri Roshi’s wife Tomoe had studied tea ceremony, and could give lessons. I didn’t know Tomoe-san well. She was a slight woman with short hair and glasses, and an easy smile, who didn’t talk a whole lot. When she did it was in broken English, and mainly to the women around the Zen Center. Another student, Catherine, also wanted to learn tea. Before I knew it the three of us were meeting regularly, one or two mornings a week after morning zazen and service, in an empty upstairs room in what was Tomoe and Katagiri Roshi’s apartment upstairs in the house. It was white-walled, with tatami covering the floor. It was used by Roshi for dokusan during sesshins, so I’d been there before.
When I arrived for the first lesson, she had a large cast iron pot already filled with hot water, steaming into the room. A spot in front of it was laid out with the implements I’d recognized from my box, and she motioned to two spots across from her where we were to kneel and sit, both as students and guests, as she prepared the tea.
My first thought in setting out to write these memories, was that it would be hard to say much, as her method didn’t involve talking or explanation. For several classes we simply sat, watched her go through the elegant, simple motions of whisking up a bowl of frothed green tea. Then I’d walk out into the bright day with the jolt of green tea opening my mind and eyes in a way coffee never had.
So there are many stories I could tell about things Katagiri Roshi said, but that was not really Tomoe’s way. She was not lecturing on the intricacies of Dogen or Madhyamika philosophy. She was showing us how to make a bowl of tea for a guest. She quietly supported Roshi’s teaching, and kept the place running, making zafus, zabutons and sometimes futons for sale. I remember the wonder of watching her set a futon cover on the floor, in the center of which there was a slit left open of about 12 inches, then laying layers of batting top of it until they were 4 to 5 inches thick, covering the cover. Then, in a transformation I still can’t understand to this day, with a few flips and folds suddenly the batting which had been outside was on the inside, and with a few stitches and string through the layers to hold them in place, it was suddenly a futon.
Both Tomoe-san and Roshi were something of anachronisms to us Americans in the thick of the 70s. They had to live up to our expectations of being modern, but also somehow carry themselves within that ancient tradition. She maintained her quiet way of remaining in the background, and in some ways staying out of the Buddhist goings on there. People then were fighting sexism both in American culture and in the Western Buddhist world, and some saw her as a throwback.
To me she was just a sweet lady who raised her sons, and helped her husband as a priest, not that different from generations of women who’d done the same here for their minister husbands. But that view changed pretty quickly as I watched her make tea. In some ways I couldn’t even understand what I was seeing. But when she knelt before the pot, and began to snap her cloth and measure the powdered tea, she was filled with the power and simplicity that defines the practice of tea.
She was extremely patient with me, my large clumsy hands, and tendency to lose track of where I was in the ceremony. Her patience and ability to forgive were also tested a few years later when I was a tenzo (cook) at the center, and short of food for the 3rd bowl at a meal during a retreat. I grabbed a large bowl of what I thought was shredded cabbage in the fridge to make a third dish. I learned later from someone else, that it was shredded daikon radish to be used in a traditional new year’s meal Tomoe had been planning for quite some time. No word was ever said to me, but the next morning there was simply another container filled with the painstakingly prepared daikon.
And so, week after week, Catherine and I would go upstairs and go through the ritual of making a cup of that emerald green tea, until we could approximate her motions and attentiveness when she would do the same.
Tomoe had also studied ikebana, flower arranging. I remember I’d put a single flower or bouquet in a vase for decoration in the tea room, which would look so clumsy and forlorn. Tomoe would take it, and in a matter of seconds move and rearrange the petals, stems, or leaves, seemingly imperceptibly. Suddenly it would reveal such beauty, as though she’d coaxed it into showing its true essence.
One morning after class, she turned to us and said, "We're going to have a tea ceremony demonstration as a fundraiser for Zen Center." “Ok, not so bad,” I thought. “She'll do it and we'll be there as the guests.” Then she added, "Phil, you'll be the host for the ceremony."
Now, I prided myself on having almost the same ability to say "no" without actually using the word that the Japanese are famed for. "Tomoe-san, thank you for thinking of me, but really, Catherine is better at it than me. And if people will be paying for it, they should see someone really skilled at it, like you." She smiled and didn't say anything further. As I was leaving I thought, "Well, I dodged that bullet."
When I returned for class the following week, I took my usual place at the guest's seat, and waited for her to sit and start the class. She smiled her same kind smile, and said, "Since you're going to be the host in the demonstration, you should start practicing right now so you're ready." I looked at her and saw two things clearly: First, resistance was futile. Second, she was right--since I was going to be the host, I'd better get practicing!
On a Sunday afternoon a few weeks later, the zendo was filled with an audience there to watch a tea ceremony demonstration. I followed Tomoe and Catherine, the two guests, and knelt to begin the process of heating water and whisking up a frothy bowl of green tea. Somehow, I remembered all the steps, from measuring the tea, clacking the scoop on the bowl, wiping it off and cleaning the tea from the napkin with a crisp snap, to presenting the bowl and the tea to my guests and cleaning the bowl and implements.
Relieved that I’d completed the ceremony, I took the bowl with the wastewater, holding it at my side away from the audience, and started to rise from my seated position. My legs had fallen completely asleep, and I nearly put weight on one foot before I’d bent my ankle to bear it. Somehow I recovered, and didn’t break my ankle, or worse yet, spill that water in the terrible mistake of offending the guests.
For all these years my main memory of it was that near-accident. Once, in telling the story, I focused on that near miss. My teacher Dosho Port, who at that time was a student watching the fundraising demonstration, told me, “I only remember the grace and certainty with which you followed the steps and made the bowls of tea.”
I learned much from studying tea with Tomoe. That compassion and friendliness can be as simple as a bowl of hot tea made well. That the way we present ourselves, and how we move in the world, is not just to consider for ourselves, but to do so in such a way that it creates beauty and peace for others. And that there’s no point in arguing with your teacher, most times.
I’d been so impressed by the power and elegance of Tomoe when she made tea, and the way she lost herself in the practice and activity and in so doing embodied the power of that tradition itself. In studying with her, I realized that for even a gawky American, if he got out of his way long enough to dive into it, it was possible to do the same. Like she did with ikebana, she helped to reveal something of my true essence.
Obituary from the Minnesota Star Tribune
Tomoe Katagiri passed away peacefully at home in Minneapolis on May 30, 2026, at the age of 94.
She grew up in Tokyo, Japan, then moved to the United States in 1965, where she and her husband, the late Zen Master Dainin Katagiri (1928-1990), played important roles in the development of Zen Buddhism in America, initially at the San Francisco Zen Center in California.
In 1972 they moved to Minnesota, where Katagiri Roshi founded the Minnesota Zen Meditation Center in Minneapolis and Hokyoji Zen Practice Community in Eitzen, Minnesota. At that time, Zen was established primarily on the east and west coasts, so they were pioneers in bringing Zen to the Midwest.
One of Tomoe's first contributions to American Zen was learning how to sew the round zafu cushions that practitioners sit on during meditation. She modified the design, making the cushions bigger and sturdier to better support taller and heavier Western bodies. Next, using reverse-engineering, she worked out how to sew Japanese-style Zen practice garments and redesigned them to accommodate the variety of American shapes and sizes.
Most notably, Tomoe was one of the first people in the United States to learn the complex techniques for sewing the Buddhist ceremonial robes called okesa and rakusu, which have roots in the Buddha's instructions to his followers. As she learned, Tomoe also began to teach these challenging techniques to others. Dedicated to the Way of Sewing since first meeting her teacher, the esteemed Zen Master Eshun Yoshida, in 1970, Tomoe was recognized as a sewing master by Yoshida Roshi in a 1980 ceremony held in Japan.
For over 40 years, Tomoe taught Zen sewing in Minnesota, around the country, and internationally, making many lifelong friends along the way. She humbly and patiently guided countless students to engage with sewing as a spiritual practice while they created their own Buddhist robes. In 1986, she wrote Study of the Okesa, Nyoho-e: Buddha's Robe, a widely used guide to the history, meaning, and techniques of Buddhist sewing that students still rely on. Her knowledge continues to be shared through the teachers she trained to succeed her.
Beyond sewing, Tomoe also contributed to many aspects of Zen Center life. Her warm heart and sincere presence helped people feel at home with Zen, and many saw her as a guiding spirit. After retiring in 2013, she found joy in creating beautiful and nourishing gardens at home and at Hokyoji, and spending time with friends and her growing family. Throughout her long life, Tomoe was a beloved model of the Buddha way as a caring, generous, and attentive way of living every day.
Tomoe is survived by her loving and devoted family: two sons and daughter-in-law, four grandchildren, and their families. A memorial service will be held on Sunday, June 28 at 2:00 p.m. at the Minnesota Zen Meditation Center, 3343 East Bde Maka Ska Parkway, Minneapolis, MN 55408. https://www.mnzencenter.org
Remembrance from Paul Hanke
My wife Jan and I first met Tomoe-san in the 1970s when Roshi came to Monterey, CA. We had been attending a small weekly sitting group of younger folks in nearby Carmel hosted by Jean Ross (a student of Suzuki-roshi and a Board member of SFZC). Soon after Katagiri arrived she moved to Michigan to care for her aging mother and aunt. We practiced in the new Monterey zendo until the Katagiris moved to Minneapolis and we moved to Vermont. During their time in Monterey we recall seeing the whole family enjoying the annual Obon festival.
One time in Monterey I remember Tomoe-san asking me if I could repair a bicycle for one of the boys (I don’t remember which). This led to a humorous anecdote where young Katagiri-chan said something to the effect that his father was good at meditation but not at fixing bikes. I don’t know what his mother would have thought of this remark, but she did ask me for help and not Roshi.
When we came to Minneapolis in 1984 for lay ordination, I was one of those who had to undo and redo my rakusu stitching many times under Tomoe’s watchful guidance, but after we returned to Vermont I found that I was able to make a zafu by hand even though I had previously never done anything more difficult than maybe hemming a cuff.
And Jan remembers Tomoe saying that when she returned to Japan the city had changed so much that she couldn’t find her old home or neighborhood! She also remembers her mentioning that she eventually came to feel more at home in America than in Japan.
Finally, for many years after we returned to Vermont we received kind homemade New Year’s greeting cards from Tomoe with handwritten notes. One said that she was taking piano lessons, which interested us because our son was studying piano. I wonder if anyone ever heard her play, or if it was just for pleasure.
So farewell Tomoe-san, and thank you.
Remembrance from Diane Yudo Plath
Tomoe san has earned her wings. Open hearts can feel the whisper of her wings as her spirit soars.
Yudo San - Sokuji - Bemidji MN
Remembrance from Yuko Okumura
I would like to share my tribute I read for Tomoe-san at a memorial service we had on June 14th at Sanshinji, Bloomington Indiana:
Before the memorial service I’d like to say few words about Tomoe Katagiri. She was one of my sewing teachers. I met her in the summer of 1982 at Minnesota Zen Center and made this rakusu with her. It’s been 44 years.
Visiting MZMC led me to meet my husband later, at the end of 82, so in my mind there’s a thread of Dharna Connection, which looks like clear cause and result. So, to me, it’s not a far-fetched idea that if I didn’t meet Tomoe-san we would not be here today like this, gathering together at Sanshinji where we sew and wear Nyoho-e okesa and rakusu, and practice.
Tomoe Katagiri was born on February 16, 1932, and passed away last month on May 30th. She was 94 years old. She came to the US in 1965 with her 4 year old son. Her husband Dainin Katagiri roshi was already in San Francisco as an assistant to Shunryu Suzuki Roshi.
In 1970 Eshun Yoshida roshi was invited to SFZC to teach Nyoho-e okesa sewing. Tomoe-san, Blanche Hartman and many other students received the sewing instructions from her. Later Tomoe-san went back to Japan and studied the okesa sewing with Yoshida roshi at Kaizenji and received lay okesa.
In 1972 Tomoe-san moved to Minneapolis, MN with Katagiri roshi and two sons, Yasuhiko and Ejyo, when Katagiri roshi established Minnesota Zen Center. Since then she taught Nyoho-e sewing over 50 years.
I met Tomoe-san in 1982 when I visited MZMC and stayed there for 2 months as a student.
I had previous experience with Nyoho-e kyakushi stitch, or namukiebutsu stitch, but never made rakusu before. So I asked her to teach me how to make one. That was the beginning of my Nyoho-e sewing practice.
As I said this visit to MZMC led me to meet my husband later in Japan. We married in 1983 and I studied okesa sewing at Antaiji. Then Katagiri roshi passed away in 1990. My husband was asked to be an interim head teacher at MZMC so we moved to Minnesota from Japan in 1993. But at that time in 1982 I had no idea that I would come back to MN after 11 years with my husband and two kids, but I did, and the rest of the story led us here.
I always say my okesa sewing is a hybrid of Kaizenji style (which is Tomoe Katagiri style) and Antaiji style. But Tomoe-san was always my role model and her teachings and dedication to the Nyoho-e practice was my foundation.
I would like to write more about my memories of Tomoe-san and her teaching, but for now I’ll stop here. Thank you very much.
Nine bows with deep gratitude
Yuko Okumura
Remembrance from Phil Martin
Around 40 years ago some friends, knowing I was studying Zen, went into a Japanese imports and art shop that was in downtown Minneapolis looking for ideas for a birthday gift. When they told the proprietor I was a student of Zen, she asked if I was also a student of tea ceremony. They told her they weren’t sure, and she responded, “If he isn’t, he should be.”
So, on my birthday I opened up a box containing a beautiful ceramic bowl, and some odd implements primarily made of wood or bamboo—a whisk, a ladle, and a small scoop. As I didn’t yet know much about the tea ceremony, they read the look on my face and explained what the woman had told them. With the imperative added to her “he should be” they essentially said, “None of this was cheap, so you WILL be learning tea ceremony!”
With just a few questions, I discovered that Katagiri Roshi’s wife Tomoe had studied tea ceremony, and could give lessons. I didn’t know Tomoe-san well. She was a slight woman with short hair and glasses, and an easy smile, who didn’t talk a whole lot. When she did it was in broken English, and mainly to the women around the Zen Center. Another student, Catherine, also wanted to learn tea. Before I knew it the three of us were meeting regularly, one or two mornings a week after morning zazen and service, in an empty upstairs room in what was Tomoe and Katagiri Roshi’s apartment upstairs in the house. It was white-walled, with tatami covering the floor. It was used by Roshi for dokusan during sesshins, so I’d been there before.
When I arrived for the first lesson, she had a large cast iron pot already filled with hot water, steaming into the room. A spot in front of it was laid out with the implements I’d recognized from my box, and she motioned to two spots across from her where we were to kneel and sit, both as students and guests, as she prepared the tea.
My first thought in setting out to write these memories, was that it would be hard to say much, as her method didn’t involve talking or explanation. For several classes we simply sat, watched her go through the elegant, simple motions of whisking up a bowl of frothed green tea. Then I’d walk out into the bright day with the jolt of green tea opening my mind and eyes in a way coffee never had.
So there are many stories I could tell about things Katagiri Roshi said, but that was not really Tomoe’s way. She was not lecturing on the intricacies of Dogen or Madhyamika philosophy. She was showing us how to make a bowl of tea for a guest. She quietly supported Roshi’s teaching, and kept the place running, making zafus, zabutons and sometimes futons for sale. I remember the wonder of watching her set a futon cover on the floor, in the center of which there was a slit left open of about 12 inches, then laying layers of batting top of it until they were 4 to 5 inches thick, covering the cover. Then, in a transformation I still can’t understand to this day, with a few flips and folds suddenly the batting which had been outside was on the inside, and with a few stitches and string through the layers to hold them in place, it was suddenly a futon.
Both Tomoe-san and Roshi were something of anachronisms to us Americans in the thick of the 70s. They had to live up to our expectations of being modern, but also somehow carry themselves within that ancient tradition. She maintained her quiet way of remaining in the background, and in some ways staying out of the Buddhist goings on there. People then were fighting sexism both in American culture and in the Western Buddhist world, and some saw her as a throwback.
To me she was just a sweet lady who raised her sons, and helped her husband as a priest, not that different from generations of women who’d done the same here for their minister husbands. But that view changed pretty quickly as I watched her make tea. In some ways I couldn’t even understand what I was seeing. But when she knelt before the pot, and began to snap her cloth and measure the powdered tea, she was filled with the power and simplicity that defines the practice of tea.
She was extremely patient with me, my large clumsy hands, and tendency to lose track of where I was in the ceremony. Her patience and ability to forgive were also tested a few years later when I was a tenzo (cook) at the center, and short of food for the 3rd bowl at a meal during a retreat. I grabbed a large bowl of what I thought was shredded cabbage in the fridge to make a third dish. I learned later from someone else, that it was shredded daikon radish to be used in a traditional new year’s meal Tomoe had been planning for quite some time. No word was ever said to me, but the next morning there was simply another container filled with the painstakingly prepared daikon.
And so, week after week, Catherine and I would go upstairs and go through the ritual of making a cup of that emerald green tea, until we could approximate her motions and attentiveness when she would do the same.
Tomoe had also studied ikebana, flower arranging. I remember I’d put a single flower or bouquet in a vase for decoration in the tea room, which would look so clumsy and forlorn. Tomoe would take it, and in a matter of seconds move and rearrange the petals, stems, or leaves, seemingly imperceptibly. Suddenly it would reveal such beauty, as though she’d coaxed it into showing its true essence.
One morning after class, she turned to us and said, "We're going to have a tea ceremony demonstration as a fundraiser for Zen Center." “Ok, not so bad,” I thought. “She'll do it and we'll be there as the guests.” Then she added, "Phil, you'll be the host for the ceremony."
Now, I prided myself on having almost the same ability to say "no" without actually using the word that the Japanese are famed for. "Tomoe-san, thank you for thinking of me, but really, Catherine is better at it than me. And if people will be paying for it, they should see someone really skilled at it, like you." She smiled and didn't say anything further. As I was leaving I thought, "Well, I dodged that bullet."
When I returned for class the following week, I took my usual place at the guest's seat, and waited for her to sit and start the class. She smiled her same kind smile, and said, "Since you're going to be the host in the demonstration, you should start practicing right now so you're ready." I looked at her and saw two things clearly: First, resistance was futile. Second, she was right--since I was going to be the host, I'd better get practicing!
On a Sunday afternoon a few weeks later, the zendo was filled with an audience there to watch a tea ceremony demonstration. I followed Tomoe and Catherine, the two guests, and knelt to begin the process of heating water and whisking up a frothy bowl of green tea. Somehow, I remembered all the steps, from measuring the tea, clacking the scoop on the bowl, wiping it off and cleaning the tea from the napkin with a crisp snap, to presenting the bowl and the tea to my guests and cleaning the bowl and implements.
Relieved that I’d completed the ceremony, I took the bowl with the wastewater, holding it at my side away from the audience, and started to rise from my seated position. My legs had fallen completely asleep, and I nearly put weight on one foot before I’d bent my ankle to bear it. Somehow I recovered, and didn’t break my ankle, or worse yet, spill that water in the terrible mistake of offending the guests.
For all these years my main memory of it was that near-accident. Once, in telling the story, I focused on that near miss. My teacher Dosho Port, who at that time was a student watching the fundraising demonstration, told me, “I only remember the grace and certainty with which you followed the steps and made the bowls of tea.”
I learned much from studying tea with Tomoe. That compassion and friendliness can be as simple as a bowl of hot tea made well. That the way we present ourselves, and how we move in the world, is not just to consider for ourselves, but to do so in such a way that it creates beauty and peace for others. And that there’s no point in arguing with your teacher, most times.
I’d been so impressed by the power and elegance of Tomoe when she made tea, and the way she lost herself in the practice and activity and in so doing embodied the power of that tradition itself. In studying with her, I realized that for even a gawky American, if he got out of his way long enough to dive into it, it was possible to do the same. Like she did with ikebana, she helped to reveal something of my true essence.
Obituary from the Minnesota Star Tribune
Tomoe Katagiri passed away peacefully at home in Minneapolis on May 30, 2026, at the age of 94.
She grew up in Tokyo, Japan, then moved to the United States in 1965, where she and her husband, the late Zen Master Dainin Katagiri (1928-1990), played important roles in the development of Zen Buddhism in America, initially at the San Francisco Zen Center in California.
In 1972 they moved to Minnesota, where Katagiri Roshi founded the Minnesota Zen Meditation Center in Minneapolis and Hokyoji Zen Practice Community in Eitzen, Minnesota. At that time, Zen was established primarily on the east and west coasts, so they were pioneers in bringing Zen to the Midwest.
One of Tomoe's first contributions to American Zen was learning how to sew the round zafu cushions that practitioners sit on during meditation. She modified the design, making the cushions bigger and sturdier to better support taller and heavier Western bodies. Next, using reverse-engineering, she worked out how to sew Japanese-style Zen practice garments and redesigned them to accommodate the variety of American shapes and sizes.
Most notably, Tomoe was one of the first people in the United States to learn the complex techniques for sewing the Buddhist ceremonial robes called okesa and rakusu, which have roots in the Buddha's instructions to his followers. As she learned, Tomoe also began to teach these challenging techniques to others. Dedicated to the Way of Sewing since first meeting her teacher, the esteemed Zen Master Eshun Yoshida, in 1970, Tomoe was recognized as a sewing master by Yoshida Roshi in a 1980 ceremony held in Japan.
For over 40 years, Tomoe taught Zen sewing in Minnesota, around the country, and internationally, making many lifelong friends along the way. She humbly and patiently guided countless students to engage with sewing as a spiritual practice while they created their own Buddhist robes. In 1986, she wrote Study of the Okesa, Nyoho-e: Buddha's Robe, a widely used guide to the history, meaning, and techniques of Buddhist sewing that students still rely on. Her knowledge continues to be shared through the teachers she trained to succeed her.
Beyond sewing, Tomoe also contributed to many aspects of Zen Center life. Her warm heart and sincere presence helped people feel at home with Zen, and many saw her as a guiding spirit. After retiring in 2013, she found joy in creating beautiful and nourishing gardens at home and at Hokyoji, and spending time with friends and her growing family. Throughout her long life, Tomoe was a beloved model of the Buddha way as a caring, generous, and attentive way of living every day.
Tomoe is survived by her loving and devoted family: two sons and daughter-in-law, four grandchildren, and their families. A memorial service will be held on Sunday, June 28 at 2:00 p.m. at the Minnesota Zen Meditation Center, 3343 East Bde Maka Ska Parkway, Minneapolis, MN 55408. https://www.mnzencenter.org
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