Dainin Katagiri
Dainin Katagiri
1928 – 1990
Jikai Dainin Katagiri (January 19, 1928 – March 1, 1990) was the Sōtō priest most responsible for establishing Zen practice across the American Midwest[1]. Born in Osaka, he was ordained in 1946 by Daichō Hayashi at Taizō-in in Fukui Prefecture, from whom he eventually received Dharma transmission; he then trained for three years under the famously severe Ekō Hashimoto at Eihei-ji before entering Komazawa University in Tokyo, where he majored in Buddhist studies[1]. After graduation he served at Eihei-ji and was assigned to North America by the Sōtōshū[1].
Katagiri's American ministry began in 1963 at Zenshūji Sōtō Mission in Los Angeles. In 1965 he moved to San Francisco at the request of the Sōtōshū to assist Shunryū Suzuki at Sōkō-ji and the new San Francisco Zen Center; over the next seven years he became Suzuki's closest peer and helped establish the practice schedule at Tassajara from its 1967 opening, briefly serving as acting abbot of SFZC after Suzuki's death in late 1971[1][2]. In 1972, observing that "few, if any, Buddhist teachers were located there," he accepted an invitation to Minneapolis and founded the Minnesota Zen Meditation Center, which he led for the rest of his life[1][3]. Later in the decade he founded Hōkyō-ji (Catching the Moon Zen Mountain Center), a rural training temple in southeast Minnesota that remains the principal residential center of his lineage[1][3].
His published teachings, all edited from talks he gave in Minnesota and at Hōkyō-ji, are: *Returning to Silence: Zen Practice in Daily Life* (Shambhala, 1988), the only book published in his lifetime; *You Have to Say Something: Manifesting Zen Insight* (Shambhala, 1998); *Katagiri Roshi: Buddhist Lay Ordination Lectures* (1999); *Each Moment Is the Universe: Zen and the Way of Being Time* (Shambhala, 2007); and *The Light That Shines Through Infinity: Zen and the Energy of Life* (Shambhala, 2017)[1]. Katagiri gave Dharma transmission to thirteen successors — among them Dōkai Georgesen, Dosho Port, Steve Hagen (Dharma Field, Minneapolis), Teijo Munnich, Jōen Snyder O'Neal, Nonin Chowaney (Nebraska Zen Center), Yvonne Rand, Karen Sunna, Shōken Winecoff (Ryūmonji), and Rōsan Yoshida — a sangha that today carries his "being-time" reading of Dōgen across some twenty centers in the U.S. and Canada[1][3].
Names
Teachers and lineage of Dainin Katagiri
Teacher / root master:
Additional teachers:
Works
- Dharma-talks collectionReturning to Silence: Zen Practice in Daily Life
Katagiri's first published collection of dharma talks, drawn from his teaching at the Minnesota Zen Meditation Center; introduces his characteristic emphasis on the koan of ordinary daily activity.
- Dharma-talks collectionYou Have to Say Something: Manifesting Zen Insight
Posthumous collection edited by Steve Hagen of Katagiri's teisho on the necessity of articulating realisation within ordinary life and language.
- Dharma-talks collectionEach Moment Is the Universe: Zen and the Way of Being Time
Posthumous collection edited by Andrea Martin focused on Katagiri's reading of Dōgen's Uji (Being-Time) and the practice of being-in-time.
Teachings
- proverbReturning to Silence
Silence is not the absence of sound; it is the place from which sounds arise. Return to it through the day, and the day stops being a chain of noises.
- proverbEach Moment Is the Universe
Each moment is the entire universe. There is nothing outside this breath; nothing outside this footstep. To search for more is to stand on the universe and ask where it has gone.
- proverbYou Have to Say Something
Sooner or later, you have to say something. Silence is the start of practice; speech is its responsibility. Choose what to say after long sitting; it will be the right thing.
- proverbSpirit of Practice
Practice with the spirit of an apprentice and the patience of a craftsman. The apprentice can ask any question; the craftsman keeps working through the unanswered ones.
Other masters in Sōtō
Master Record Sources
1928-1990
Dainin Katagiri
Soto
Shunryu Suzuki
1928-1990
Dainin Katagiri
Soto