Dainin Katagiri Roshi
Eiheiji, head temple of the Soto Sect (1244), Japan
Dainin Katagiri(1928-1990) was born in Osaka, Japan and trained at Eiheiji monastery under Eko Hashimoto Roshi. He came to the Zenshuji Soto Zen Mission in Los Angeles in 1963. He moved to the Sokoji Zen Mission in San Francisco where he assisted the late Shunryu Suzuki Roshi at the San Francisco Zen Center. He became the first abbot of the Minnesota Zen Meditation Center in Minneapolis in 1972. He founded Hokyoji, a country retreat near the Mississippi River in southeastern Minnesota and served as the spiritual director for a number of dharma centers throughout the midwest. He gave dharma transmission to a number of his students including, Rev. Teijo Munnich, Abbess of the Great Tree Zen Temple and the founder of Daishinji, the Zen Center of Asheville. Joen Snyder O’Neal of the Compassionate Ocean Dharma Center in Minneapolis also received dharma transmission from Katagiri Roshi as did others.