Katharina Kobel-Shepherd

Switzerland

Katharina Kobel-Shepherd

Switzerland

Born in 1952 in rural Switzerland, she lost her paternal grandmother and father within a year. Her mother and maternal grandmother raised her and her other 4 siblings. Thus, as a child, she wondered about the absolute nature of life.

She studied English in Oxford and journeyed to the USA to work as a nanny for an affluent family. While travelling on holiday, she visited a Quaker college in North Carolina, and attended a lecture on Zen meditation. Her meditation experience felt long familiar.

She returned to Switzerland and studied Christian Theology. When she was near graduation, her university instructor, a Christian father, invited her to go to Japan to meet his Zen master. She remained in Japan and studied Buddhism with Yamada Koun Roshi. She completed her Koan training in the Sanbo Zen Sangha and studied traditional Sumie brush-painting with Ms. Tazuko Niimura.

While in Japan she met her husband, bore three of her four children there, and returned to Switzerland to teach Sumie brush painting and write in German, Zen in the Art of Brush Painting in 2005, and Handbook of Far Eastern Brush Painting in 2006. Fortunately, her teacher Ms. Tazuko enjoyed viewing these books before passing away shortly thereafter. Katharina always combines brush painting with periods of Zen meditation.

During the Covid lockdown, she and her husband began offering daily Zazen practice each morning, and some 40 people from Switzerland, Germany, England and the Philippines have met online each morning since.