In Remembrance of Sakaye Tsuji

Editor’s note: This remembrance of Sakaye Tsuji, the bomori of the late BCA Bishop Rev. Kenryu Tsuji, was written by her son-in-law Wells Wadleigh. The Wheel of Dharma is printing it with his permission.

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Sakaye Kawabata Tsuji, who with her late husband, Rev. Kenryu Tsuji, spread Shin Buddhism in Canada and the United States for more than five decades, passed away at the age of 100 on Feb. 14 at Stanford Hospital.  

Her 100 years spanned a life of a Canadian upbringing in a small town, incarceration during World War II, and being an important mate to her husband of 58 years. And during the entire time, she managed to exude joy and quiet competence that attracted many to her, especially children, some of whom she taught while they were in the incarceration camp and who recall her fondly.  

She was a notable cook.  Her apple pies were amazing and they would always sell out at Buddhist church bazaars before they were even baked.  She could single-handedly plan, budget and create a delicious dinner for 150 people, sometimes with the help of her daughters. She excelled at many crafts and much of her beaded jewelry was sold hours before the church bazaar even began.

“Our family’s loss of mom is very real, but her greatest gift to us is how she lived her life every day. Her smile is with us every day,” Elizabeth Tsuji, her oldest daughter, said in a statement. “Mom was a selfless giver of many, many kindnesses to family and to strangers.  

“Her Buddha-Nature was very strong, warm and accepting, yet firm and resolute. Also smiling and lighthearted, never downtrodden. We know we were lucky to have her with us for so long. And she was as sharp as a tack to the very end. Namo Amida Butsu.”

Bishop Rev. Marvin Harada paid tribute to Tsuji in a statement.

"It is clear that the support, dedication and hard work of Mrs. Sakaye Tsuji was a great part of the success and ministry of Rev. Kenryu Tsuji,” Rev. Harada said. “We were all the beneficiaries of her support and contributions to her husband's ministry over their many years together."

Tsuji was the widow of Rev. Kenryu Takashi Tsuji, who had served as the first North American-born Bishop of the Buddhist Churches of America from 1968 to 1981 and was considered one of the most influential and far-sighted Shin Buddhist ministers of his time. She juggled raising five daughters with being a partner in every aspect of her husband’s ministry.

The Tsujis were very much a team. Rev. Brian Nagata, director for Bukkyo Dendo Kyokai America (Society for the Promotion of Buddhism) and a longtime friend of the family, said any temple and position where Rev. Tsuji served “got the energies and efforts of two completely dedicated bodhisattvas for the price of one.”

She was born on July 29, 1924, in Duncan, British Columbia, the third child of parents who had emigrated to Canada from Japan. Her father, Tobei Kawabata, had arrived from Kagoshima in 1908, and her mother, Tsugiye Komatsu, had made the same journey across the Pacific from Fukuoka in 1915.  

In the middle of March 1942, her life in Duncan was shattered when the government of Canada forcibly removed the Kawabata family and the other 3,000 Japanese residents from Vancouver Island, among the first of more than 20,000 Japanese Canadians resettled during World War II.   They were incarcerated initially at the Pacific National Exhibition (PNE) grounds in stables at Hastings Park under armed guard in the city of Vancouver. 

After six months in Hastings Park, the Canadian government moved the family via a long train ride to Bay Farm Prison Camp in the Slocan Valley in the remote and sparsely populated interior of British Columbia. At first, they lived in a tent, but it collapsed during a snowstorm. They spent the next three years sharing a home in a small, hastily built wooden hut with another family of four from Vancouver under armed guard.

Tsuji completed correspondence courses that enabled her to obtain a high school certificate.  She quickly went from student to teacher as she began to instruct elementary school students at Bay Farm. 

In this capacity, she met her future husband, Kenryu Takashi Tsuji, a young Canadian-born Buddhist minister who had recently been ordained in Japan and was serving as the principal of the school in Bay Farm as well as traveling by train with special credentials to serve as the only Buddhist minister for most of the incarceration camps in Canada.

In the middle of 1945 when World War II was nearly over, Tsuji and her family were able to leave the camp in British Columbia and resettle in eastern Canada. With the help of her brother, she found a job at the Leaver Mushroom Farm in the town of Port Credit in Ontario.   

At first, she was the only woman working in cold, dark and damp caves where she harvested mushrooms. After a few months, she was able to move to a more tolerable work area as an assistant cook under her mother’s supervision.

She married Rev. Tsuji in Toronto on Jan. 31, 1946, and she soon made the transition to minister’s wife and mother. Her husband began to create and nurture a Buddhist community in Toronto, which eventually became the Toronto Buddhist Church, currently the largest Buddhist church in Canada. By December 1950, the young couple had four daughters and were living on the upper floor of a home that was converted to a church.

In 1959, her husband was appointed Director of Buddhist Education at the BCA in San Francisco, and the family made an epic journey in family lore and memory by car through the South. They settled in San Mateo. While her husband took on increasing responsibilities within the structure of the BCA, she helped the family to establish deep roots in San Mateo. She was involved in many ways at the San Mateo Buddhist Temple, teaching in the Dharma School and being an active member of the Buddhist women's organization. In 1970, the family moved to the Bishop’s newly built residence in Belmont, California.

In 1981, her husband retired as Bishop. Tsuji accompanied her husband as he next sought to establish a Buddhist voice and presence near Washington, D.C., in the Virginia suburbs.   

She continued to aid her husband in innumerable ways as the Ekoji Buddhist Temple began its existence in an office building in Burke, Virginia, in the fall of 1981. Eventually, a temple was built at its current location on five acres in Fairfax Station, Virginia. 

She always worked closely with the growing membership at Ekoji, who regarded her as a co-leader of the church and often sought her guidance, counsel and companionship. She considered the families of Ekoji as her second family.

Norm and Gail Kondo, longtime Ekoji members, said in a 2024 interview that Tsuji was a “one-of-a-kind treasure,” sharing that she would find time to play with children and go to McDonald’s and Chuck E. Cheese with families.

Although she wasn’t exposed to Buddhism until she met Rev. Tsuji, being Buddhist became “a natural thing” for her, she said in a 2024 interview. To her husband’s surprise, she once confided to him that she said “Namo Amida Butsu, Namo Amida Butsu,” before going to bed.

Tsuji was a minister’s assistant before there was such a position. At Ekoji, she would help set up the Onaijin before services, open the doors, and when her husband was away, would conduct memorial services.

In 1999, after her husband’s “second” retirement as the minister at Ekoji, she returned to the Bay Area in California where she and her husband could be closer to their children, grandchildren, and, eventually, great-grandchildren. These younger generations came to refer to her as “Gigi” and appreciated her warmth, generosity and talent in the kitchen.   She was a loving and much beloved grandmother and great-grandmother.  

Rev. Tsuji passed away in 2004 in San Mateo. 

She is survived by: her sister, Sally Hori of Markham, Ontario; five daughters, Elizabeth Tsuji (Wells Wadleigh) of Gilroy, California; Maya Lawrence (Gary Lawrence) of Walnut Creek, California; Eleanor and Rosalind Tsuji of Foster City, California, and Carolyn Seeger (Steve Seeger) of Parker, Colorado.

Other survivors include: six grandchildren, Stephen Wadleigh (Deborah Wadleigh) of Valley Village, California; Maya May (Daniel May) of Marina, California; Daniel Wadleigh of Gilroy; Katherine Lawrence of Walnut Creek; Matthew Lawrence of Brooklyn, New York; and Misa Seeger of San Diego, California; and five great-grandchildren, Piper, Avery and James May, and Lucas and Hannah Wadleigh.

Wheel of Dharma correspondent Dennis Akizuki contributed to this article.