Oda Sessō

Oda Sessō
TitleRōshi
Personal life
Born1901 (1901)
Japan
DiedSeptember 16, 1966(1966-09-16) (aged 64–65)
Religious life
ReligionZen Buddhism
SchoolRinzai
Senior posting
PredecessorGotō Zuigan
SuccessorMorinaga Sōkō

Oda Sessō (小田 雪窓, 1901 – 16 September 1966) was a Rinzai Rōshi and abbot of the Daitoku-ji (大徳寺) in Kyoto, Japan, a Dharma successor of Gotō Zuigan. He was elected abbot of Daitoku-ji upon Goto's retirement from that post in 1955. At Goto's request, Oda opened Daitoku-ji to foreigners. His western students included Gary Snyder, Janwillem van de Wetering, Irmgard Schloegl, and Philip Yampolsky.

Snyder described him as:

[T]he subtlest and most perceptive man I've ever met... His teisho were inaudible, his voice was so soft. Yet as one of the head monks at Daitoku-ji Sodo said much later, 'Those lectures of Oda Rōshi we couldn't hear I am beginning to hear today.'

Alan Watts said:

[H]aving a conversation with him is like dropping a pebble in a well and never hearing it drop. The soundless pebble in the bottomless well.

Janwillem van de Wetering gave an account of his stay at Daitoku-ji in his book The Empty Mirror: Experiences in a Japanese Zen Monastery.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Stirling 2006, pg. 125
  2. ↑ Stirling 2006, pg. 50
  3. ↑ Snyder 1980, pp. 97, 98
  4. ↑ Kraft 1988, p. 20
  5. ↑ Stirling 2006, pp. 74-5
  6. ↑ Kyger 2000, pg. 264

Sources

Further reading