Oda Sessō

Oda Sessō
Religion	Zen Buddhism
School	Rinzai
Personal
Born	1901 Japan
Died	September 16, 1966[1]
Senior posting
Title	Rōshi
Predecessor	Gotō Zuigan

Oda Sessō (小田 雪窓, 1901–1966)^[2] 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,^[3][4] 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.'"^[5]

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."^[6]

Janwillem van de Wetering gave an account of his stay at Daitoku-ji in his book "The empty mirror".

See also

• Buddhism in Japan
• List of Rinzai Buddhists

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

• Kraft, Kenneth; Morinaga, Sōkō. Zen, Tradition and Transition (1988) Grove Press. ISBN 0-8021-3162-X
• Kyger, Joanne. Strange Big Moon: The Japan and India Journals: 1960-1964 (2000) North Atlantic Books. ISBN 978-1-55643-337-5
• Snyder, Gary. The Real Work: Interviews & Talks, 1964-1979 (1980) New Directions Publishing. ISBN 0-8112-0761-7
• Stirling, Isabel. Zen Pioneer: The Life & Works of Ruth Fuller Sasaki (2006) Shoemaker & Hoard. ISBN 978-1-59376-110-3

Further reading

• Janwillem van de Wetering, The empty mirror