Oda Sessō

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

Oda Sessō (小田 雪窓, 1901–1966) 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".

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