View source for Oda Sessō

{{Short description|Japanese Buddhist monk (1901–1966)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2019}}
{{more footnotes needed|date=June 2014}}
{{Infobox religious biography
| name               = Oda Sessō
| image              = 
| caption            = 
| alias              = 
| birth_date         = {{birth date text|1901}}
| birth_place        = Japan
| death_date         = {{death date and age|1966|09|16|1901}}<ref>Stirling 2006, pg. 125</ref>
| death_place        = 
| nationality        = 
| religion           = [[Zen Buddhism]]
| school             = [[Rinzai]]
| lineage            = 
| title              = [[Rōshi]]
| location           = 
| education          = 
| occupation         = 
| teacher            = 
| predecessor        = [[Gotō Zuigan]]
| successor          = [[Morinaga Sōkō]]
| students           = 
| spouse             = 
| partner            = 
| children           = 
| website            = 
}}
 
{{ZenBuddhism}}
'''Oda Sessō''' (小田 雪窓, 1901 &ndash; 16 September 1966)<ref name="Stirling 50">Stirling 2006, pg. 50</ref> 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]],<ref name="snyder978">Snyder 1980, pp. 97, 98</ref><ref name="kraft">Kraft 1988, p. 20</ref> [[Janwillem van de Wetering]], [[Irmgard Schloegl]], and [[Philip Yampolsky]].

Snyder described him as
{{blockquote|[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.'"<ref name="Stirling 74">Stirling 2006, pp. 74-5</ref>}}

[[Alan Watts]] said, 
{{blockquote|[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."<ref>Kyger 2000, pg. 264</ref>}}

[[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==
{{reflist}}

==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''

{{Buddhism topics}}
{{Modern Buddhist writers}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sesso, Oda}}
[[Category:1901 births]]
[[Category:1966 deaths]]
[[Category:Rinzai Buddhists]]
[[Category:Zen Buddhist priests]]
[[Category:Japanese Zen Buddhists]]


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