Japanese Buddhist monk (1901–1966)
Oda Sessō (小田 雪窓, 1901 – 16 September 1966)[ 2] 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
References
^ Stirling 2006, pg. 125
^ Stirling 2006, pg. 50
^ Snyder 1980, pp. 97, 98
^ Kraft 1988, p. 20
^ Stirling 2006, pp. 74-5
^ 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
.svg){kind=small}
