Oda Sessō

{{Short description|Japanese Buddhist monk (1901–1966)}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2019}}

{{more footnotes|date=June 2014}}

{{Infobox religious biography

| name = Oda Sessō

| image =

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| birth_date = {{birth year|1901}}

| birth_place = Japan

| death_date = {{dda|1966|09|16|1901|||}}Stirling 2006, pg. 125

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| religion = Zen Buddhism

| school = Rinzai

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| title = Rōshi

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| predecessor = Gotō Zuigan

| successor = Morinaga Sōkō

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}}

{{ZenBuddhism}}

Oda Sessō (小田 雪窓, 1901 – 16 September 1966)Stirling 2006, pg. 50 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,Snyder 1980, pp. 97, 98Kraft 1988, p. 20 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.'"Stirling 2006, pp. 74-5}}

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."Kyger 2000, pg. 264}}

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