Oda Sesso

Oda Sessō (小田雪窓, 1901–1966) was a Japanese Rinzai Zen master, dharma heir of Gotō Zuigan in the Daitoku-ji Ōtōkan line and Zuigan's chosen successor at the head temple^[1]. He became chief abbot of **Daitoku-ji in 1955**, on Zuigan's retirement, and served until his death in September 1966^[1].

At Zuigan's request Oda opened the Daitoku-ji sōdō to foreign students at an unusually early date, training a remarkable cohort of Western practitioners — among them the poet Gary Snyder, the writer Janwillem van de Wetering, the Austrian-born scholar Irmgard Schloegl (later Myōkyō-ni), and the Buddhologist Philip Yampolsky^[1]. In 1963 he conferred **inka shōmei** on his dharma successor **Morinaga Sōkō**, completing the formal transmission that Zuigan had begun with Morinaga's ordination fourteen years earlier^[2].