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Volume XIII:1 January - June 2023
Lucien Miller JESUS IN THE HANDS OF BUDDHA In the Preface of Lucian Miller’s excellent book, Timothy Radcliffe, OP, writes that Fr. Shigeto Vincent Oshida, OP, was a unique Dominican. He was a Buddhist Zen Master who had encountered Jesus Christ and became a Dominican Catholic priest. Fr. Radcliffe notes that when Fr. Oshida was young, he had frequent experiences of sickness that led to convalescents in sanatoriums. There, he discovered a new sense of community that he called a modoi, a “living friendship circle.” Later as a priest, he founded the Takamori Hermitage, a modoi of God, in the Japanese Alps. At Takamori, the poor and the sick could live together in a simple life that is healing and faith giving.
In the first two chapters of the text, Miller notes that as a priest, Fr. Oshida carried out the responsibilities of his priesthood starting with daily morning Eucharist. And as a Japanese person with training in Zen sitting (zazen), he also sat zazen and taught that practice to those living in the Takamori Hermitage. He was also given permission by the Dominican Order in Japan to pursue this form of Christian inculturation.
Eventually, people from around the world came to Takamori for a short visit or a longer stay to participate in an intensive zazen retreat (sesshin). The sesshins at Takamori led by Fr. Oshida blended Buddhist practice with Catholic teachings and practices. At the end of this book, there are two excellent and very detailed presentations of the sesshins given by Fr. Oshida. Also, the author writes that Fr. Oshida was invited to travel to other countries to give presentations as well as sesshins. Once, he met Thomas Merton in Bangkok, Thailand, just before Merton’s tragic death.
In Chapter Three entitled “Poet and Mystic,” Miller turns to Fr. Oshida’s poetry, which brings forth a taste of his mystical life. Fr. Oshida’s poetry shows his “his free spirit and the sudden mystical moments that he experienced….”[1] Fr. Oshida’s poetry is found in White Deer.[2] Here is an example from Miller’s book:
Taking the rocky path
Sharing the sea of sins
My nature like water
Steeped in every tradition.
Immersed in love[3]
Miller notes that among Fr. Oshida’s poetry are stories of his mystical moments.[4] One such story is about a surprise meeting with a very elderly man who approaches him and invites him to his home. The man turns out to be a noted woodcut artist who had suffered greatly and was very lonely. It seems that “something” compelled him to invite Fr. Oshida. Miller writes beautifully about this event. And he notes that this encounter was for the elderly man like “a mysterious wonderous wind that had passed through the valley of his profound loneliness.”[5]
Chapters Four and Five present detailed presentations of Fr. Oshida’s three contemplative retreats in the United States. The first and second were at Mary House in Spencer, Massachusetts. The third was at Holy Cross Abbey in Berryville, Virginia. These chapters give readers a long and in-depth view of Fr. Oshida’s gift for leading retreats that blend Catholic and Buddhist elements. Each day had a Mass, time for periods of zazen, periods for discussions on Catholicism and Buddhism, Scripture talks, and a Dharma talk about the teachings of the Buddha.
The diversity of persons who participated in these contemplative retreats included: Jewish participants, a French yoga teacher, a woman hermit, Trappist monks, Catholic sisters, priests and a Bishop, Dominican priests including Fr Joseph Campbell OP, and Catholic Workers following Dorothy Day. In these last two chapters, one finds many inspiring, challenging, and deeply moving talks. For example, the first homily was about Jesus. Fr. Oshida invited everyone to put their heart in the heart of Jesus that contains “the grief and suffering all over the world.”[6]
Miller concludes at one point in the final section of the text that Fr. Oshida’s “evolving mission to renew the Catholic Church in the light of Jesus in the gospels, which was realized in his affirmative response to a divine calling to form with others the Takamori Hermitage community—to make the Catholic Church less a citadel of European Christianity and conventional Western values, and more Japanese.”[7]
Notes
[1] Lucian Miller, Jesus in the hands of Buddha: The Life and Legay of Shigeto Vincent Oshida, OP, (Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 2023), p. 51. [2] Joseph Domjan and Shigeto Oshida trans, White Deer (Tokyo: The Board of Publications, The United Church of Christ in Japan, 2015). [3] Miller, 63. [4] Ibid., 51. [5] Ibid., 55. [6] Ibid., 79. [7] Ibid., 129. |
_Web.jpg) Donald W. Mitchell is a Professor Emeritus at Purdue University, and is now a visiting professor at Sophia University Institute, Italy. Specializing in Buddhism and the Buddhist-Christian dialogue, he was co-founder of the Society for Buddhist‑Christian Studies and Associate Editor of its journal. He was Director of the U.S. International Buddhist-Christian Theological Encounter, as well as consultant to the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, and to Monastic Interreligious Dialogue (MID). |