Jesus in the Hands of Buddha: The Life and Legacy of Shigeto Vincent Oshida, OP

by Lucien Miller, Timothy Radcliffe OP (Foreword by)

Overview

Jesus in the Hands of Buddha is an enthralling memoir of Father Shigeto Oshida, a man who was at once a Japanese Zen Buddhist master and a Catholic Dominican priest. Guided by the hand of God and the Buddha dharma, he became the founder and director of the Takamori Hermitage in the Japanese Alps, a place where pilgrims have been drawn for decades. He was a unique pioneer in the encounter between religions East and West who felt he was led to the Catholic faith and the priesthood by a trick of God. Overwhelmed by the weight of European-styled Catholic culture inundating the Catholic Church in Japan, Oshida received permission from his superiors to strike out on his own and listen to the voice of God while remaining a Dominican priest and Zen master, thus becoming both hermit and healer in a community of pilgrims—the sick, the poor, and the disenchanted from around the world.

Through this encounter with Shigeto Oshida’s life and works, and awakening to his oneness of being a Catholic priest and Buddhist monk, readers are invited to enter their own journey to Jesus in the hands of Buddha. The unifying thread of this new horizon is grace—the unmitigated gift of divine love that permeates individuals, events, and locations and makes them holy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780814668689
Publisher:	Liturgical Press
Publication date:	03/31/2023
Series:	Monastic Interreligi
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	224
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Lucien Miller attended the University of California, Berkeley, where he earned his BA, MA, and PhD in comparative literature and with his wife, Bonnie raised their three children. During graduate school he studied Chinese language and literature at Berkeley, the University of Hawaii’s East-West Center, and the Stanford Chinese language center in Taiwan. He spent six sabbaticals in Taiwan, Japan, China, Hong Kong, and India. While teaching comparative literature and Chinese at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Lucien felt called to be a Roman Catholic deacon, and he served in that capacity and as spiritual director at the Newman Catholic Student Center for thirty-five years. 

Timothy Radcliffe, OP, is a member of the community at Blackfriars, Oxford, and was master of the Order of Preachers from 1992 to 2001. He is the only member of the English Province of the Dominicans to have held the office since the Order's foundation in 1216.
He is the author of Stations of the Cross and a contributor to Give Us This Day, published by Liturgical Press.

Table of Contents

CONTENTS
PRELUDE
     Jesus in the Hands of Buddha Sculpture   ix
FOREWORD
     by Timothy Radcliffe, OP   xi
INTRODUCTION   xxi
CHAPTER ONE
     A Buddhist Who Encountered Christ   1
CHAPTER TWO
     Hermit and Pilgrim   25
CHAPTER THREE
     Poet and Mystic   51
CHAPTER FOUR
     Sesshin Part One   69
CHAPTER FIVE
     Sesshin Part Two   121
EPILOGUE
     September Meeting, Last Days, Gleanings   163 
POSTLUDE
     The Greatest Accomplishment   177
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS  179
VITA   181
BIBLIOGRAPHY   189

Editorial Reviews

"Lucien Miller, a married Catholic deacon and professor of Chinese studies, documents his experience of the person and teachings of Shigeto Vincent Oshida, a Japanese Zen teacher and Catholic priest. Miller translates in poignant detail the life and work of this no longer hidden spiritual master. Jesus in the Hands of Buddha presents boundary-crossing insights and practices at the core of cross-cultural spiritual living. He profoundly offers an experience of accessible guidance and consolation for world readers of all faiths living on the ropes."
Jonathan Montaldo, author of Bridges to Contemplative Living with Thomas Merton


"Oshida’s life and legacy is an experience of the spiritual senses knowing the mystical voice. Biblical in sources and Buddhist in form, reading this book took me as a reader to the great pause of silence."
Sister Meg Funk, OSB, Our Lady of Grace Monastery, Beech Grove, Indiana


"In this beautifully kaleidoscopic book, Lucien Miller reports on the life and legacy of Shigeto Oshida, OP, the Japanese Dominican friar whose vocation was to enact a Japanese and Buddhist way of being Catholic. Given that this book's luminous style reflects the very style of its subject-matter, any of its readers will be doubly rewarded indeed."
Robert Magliola, PhD, Carmelite lay tertiary; affiliate, Istituto Vangelo and Zen, Milano, Italy; retired professor at Assumption University of Thailand and National Taiwan University


"Shigeto Oshida's quest was to reveal the Christ indigenous to Japanese culture. Lucien Miller's generous account shows us how he did this by rooting himself in the eternal rhythms of mountainous, rural rice-farming Japan, practicing zazen, offering Mass in a simple thatched roof hut, and opening himself to whatever the moment might bring."
David Hackett, professor emeritus of Religion, University of Florida


"Shigeto Vincent Oshida was a saint, a mystic, a Christian visionary, and a model of an authentic appropriation of Buddhist and Christian truths that collectively lead to a new vision of discipleship. Lucien Miller takes us deeply into the life and heart of Fr. Oshida whose existence was utterly simple and yet filled with paradoxes. He was a hermit in community, a solitary among others. He desired nothing other than to disappear into the silence and bear witness to the 'Unborn Sphere,' all the while in complete service to the poor and those seeking his spiritual guidance. Miller’s book inspires and challenges us to see a new model of the Christian life no longer dominated by a 'Western' model, but one immersed in the spirit of Asia."
Peter Feldmeier, professor of Catholic Studies, University of Toledo, Ohio

 


"Combining poetry, personal memories, and recollections of a retreat, Lucien Miller presents a vivid and moving evocation of the late Japanese Dominican friar, Shigeto Vincent Oshida. Embodying values of both the Zen and the Catholic traditions in his spiritual journey, Oshida offered an inspiring and prayerful witness of simplicity, poverty, solitude, and concern for a world of suffering. This moving and loving portrait is highly recommended for all spiritual seekers."
Leo D. Lefebure, past president of the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies, and chair of theology, Georgetown University

"This is an intriguing book. It is part memoir, part biography, part theological reflection, and part narrative."
Catholic Books Review

 

"Jesus in the Hands of Buddha is for any reader whose contemplative heart races in the mystical mundanity of simplicity and service."
Contemplify

 

From the Publisher