Books by John Daido Loori
The Zen of Creativity: Cultivating Your Artistic Life
For many of us, the return of Zen conjures up images of rock gardens and gently flowing waterfalls. We think of mindfulness and meditation, immersion in a state of being where meaning is found through simplicity. Zen lore has been absorbed by Western practitioners and pop culture alike, yet there is a specific area of this ancient tradition that hasn’t been fully explored in the West. Now, in The Zen of Creativity, American Zen master John Daido Loori presents a book that taps the principles of the Zen arts and aesthetic as a means to unlock creativity and find freedom in the various dimensions of our existence. Loori dissolves the barriers between art and spirituality, opening up the possibility of meeting life with spontaneity, grace, and peace.
Zen Buddhism is steeped in the arts. In spiritual ways, calligraphy, poetry, painting, the tea ceremony, and flower arranging can point us toward our essential, boundless nature. Brilliantly interpreting the teachings of the artless arts, Loori illuminates various elements that awaken our creativity, among them still point, the center of each moment that focuses on the tranquility within; simplicity, in which the creative process is uncluttered and unlimited, like a cloudless sky; spontaneity, a way to navigate through life without preconceptions, with a freshness in which everything becomes new; mystery, a sense of trust in the unknown; creative feedback, the systematic use of an audience to receive noncritical input about our art; art koans, exercises based on paradoxical questions that can be resolved only through artistic expression. Loori shows how these elements interpenetrate and function not only in art, but in all our endeavors.
Beautifully illustrated and punctuated with poems and reflections from Loori’s own spiritual journey, The Zen of Creativity presents a multilayered, bottomless source of insight into our creativity. Appealing equally to spiritual seekers, artists, and veteran Buddhist practitioners, this book is perfect for those wishing to discover new means of self-awareness and expression—and to restore equanimity and freedom amid the vicissitudes of our lives.
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The True Dharma Eye: Zen Master Dogen's Three Hundred Koans
When the thirteenth century master Eihei Dogen, one of the most influential thinkers in Zen Buddhism and founder of the Japanese Soto school, returned to Japan after four years of study in China, the fruit of his pilgrimage was recorded in a collection of koans called the Chinese Shobogenzo, also known as Shinji or Mana Shobogenzo. This collection of three hundred main cases was first published in 1766 under the title Shobogenzo Sambyakusoku (Treasury of the True Dharma Eye: Three Hundred Cases), and was known to have provided the raw material for much of Dogen's better known Japanese-language Kana Shobogenzo.
Dogen's collection of koans may come as a surprise to students of Zen as Dogen and the Soto school are generally known for the practice of shikantaza, or "just sitting," rather than for koan practice. Nevertheless, a careful study of Dogen's work reveals that he did use koans extensively in his writing and teaching, not only in the Kana Shobogenzo, but most of his other works as well. Zen students and scholars will find The True Dharma Eye to be a source of deep insight into the mind of one of the world's greatest religious thinkers, as well as the practice of koan study itself.
Following the spirit of Dogen's pioneering efforts to carry the dharma across cultural divides, John Daido Loori Roshi, one of the West's most respected Zen teachers, has added his own verses and commentaries to each koan. The resulting volume presents readers with a uniquely contemporary perspective on Dogen's profound teachings and their relevance for twenty-first-century Western practitioners of Zen.
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The True Dharma Eye: Zen Master Dogen's Three Hundred Koans
A collection of three hundred koans compiled by Eihei Dogen, the thirteenth-century founder of Soto Zen in Japan, this book presents readers with a uniquely contemporary perspective on his profound teachings and their relevance for modern Western practitioners of Zen. Following the traditional format for koan collections, John Daido Loori Roshi, an American Zen master, has added his own commentary and accompanying verse for each of Dogen’s koans. Zen students and scholars will find The True Dharma Eye to be a source of deep insight into the mind of one of the world’s greatest religious thinkers, as well as the practice of koan study itself.
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The Zen Art Box
by Stephen Addiss, John Daido Loori
A work of Zen art is a teaching in visual form, intended to be contemplated not only for its beauty, but for the secrets it contains about being fully human, fully alive. As teaching, Zen art can be profound, perplexing, serious, humorous—sometimes all within the same piece; as art, it stands somewhere outside standard aesthetic conventions, even those of other schools of Buddhist art. It is most often identified with the expressive medium of calligraphy or brush painting, but whatever the mood or medium, each work is the tangible record of an unrepeatable moment in the artist’s mind, an expression on paper of his or her understanding of the nature of things.
The Zen Art Box contains forty images of brush painting and calligraphy, each beautifully reproduced in fine quality on a 6 1/2" x 9" card that you can display on the enclosed folding easel stand. The back of each card includes an explanation of the art by Stephen Addiss along with commentary from John Daido Loori on the Zen wisdom contained in it. Also included is a 32-page color-illustrated booklet with essays on Zen art by both the authors.
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Finding the Still Point (Book and CD): A Beginner's Guide to Zen Meditation (Dharma Communications)
Through Zen meditation it is possible to find stillness of mind, even amidst our everyday activities—and this practical book-and-CD set reveals how. John Daido Loori, one of America's leading Zen teachers, offers everything needed to begin a meditation practice. He covers the basics of where to sit (on a cushion, bench, or chair), how to posture the body (complete with instructional photographs), and how to practice Zen meditation to discover the freedom of a peaceful mind.
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