zen/photo John Daido Loori / Minor White

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John Daido Loori Roshi was in the orbit of many who influenced me importantly. I never met the man. I'm not a zen practitioner...I have a semi-faux-buddhist orientation, when I'm talking about these things.</p>

<p>A student of Minor White, he taught photography and became a zen monk. In the video he talks about moments and about the use of koans in photo instruction. A brief, intensive photo class, taught by Conrad Forbes, another of Minor White's students in 1969, culminated in a photo koan (a verbally unanswerable question.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Zen-Creativity-Cultivating-Your-Artistic/dp/0345466330/ref=sr_1_33?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1260229598&sr=8-33">http://www.amazon.com/Zen-Creativity-Cultivating-Your-Artistic/dp/0345466330/ref=sr_1_33?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1260229598&sr=8-33</a></p>

<p>John Daido Loori died October 9, 2009. </p>

<p>Thanks for the link. It sounded so interesting that I have 3 books on the way from Amazon.</p>

<p>Go to the library and read it for free. If your local library doesn't have it, they can get it for you through interlibrary loan. As long as it isn't new or almost new, you can get almost any book from your library. This one is Copyright 2004. It should not be a problem.</p>

<p>Here's some of his photography: <a href="http://www.johndaidoloori.org/">http://www.johndaidoloori.org/</a></p>

<p>There are a quite a few Youtube and non-photo links. </p>

<p> Zen is a discipline centering on simplicity, non-striving, and (this sounds ridiculous, doesn't capture the idea) non-thinking: Non-thinking while doing the dishes, for example...just doing the work for its own sake, paying attention rather than fantasizing. Someone else may hop in to express it more clearly and accurately than that.</p>

<p>Minor White, the roshi's own photo teacher, was a seeker...a Catholic, then zen practitioner who became interested in Gurdjieff, a Russian muslim (Sufi) who was primarily concerned with being fully awake (as opposed to seeking enlightenment). Gurdjieff and his followers taught what seemed to me (in my brief exposure to a Group) to be a discipline intended to minimize self-delusion. Again, someone may express that better. White is known mostly for his images in nature, but I think his greatest accomplishment had to do with teaching. </p>