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 enlarge | Author: John Daido Loori
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Category: Book
List Price: $18.00
Buy New: $10.00
You Save: $8.00 (44%)
New (30) Used (13) Collectible (2) from $10.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  16 reviews
Sales Rank: 19326
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 272
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 7.2 x 0.9
ISBN: 0345466330
Dewey Decimal Number: 294
EAN: 9780345466334
ASIN: 0345466330
Publication Date: May 31, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 John Dado Loori May 8, 2008
A most creative and quiet way to immerse yourself into the creative process...would highly recommend! Kate
 A Big Commitment for Creativity April 8, 2006
15 out of 27 found this review helpful
I am certain that even that torrent of innovation, Pablo Picasso, was interested in improving his creativity. So it's no surprise that the title of this book would pique the interest of artists
Loori is a photographer who adopted Zen and established a monastery that is noted for its way of integrating Zen and art. He begins the book by telling the story of how he came to be a Zen Buddhist after being influenced by the great photographer Minor White. He then explains how to adopt several Zen practices to enable one to be more creative and he describes exercises to develop these skills. These include the practices of still point, direct experience, caretaking, experiencing without identifying, and expressing things for what else they are. He next discusses the Zen aesthetic as expressed in various forms of Zen art with examples from history (or at least legend) and his personal experience. As the book progresses, various forms of enigmatic statements that appear to be common in the Zen tradition are introduced. For example, the author states "In the Zen transmission of wisdom, nothing is transmitted; nothing goes from teacher to student".
It would be nice if some principle could be extracted from a religion (for surely that's what Zen Buddhism is) that could be used by an artist without actually adopting the religion. On the other hand, I have never heard of a Christian way to be creative without being a Christian. So I suspect that Loori has placed the horse before the cart. If we are to practice the creativity of Zen Buddhism, we must first become Zen Buddhists and then the Zen creativity will come.
I'm not certain if readers are willing to adopt a religion to perhaps find new creativity as artists. I particularly wonder if an artist would be willing to confine his work to the constrained limits of what Zen art appears to be: haiku, pottery, calligraphy and so forth. I have always admired artists who work to innovate within rigidly defined standards, like the pueblo potters of the American southwest, but I have never been anxious to abandon my own art to adopt these traditions. Even the pictures that Loori provides of his Zen photographs, like the picture of a heron in black and white, look remarkably like the ink drawings shown throughout the book. I might have been more receptive if I had seen a color landscape that had been influenced by Zen principles.
I will acknowledge that I did not try the various exercises suggested by Loori throughout the book. It seemed clear that these were not one-shot exercises that could be tried and finished. Rather they were ways of behavior that would have to be practiced day after day to have an effect. And I was not interested in becoming a Zen Buddhist.
Even though I believe most artist will not want to adopt the path to creativity suggested by this book, I think artists will find it valuable to see how art is shaped by the cultural beliefs and milieu in which it is created.
great experience! February 24, 2006
0 out of 23 found this review helpful
i ordered the book for a class and the book arrived within a few days. also, in the condition that was stated on the website.
 Class September 29, 2005
4 out of 19 found this review helpful
I bought this bought for my design college course and it has been pretty helpful. I don't agree with all of the theories and practices but my teacher really does. It is good that I have to read it, it helps me understand him more. If you would like to learn practices of zen or zazen I'd recommend this book. It is also helpful if you like creative arts.
Perfection September 16, 2005
6 out of 9 found this review helpful
Before reading this book, look at it. Turn the pages, but do not stop to read. Let your gaze come to rest on a typical page of text and notice the artistry of the type setter. Each page is a Zen garden with emptiness bounded by lines printed in beautiful font, and perfectly spaced so that the eye follows word after word without effort. Illustrations and graphics hold the reader's attention with few words of explanation to bias the experience. Finally, look at the covers, front and back. The front cover deserves contemplation, not interpretation. I will point to one disturbing feature of these covers - tiny dots of intense red ink. These dots are so perfectly placed, three on the front and four on the back, and so subtly infused into the background that when you finally see them, it is difficult to look away. Perfection.
Loori's writing is equally sublime, effortlessly awakening the reader's creative spirit without ever saying what it is one should create or how it must done. Yet, in his portrayal of the lives of artists with whom he has studied, as with his own, we are not only granted an intimate view of the creative process, we are invited to begin the process ourselves. Most important of all is the invitation to 'sit' with your subject before doing anything at all. Loori invites to be quiet and have no preconceived notions so that when the time is right, the picture takes itself when creating photographic images, the painting paints itself, poetry has no author, and tea springs to life in the cup.
Finally, this book is much more than a treatise on creativity. It is book about life lived simply in the manner of a Zen master. In this instance, the master is John Daido Loori.
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