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by Jerry Novesky Issue 48 (December 09-February 10) [Copyright © 2009, The Valley Table] Long before John Loori became abbot of the Zen Mountain Monastery and decided its associated properties should remain wild and untouched, long before he became a monk and founder of the Mountains and Rivers Order, a loose organization of Zen study centers across the U.S. and internationally, long before he was named dharma heir to Hakuyu Taizan Maezumi Roshi, long before he helped again unify art and everyday life and the spirit of Zen--long before any of these things happened, Loori had a dog, a magnificent, nearly black full-sized, collie, a gentle, breathlessly beautiful animal named Apache. Whenever I think about Loori, which is surprisingly often, I always think about that dog. Apache died long ago; John Daido Loori died of cancer on October 9. He left a legacy of writing, teaching and creative expression that literally touched thousands who visited and studied at the monastery in Mt. Tremper, in the Catskills, as well as thousands more who could study at one of the Zen centers in New York or Los Angeles associated with the order. (The Zen Mountain Monastery, in fact, was featured as part of an article on food in the region's spiritual retreats. See "On the spiritual in food," Valley Table 15.) He authored 20 books on Buddhist practice, the interpretation of Zen koans, and about something for which he was particularly known--the integration of Zen and art and everyday existence, an approach to Zen practice that has made the Mountains and Rivers Order particularly popular in the United States, and which brought him well-deserved credit for helping to bring Buddhist practice to America. He was a teacher, an artist and a Zen master of the highest order. I knew Loori in this lifetime, though in a different life. In the mid-1970s, he was teaching photography at the Synechia Art Center in Middletown, a place where, looking back, some of the principles for which he would later become so well respected may have been honed. I served briefly on the center's board of directors, just before it closed. During that brief period, we traded notes on each other's photography; somewhere, I guess, we may have shared a sensibility, though mine was that of an amateur while his was deep, refined (four of his books are on photography), and traceable to one of America's great photographers, Minor White, with whom he had studied both photography and meditation a few years earlier. I was surprised at how deep my sorrow went when I learned of Loori's death. I remember the story he told of how he had forged papers to join the Navy at 16 (much later, he was nearly ostracized by the Zen elders because of a tattoo he had acquired then but refused to remove). Me, I've got two artificial knees, two cats and way too much clutter in the parts of my brain that still function correctly. His students, fellow monks and teachers will miss his Puckish smile and easy way, no doubt. I don't, because I already did. |
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