In October 2009, he stepped down as abbot citing health issues. Days later, Zen Mountain Monastery announced that his death was imminent.[3] On October 9, 2009, at 7:30 a.m. he died of lung cancer in Mount Tremper, New York.[1]
Biography
John Daido Loori was born in Jersey City, New Jersey and raised Roman Catholic.[4] As a child Loori loved photographing things, once using his family's bathroom as a makeshift dark room.[5] He served in the U.S. Navy from 1947 to 1952. Later, after studying at Rutgers, he worked as a chemist in the food industry[6] and led the American Civil Liberties Union in Orange and Sullivan Counties in New York.[2] As an adult he distanced himself from Catholicism and explored a variety of other religions.[4] Then, in 1971,[5] he attended a workshop given by the photographer Minor White. Loori came to study photography under White until his death and also learned meditation from him.[6] In 1972 Daido Loori began his formal Zen practice, studying in New York under Soen Nakagawa and then in California under Taizan Maezumi, Roshi.[2]
In 1980 Loori purchased 230 acres (0.93 km2) in New York which today serves as the site for Zen Mountain Monastery.[6] In 1983 he was made a Zen priest by Maezumi and in 1986 was given shiho (or, dharma transmission) by him. In 1997, he received dharma transmission in the Harada-Yasutani and Inzan lineages of Rinzai Zen as well. According to author Richard Hughes, this made Loori "one of three Western dharma-holders in both the Soto and Rinzai schools."[2]
Loori was a professional nature photographer, having once exhibited his work at the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan, New York.[5] He has also held various other shows and workshops on photography, including positions at Naropa University starting in 1974 and the Synechia Arts Center located in Middletown, New York;[6] his works have been published by Aperture and Time-Life.[2] His book, Hearing with the Eye: Photographs from Point Lobos, features Loori's abstract nature photography interwoven with commentary on Teachings of the Insentient by Eihei Dogen.[5]
Loori founded Dharma Communications as a way to communicate the dharma of the Mountains and Rivers Order. Dharma Communications publishes a Buddhist quarterly titled the Mountain Record, various audio-visual materials, and has also published several books by Daido Loori.[2] According to Charles S. Prebish, Dharma Communications is "one of the most efficient and successful publishers of Buddhist materials on the continent, and a place where practitioners can learn how to cultivate both mindfulness and compassion in front of a computer."[6]