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.
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.
