Daido Quotes

#1. A recently deceased American Zen master and navy veteran, John Daido Loori, used to say that those who think Buddhism is just about stillness end up sitting very silently up to their necks in their own shit.

Mark Epstein

#2. The creative process, like a spiritual journey, is intuitive, non-linear, and experiential. It points us toward our essential nature, which is a reflection of the boundless creativity of the universe.

John Daido Loori

#3. There is no place to search for the truth. Though it's right beneath your feet, it can't be found.

John Daido Loori

#4. Making a definitive declaration of intent or meaning kills the photograph.

Daido Moriyama

#5. Just sitting does not involve reaching some understanding. It is the subtle activity of allowing all things to be completely at rest just as they are, not poking one's head into the workings of the world.

John Daido Loori

#6. In the action of no-action (wu-wei), a cardinal aspect of the true creative process is set forth. In wu-wei, the mind is silenced and the work is allowed to express itself.

John Daido Loori

#7. It is very rarely granted even to Nature herself to produce anything absolutely perfect in every part.

Leon Battista Alberti

#8. To be simple means to make a choice about what's important, and let go of all the rest. When we are able to do this, our vision expands, our heads clear, and we can better see the details of our lives in all their incredible wonder and beauty.

John Daido Loori

#9. Words and ideas are a description of reality, silence is a negation of reality. What is the reality itself?

John Daido Loori

#10. For me, photography is not a means by which to create beautiful art, but a unique way of encountering genuine reality

Daido Moriyama

#11. The photographer who attempts to fit happily into the world by using the traditional perspective of the camera will end up falling into the hole of the "idea" he has dug for himself.

Daido Moriyama

#12. I want to take a lot of Nasty photos.

Daido Moriyama

#13. To be still means to empty yourself from the incessant flow of thoughts and create a state of consciousness that is open and receptive.

John Daido Loori

#14. No creature, large or small, ever fails to cover the ground upon which it stands.

John Daido Loori

#15. I'm sorry Mr Lichtenstein, but your January birthday means only one thing and that's you're probably conceived
on April Fools Day.

Olivia Lichtenstein

#16. Wordless is not the same of expressionless. All phenomenon of the universe, audible and inaudible, tangible and intangible, sentient and insentient, are the clear and ceaseless expression of the buddha nature.

John Daido Loori

#17. If you miss the moment, you miss your life.

John Daido Loori

#18. What transpires for the least significant member transpires at once for the whole.

John Daido Loori

#19. The future doesn't exist. It hasn't happened yet. The past doesn't exist. It has already happened.

John Daido Loori

#20. He clambered out of the car, eager to show how quickly he could clamber out of cars, and followed at my shoulder as I strode over to the house.

Hugh Laurie

#21. I wanted to go to the end of photography.

Daido Moriyama

#22. It is possible to do something, and to do something meticulously and completely with out creating a goal ... all nature works this way.

John Daido Loori

#23. It's so mysterious, the land of tears.

Antoine De Saint-Exupery

#24. Creativity is our birthright. It is an integral part of being human, as basic as walking, talking and thinking.

John Daido Loori

#25. To know objects only through dissecting and cataloguing them is to miss their full reality. It is to fall asleep amidst the mystery and to become numb to the wonder of this great Earth.

John Daido Loori

#26. Most of what I want simply slips away like water flowing through a net, and always what remains are only vague, elusive fragments of images ... that sink into countless strata in my mind.

Daido Moriyama

#27. [My] photos are often out of focus, rough, streaky, warped, etc. But if you think about it, a normal human being will in one day perceive an infinite number of images, and some of them are focused upon, others are barely seen out of the corner of one's eye.

Daido Moriyama

#28. Photography is the act of "fixing" time, not of "expressing" the world. The camera is an inadequate tool for extracting a vision of the world or of beauty.

Daido Moriyama

#29. If you were to ask me to define a photograph in a few words, I would say it is a fossil of light and time.

Daido Moriyama

#30. Voyaging begins when one burns one's boats, adventures begin with a shipwreck.

Michel Serres