Loori is the founder and spiritual leader of the Mountains and Rivers Order, and chief executive officer of Dharma Communications. As abbot of Zen Mountain Monastery, Loori has created an American Buddhist institution that is highly respected for its careful yet creative adaptation of traditional Asian Buddhism to the American context. He is the author of a dozen books related to Zen practice including well-known titles such as Still Point: A Beginner's Guide to Zen Meditation; The Heart of Being: Moral and Ethical Teachings of Zen; and The Eight Gates of Zen: Spiritual Training in an American Zen Monastery.
As founder and leader of Mountains and Rivers orders, Loori trains and teaches monastics and several thousand lay students through a network of temples, practice centers, and sitting groups both in this country and three affiliated centers in New Zealand. As c.e.o. of Dharma Communications he has established one of the leading vehicles for Buddhist education and outreach in the United States.
Loori began to practice Zen meditation in 1968. He studied with Soen Nakagawa, among the first Japanese masters to teach in the United States, and later with Taizan Maezumi, a Zen master and founder and director of Zen Center of Los Angeles. Loori received denkai (priestly transmission) from Maezumi in 1983 and shiho (dharma transmission) in 1986. In 1987 he underwent Zuisae, the ceremonial empowerment of the Soto School of Zen in their Japanese monasteries at Eihejhi and Sojiji. In 1989 he was officially installed as abbot of Zen Mountain Monastery in the traditional Mountain Seat ceremony. In 1994, Loori received Dendokyoshi Certification, a formal recognition by the Soto school of his status as a foreign-born Zen master and teacher. In 1997, he received dharma transmission in the Harada Yasutani lineage and Inzan lineage of the Rinzai school of Zen, making him one of only three westerners to hold lineages in both the Soto and Rinzai schools.
Dharma Communications produces Mountain Record, a Buddhist quarterly, Buddhist liturgical manuals, audio-visual materials, and videos including "Now I Know You: A Tribute to Taizan Maezumi Roshi," "Master Dogen's Metaphysics of Eating," and the award winning, "Mountains and Rivers."
The social services and arts are a major element of Buddhist study and practice at Zen Mountain Monastery under Loori. Community members are engaged in social work, from wilderness preservation to Buddhist prison missions. A trained photographer, Loori continues to teach creative photography, based on the traditional Zen arts and aesthetics, at colleges and universities in week-long and month-long workshops. Over the past 30 years he has exhibited his photography in more than 30 one-person shows and some 50 group shows in the United States and abroad. His work has been published in Aperture and Time-Life magazines. Loori and Zen Mountain Monastery have been featured by leading media such as Newsweek, ABC Nightly News, Tricycle and Utne Reader, and in publications and television productions in Russia, Japan and Korea.
