Leader of Mount Tremper monastery dies at 78

MOUNT TREMPER [New York State] — As monks gather at the Zen Mountain Monastery here to celebrate the life of their recently deceased abbot and spiritual leader, they emit a continuing mantra about his life: teacher.

John Daido Loori, who carried the title roshi, died at the monastery on Friday at age 78 after battling cancer.

“He was our spiritual director, but his overarching role was guiding and teaching,” said Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, a sensei, or teacher, who serves as vice abbot and branch president of the Zen Center of New York and also manages the National Buddhist Prison Sangha.

“Everyone who comes here experienced him in the present tense as teacher, but the monastery really opened them up to a whole new way of living and being,” Arnold said on Friday.

Loori was founder of the Mountains and Rivers Order of Zen Buddhism, abbot of the Zen Mountain Monastery on Plank Road in Mount Tremper and one of the most influential Zen teachers in the West.  Read Article

By Ann Gibbons