"If you've wandered here wanting to know what Zen is, then more than likely you will come away disappointed."
  --Zen@SunSite

The Zen of Photography:

The Zen of Photojournalism

by Dr. Paul Lester, University of California at Fullerton.

Zen and the Art of Photography, by Robert Leverant, is still our first choice for a Zen photography text, but it was last published in 1968, and it's very hard to find.  The Zen of Photojournalism has been a good second choice since it was first published in 1993.  The bad news is that the text is no longer online; the book has been revised and renamed as The Zen of Photography. The good news is that this link will take you where you can order one for $10.95.  It's worth it.

Zen of Photography

A serious attempt at explaining the relationship.  Gets a bit deep sometimes, wanders off the subject and you have to wade through several pages (Zen is never straightforward), but it's mostly worth the effort.

Zen Garden Photographs

When we first put together the Zen links a few years ago, we were taken with a single photograph, by Haruzo Ohashi, of a Zen garden.  When updating the links recently, we were saddened that the Ohashi link was no longer.   But we were delighted to find another site with many Ohashi garden pictures.  Peaceful.  And interesting, to try to figure out if the peacefulness comes from the gardens or from the photographs of the gardens.  Does it matter?  The server seems a bit slow, but it's worth it.

Black Feather Photography by William Rain

Nice name.   Nice pictures.  When you do a web search for Zen and photography, you find a lot of nature pictures.  Few really achieve the combination.  Rain does.

zenandphotography.com

Nice name.

"I never calculate. That is why those who do, calculate so much less accurately than I." --Picasso

The pictures, by Lee Phalen and John Greer, rely mostly on abstraction for their Zen, and aren't as elegant as Rain's. The site is worth a visit, though, if only for the thoughtful quotes.

Make Love with Light

(From the Zen Mountain Monastery).  Pictures by John Daido Loori, Roshi.  Several galleries, but we liked these pictures the best.  Great light is the path to great photography.

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Plain Zen:

Zen@SunSite

When you visit here, the first thing you will read is the admonition, "If you've wandered here wanting to know what Zen is, then more than likely you will come away disappointed."  That makes this as good a place to start as any.

"One of the central points of Zen is intuitive understanding.  As a result, words and sentences have no fixed meaning, and logic is often irrelevant.  Words have meaning only in relation to who is using them, who they are talking to, and what situation they are used in.  Some postings (to their alt.zen group) are indeed nonsense; other postings appear to be nonsense at first but this is because the meaning is all between the lines.  Zen and poetry have gone hand in hand for centuries." --Zen@SunSite

The same should certainly apply to Zen and photography.

Zen Guide

Indeed.  Beautifully designed and organized, and as simple and straightforward as any attempt to explain Zen gets.  Yahoo calls it the ultimate on-line guide to Zen and Buddhism.

Zen Meditation: The Seat of Enlightenment

(From the Zen Mountain Monastery).  Zazen is a particular form of meditation, unique to Zen.  Basically, zazen is the study of the self.  The great Master Dogen said, "To study the Buddha Way is to study the self, to study the self is to forget the self, and to forget the self is to be enlightened by the ten thousand things."  Pressing the shutter release at just the right moment in space and time requires a unique sense of self.  Zazen can't hurt.

Zen

Very interesting.  A Flash Zen experience; a contradiction in terms, you'd think. Quite a challenge to get web surfers to slow down for this. The site's message is limited, but effective.

Zen stories to tell your neighbors

Not the only place you can find these stories, but this presentation is nicely done.

The Zennist - Dark Zen - The teachings of Mystical Zen Buddhism

Questions -- "What is mystical Zen Buddhism?" "What is Dark Zen?" The answers outline an alternative Zen philosophy.

Zen and the Art of the Internet

The only Zen we've found here is in the title. This was first published in 1992, ancient history in tech time, so it's probably more a novelty than it is useful. Still has some good information, though.

Frivolous Zen:

Zen Puzzle Page

All somewhat amusing, but the best is the Zen Connect the Dot.

Zen Jokes

How many Zen masters does it take to screw in a light bulb? And others. Is a Zen joke supposed to be funny?

Zen -- Without the Wait

The Bonsai Potato. Get a Bonsai Potato kit. We can't describe this. See it for yourself.

Club Zen

Another hit you might get from a search for Zen. It's actually "Your Guide to Asian Nightlife and Entertainment." The Club part is obvious. The Zen part is a bit more elusive.

Loud Zen!

According to the creator of this site, "Loud Zen" is the name of the startup sound of Macintosh Quadra computers. So that means he liked this sound so much he bought a domain name and created a web site around it. Enough said. Except, we suppose, that if YOU love this sound, you can get a copy of it here.

Top Ten Reasons Why Zen Is Like Sex

Can you resist checking this out?

The Zen Intergalactic Ninja Home Page

This unlikely (Zen and ninja coexisting???) comic book hero is now the star of an action movie directed by Brian Yuzna, best known for "Reanimator" and "Bride of Reanimator," both being billed as "cult classics."

You can get your very own Zen Intergalactic Ninja model kit here. Or a Game Boy video game at your favorite WalMart.

If that's not enough, you can probably score a Zen Intergalactic Ninja action figure. (They're no longer available at retail, but you can find them for auction at places like eBay.)

And if that's not enough, you can run down to your favorite comics store and get a copy of "The Roswell Incident" featuring "everyone's favorite blue-skinned alien" and the Barbi Twins, the "titanic twins of Playboy and bestselling calendar fame."

Surely that's enough.

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