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The Zen Of Steve Jobs

Posted: 01/13/12 02:14 PM ET

Apple cofounder Steve Jobs (1955-2011) had such an enormous impact on so many people that his life often took on aspects of myth. But much of his success was due to collaboration with designers, engineers, and thinkers. "The Zen of Steve Jobs" [Wiley, $19.95] tells the story of Jobs's relationship with one such person: Kobun Chino Otogawa. Kobun was a Zen Buddhist priest who emigrated to the United States from Japan in the early 1970s. He was an innovator, lacked appreciation for rules, and was passionate about art and design. Kobun was to Buddhism as Jobs was to the computer business: a renegade and maverick. It wasn't long before the two became friends--a relationship that was not built to last. This graphic book is a reimagining of that friendship. The story moves back and forth in time, from the 1970s to 2011, but centers on the period after Jobs's exile from Apple in 1985 when he took up intensive study with Kobun. Their time together was integral to the big leaps that Apple took later on with its product design and business strategy. Told using stripped-down dialogue and bold calligraphic panels, The Zen of Steve Jobs explores how Jobs might have honed his design aesthetic through the study of Eastern religion, but in the end, he took from Zen only what he needed and left the rest behind.

 
Apple cofounder Steve Jobs (1955-2011) had such an enormous impact on so many people that his life often took on aspects of myth. But much of his success was due to collaboration with designers, engin...
Apple cofounder Steve Jobs (1955-2011) had such an enormous impact on so many people that his life often took on aspects of myth. But much of his success was due to collaboration with designers, engin...
 
 
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10:40 PM on 01/16/2012
Which zen does not object to.
HDR
In every dreamhome, a heartache
11:19 AM on 01/15/2012
Now I know how the ancient Hebrews felt when they missed the Jesus bus! If Jobs were a Catholic he would've been sainted by now!
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BlackJAC
It's better to be a black king than a white knight
05:14 PM on 01/14/2012
I'm not surprised, for the man was a hippie who got the name for the company as a callback to time he spent working in an apple orchard.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
jeffhintx
Yummy gruel! Thanks 1 percent!
12:52 PM on 01/14/2012
So now a Buddhist is going to turn Steve Jobs into an Eastern Jesus?
I've had enough, this is beyond absurd.
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vandegrasse
Don't Panic
12:00 AM on 01/14/2012
The Japanese have always excelled at minimalist design. Their whole concept of wabi-sabi is the explanation for this!
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
rotorhead1871
who are you jivin' with that cosmic debris?...
01:14 AM on 01/14/2012
they live on a little island with less land mass than Montana.......they got a reason....
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Demos 0
HP..Edit language & hate....Not Ideas
02:32 AM on 01/14/2012
You going to HAI?
02:56 PM on 01/14/2012
And 70% of it mountains and forest.
02:44 AM on 01/14/2012
It is why we decorate with a sort of Japanese/asian theme in our house.

Simple but beautiful. I hate clutter which is what most people seem to think is the way to go.
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RButler
"Who wouldn't love a person who had a pony?"
10:12 AM on 01/14/2012
I hate clutter too but I'm always battling it. I once went to a nice furniture store in the LA area back in the 80s as I had a new and empty house to furnish. The first thing the salesman asked was if I had any collections to display. I then recalled that at that time seeing home magazines featuring people's homes with walls of 'collections', you know, of rolling pins from around the world or other nonsense. I think that was just the fad of the 80s. Glad that's over. Sometimes a person's collection works and at other times, it's a phony affect.
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Yvonne Serocki
wellness is inspired
11:40 PM on 01/13/2012
Didn't the Buddha say to take what resonates, try it out in your own life, and leave the rest? It seems like all sincere paths offer the freedom to choose. Yeshua never forced anyone to heal or be free. He looked at the inward being and spiritually perceived the intention of the heart. We are all free to choose to believe or not believe. "O taste and see that Adonai is good! Happy is the person that takes refuge in him!" Psalm 34:8
"May God grant you your heart's desire, and fulfill all your plans" Psalm 20:4.
www.newheavenonearth.wordpress.com
11:32 PM on 01/13/2012
Apple should produce an app for the iPhone which detects how enlightened a person is at any given moment. I'm sure the wisdom of a Zen master could be encoded in a computer program. When the new brainwave-sensor accessory for the iPhone detects thoughts, interpretation, judging, worrying, etc, in a user suffering a fit of unenlightenment, the new electronically-activated Zen hitting stick accessory will replace those thoughts with immediate, unprocessed, meaningless, unexplained, unjustified, undeniable pain. BAM! Enlightenment restored!

The app could, at unpredictable times, further frustrate the formation of thoughts by shouting a dizzying series of utterly befuddling Zen koans. At other times the app would chant a single word for many hours, destroying all meaning of it, and absorbing the full unthinking attention of the user.

But then the app would test the user by showing an "enlightenment score", comparing it with other users! The only way to win at the enlightenment game is to be absolutely indifferent about playing!
12:03 AM on 01/14/2012
Painfully unfunny, sorry. Trite too.
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jlab
06:20 AM on 01/14/2012
Time for you to do better. We're waiting.
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sallybutt45
To thine own self be true.
06:34 AM on 01/14/2012
You are so wrong, that's hilarious s---t!
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MichaelMcKLA
I'm moving to Pandora.
02:24 AM on 01/14/2012
I like it. Let's build the app. :)
11:19 PM on 01/13/2012
Do this: do nothing.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
jgarma
11:08 PM on 01/13/2012
Yes, some say that Steve Jobs' yen for Zen work outflowed into everything he did, but his often turbulent relationships suggests that there were high hurdles for him to consistently practice along Buddhist dictates.

This is examined in "Did Steve Jobs’ Life Exemplify Zen Buddhism?" here: http://wp.me/pA04z-O6
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Gerald Sheffield
Suspicious hooded black man....Dangerous.
11:04 PM on 01/13/2012
Nice. I had a feeling this was coming soon.
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Tiggy
11:04 PM on 01/13/2012
And to think that we are taught to learn from our surroundings and apply what we like to everyday life and toss the rest. That is simply living, learning and growing...a natural part of the life process.
10:37 PM on 01/13/2012
Long Live Woz!
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donafelipa
10:10 PM on 01/13/2012
Steve Jobs was NO Zen Buddhist.
HUFFPOST SUPER USER
miamorphos
10:55 PM on 01/13/2012
Oh, the Western veneration of an obscure strand of Eastern thought is just the Western determination not to pay attention to other strands of Eastern thought. If a psychopathic CEO wants to pretend to be part of the sect, or a Tibetan Buddhist, let him. It frees up the other religious philosophies and keeps them pure.
01:26 AM on 01/14/2012
But we are talking about a philosophy that was routed in a culture that is in no way similar to western culture so who is to say that if it were translated into western lifestyle that it would not look like a techie peacenik who learned to embrace life yet had a quite determination that was peaceful on one hand (in an eastern sense) yet fast paced and almost calculating (in a western sense)?
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beerbagger
12-pack of genius
02:24 AM on 01/14/2012
Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche asked "What happens if you become enlightened? You are about to become an ego-maniac."

Steve got close enough see but not really... fell for ego instead.
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Lynda Filler
Telling it the way I see it.
09:47 PM on 01/13/2012
...
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Sibil
09:45 PM on 01/13/2012
What, Dead?