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Ambivalent Zen : One Man's Adventures on the Dharma Path
Seeking help with his basketball game, Shainberg embraced Zen Buddhism in 1951 and was catapulted on a life-long spiritual journey. Alternately comic and reverential, Ambivalent Zen chronicles the rewards and dangers of spiritual ambition and presents a poignant reflection of the experiences faced by many Americans involved in the Zen movement.
336 pages, Paperback
First published January 13, 1996
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June 11, 2020
An excellent, entertaining and, dare I say, enlightening memoir by Lawrence Shainberg that I've been meaning to read since it came out in 1995. Took me so long to get around to it because Zen and its philosophy—its contradictions, like "perfect imperfection," maybe, but not maybe, maybe—stuff like that, twist up my mind and confound way worse than this sentence likely does for you. Had I read the book when it came out, I would've long ago realized I'm not alone. Though while I've barely scratched the surface of Zen, Shainberg went in deep and in Ambivalent Zen recounts his spiritual pursuits over decades, his endless effort to sit zazen correctly, with the perfect posture, and his experience with the rōshi Kyudo Nakagawa, who led the Soho Zen Buddhist Society in Manhattan. He covers a lot of other ground as well, family relationships, the business of Zen, history of Buddhism... We see him balancing his frustrations and ambitions, and these colliding too, which Shainberg describes for us with a masterful mix of wit and wisdom. A great book to read again.
February 9, 2019
After sesshin this year, I felt an urge to read books about Zen (usually I want to read anything but), not dharma books, but memoirs of Zen experience. First I turned to a book that only a sideways look at Zen, by a man who practiced reluctantly, Bones of the Master: A Journey to Secret Mongolia by George Crane. Then I reread, for the third or fourth time, my all-time favorite memoir of spiritual practice, Ambivalent Zen, by Lawrence Shainberg.
Shainberg has published fiction and non-fiction, including an excellent monograph on his favorite writer, Samuel Beckett, in addition to this memoir. In a way this seems a book not only about his teacher and his practice, but his whole life. And he organizes it so that he shuttles through various time periods, which skillfully comment on one another. It’s a virtuoso performance.
Shainberg followed his father’s interest in spiritual matters; the elder Shainberg made his money as a Memphis businessman, then spent the rest of his life in an anguished but very sincere kind of seeking, reading spiritual literature and seeking out teachers on a personal level. Young Larry, who was more interested in his tennis game, nevertheless attended talks by Krishnamurti[1] and had lunch with Alan Watts. Years later, a woman friend got him interested in Zen, and Shainberg embraced it wholeheartedly, sitting multiple times per day and going on retreats. His problem was that the practice seemed to cure his writing bug: he didn’t feel the need to write, and sometimes wasn’t able to, when he was practicing most seriously. The two most absorbing activities of his life were somehow at odds.[2] He struggled to find balance.[3]
He was also, constantly—he picked the right title for his book—ambivalent about Zen. We all have this feeling to some extent, but Shainberg had it in spades. He would want to go on retreat, spend weeks anticipating it, then get there and be disappointed, feel like leaving (once he actually did, then immediately regretted it). He hilariously illustrates the human tendency always to want the thing we do not have. He also seems to be living out a version of his father’s ambivalence. The old man could never commit to anything; Shainberg keeps committing then pulling back.
From the start he found himself in the Rinzai School of Zen, which seems to include a greater wish for achievement than Soto and a more competitive spirit (though no Buddhist practice is immune from those things). Almost immediately he ran into a series of Rinzai Assholes, including one who had this to say about his posture, “How’d you get that crooked spine, accident or something? . . . I can tell you one thing—if you want to study Zen, you better get yourself straightened out. Zen is posture and posture is Zen. With a back like that, you’re wasting your time on the cushion.” The man later made this pronouncement on Shainberg’s oryoki form. “You still don’t get it, do you? . . . When you finish eating, your jihatsu should be tight, all of a piece. If you do it right, it should look as if you’ve never used it. . . . Yours, my friend, look like something you bought at a flea market.”
Shainberg also ran into a fascinating character named Chang Wei, who practiced and taught Zen along with various martial arts, who claimed to be able to infuse people with his energy and to heal various diseases (he sometimes even sent energy by phone, putting the receiver near his hara during zazen). The man had an interesting take on the practice of sitting meditation. “It is his view that one should never relax while on the cushion. After sitting, one should feel totally exhausted, and those who don’t can be sure they’ve wasted their time.” That, I would say, is the polar opposite of how we practice Soto Zen.
But because of the skillful way Shainberg alternates time sequences—this was a canny strategy on his part—the entire book is dominated by his portrayal of the man who ultimately became his true teacher, Kyudo Nakagawa Roshi. Kyudo became a monk at the age of six and lived a celibate life, apparently because of a promise he made his own teacher, the famous Soen Roshi. He practiced for years with his teacher, then had a small zendo in, of all places, Israel, then founded the zendo in New York where Shainberg practiced with him.
Neither of the places he presided over was a major institution; the zendo in Israel, for instance, where he spent thirteen years, had fewer members than my own practice place, the Chapel Hill Zen Center. Kyudo nevertheless led the same daily with great devotion, sitting for two hours (three thirty minute periods) morning and evening, meeting with students and caring for the zendo. He seems to have no ambivalence about Zen at all, and his constant exhortations to Shainberg, his fascinating pronouncements about Zen in general, form the heart of the book
Ambivalent Zen has a particular poignance because Shainberg’s last teacher before Kyudo Roshi, Bernard Glassman, recently died, and Shainberg’s portrait of the man is fascinating. Glassman was three years younger than Shainberg, famous as a Zen prodigy; he sailed through the koans with Maezumi Roshi, then was told by his teacher to leave L.A. and start a sister zendo in New York. Glassman’s teaching is often brilliant; his disquisition on the Heart Sutra, at least the way Shainberg renders it, is one of the most fascinating I’ve ever heard. And he was anything but a Rinzai Zen Asshole, a warm and encouraging man.
He was nevertheless such a visionary that he couldn’t help continuing to envision, wanting a larger and more complicated program, getting further and further into debt (he had cannily made Shainberg into one of his major officers, knowing the man had money to donate). He eventually got so involved in his various enterprises that he—and many of his students—abandoned zazen altogether, behavior that would be scandalous in the Soto world. Shainberg eventually left him for the much less ambitious Kyudo, who always seemed satisfied with whatever modest enterprise he was running. He was never famous, like Glassman. But he seems a truer Zen man.
I felt this book reached an apotheosis at the end, something I hadn’t noticed in previous readings. There is a wonderful meeting between Kyudo Roshi and Shainberg’s aging parents, which expresses the essence of Zen and resolves any feeling of ambivalence that the reader might have. The truth is that there are all kinds of ambivalences and paradoxes in the theory of Zen, but in practice we wipe them away. We’re stunned to find out, for instance, that Kyudo prays every day for the people on his sangha, and when Shainberg asks why he does such a thing, in the midst of a non-theistic practice, Kyudo gives the true Zen response. “I have no idea. When I pray, I just pray.” He has the same kind of response to the elder Shainberg’s favorite teacher.
“Ask him has he read Krishnamurti,” Shainberg’s father says. [Shainberg is acting as a translator between his parents and teacher because, what with hearing problems and their various accents, they don’t understand each other.]
“’Yes, of course,”’ says Roshi when I’ve relayed the question. ‘Very intelligent, beautiful words.’
“’Tell him, Krishnamurti hates spiritual practice or any kind of formal meditation.’
“’Laughing, Roshi offers him a friendly pat on the shoulder. ‘Yes, yes! Very intelligent! I feel same.’
“’Then what’s all that about?’ says Dad, waving his hand in the direction of the zendo. . . . ‘How can he maintain this establishment if he doesn’t believe in formal meditation?’
“Once again, Roshi doesn’t wait for me to translate. ‘Please you tell him—I have no idea.’”
This is a marvelous and entertaining book by a true Zen student, however ambivalent, and rewards multiple readings. I can’t recommend it too highly.
Shainberg has published fiction and non-fiction, including an excellent monograph on his favorite writer, Samuel Beckett, in addition to this memoir. In a way this seems a book not only about his teacher and his practice, but his whole life. And he organizes it so that he shuttles through various time periods, which skillfully comment on one another. It’s a virtuoso performance.
Shainberg followed his father’s interest in spiritual matters; the elder Shainberg made his money as a Memphis businessman, then spent the rest of his life in an anguished but very sincere kind of seeking, reading spiritual literature and seeking out teachers on a personal level. Young Larry, who was more interested in his tennis game, nevertheless attended talks by Krishnamurti[1] and had lunch with Alan Watts. Years later, a woman friend got him interested in Zen, and Shainberg embraced it wholeheartedly, sitting multiple times per day and going on retreats. His problem was that the practice seemed to cure his writing bug: he didn’t feel the need to write, and sometimes wasn’t able to, when he was practicing most seriously. The two most absorbing activities of his life were somehow at odds.[2] He struggled to find balance.[3]
He was also, constantly—he picked the right title for his book—ambivalent about Zen. We all have this feeling to some extent, but Shainberg had it in spades. He would want to go on retreat, spend weeks anticipating it, then get there and be disappointed, feel like leaving (once he actually did, then immediately regretted it). He hilariously illustrates the human tendency always to want the thing we do not have. He also seems to be living out a version of his father’s ambivalence. The old man could never commit to anything; Shainberg keeps committing then pulling back.
From the start he found himself in the Rinzai School of Zen, which seems to include a greater wish for achievement than Soto and a more competitive spirit (though no Buddhist practice is immune from those things). Almost immediately he ran into a series of Rinzai Assholes, including one who had this to say about his posture, “How’d you get that crooked spine, accident or something? . . . I can tell you one thing—if you want to study Zen, you better get yourself straightened out. Zen is posture and posture is Zen. With a back like that, you’re wasting your time on the cushion.” The man later made this pronouncement on Shainberg’s oryoki form. “You still don’t get it, do you? . . . When you finish eating, your jihatsu should be tight, all of a piece. If you do it right, it should look as if you’ve never used it. . . . Yours, my friend, look like something you bought at a flea market.”
Shainberg also ran into a fascinating character named Chang Wei, who practiced and taught Zen along with various martial arts, who claimed to be able to infuse people with his energy and to heal various diseases (he sometimes even sent energy by phone, putting the receiver near his hara during zazen). The man had an interesting take on the practice of sitting meditation. “It is his view that one should never relax while on the cushion. After sitting, one should feel totally exhausted, and those who don’t can be sure they’ve wasted their time.” That, I would say, is the polar opposite of how we practice Soto Zen.
But because of the skillful way Shainberg alternates time sequences—this was a canny strategy on his part—the entire book is dominated by his portrayal of the man who ultimately became his true teacher, Kyudo Nakagawa Roshi. Kyudo became a monk at the age of six and lived a celibate life, apparently because of a promise he made his own teacher, the famous Soen Roshi. He practiced for years with his teacher, then had a small zendo in, of all places, Israel, then founded the zendo in New York where Shainberg practiced with him.
Neither of the places he presided over was a major institution; the zendo in Israel, for instance, where he spent thirteen years, had fewer members than my own practice place, the Chapel Hill Zen Center. Kyudo nevertheless led the same daily with great devotion, sitting for two hours (three thirty minute periods) morning and evening, meeting with students and caring for the zendo. He seems to have no ambivalence about Zen at all, and his constant exhortations to Shainberg, his fascinating pronouncements about Zen in general, form the heart of the book
Ambivalent Zen has a particular poignance because Shainberg’s last teacher before Kyudo Roshi, Bernard Glassman, recently died, and Shainberg’s portrait of the man is fascinating. Glassman was three years younger than Shainberg, famous as a Zen prodigy; he sailed through the koans with Maezumi Roshi, then was told by his teacher to leave L.A. and start a sister zendo in New York. Glassman’s teaching is often brilliant; his disquisition on the Heart Sutra, at least the way Shainberg renders it, is one of the most fascinating I’ve ever heard. And he was anything but a Rinzai Zen Asshole, a warm and encouraging man.
He was nevertheless such a visionary that he couldn’t help continuing to envision, wanting a larger and more complicated program, getting further and further into debt (he had cannily made Shainberg into one of his major officers, knowing the man had money to donate). He eventually got so involved in his various enterprises that he—and many of his students—abandoned zazen altogether, behavior that would be scandalous in the Soto world. Shainberg eventually left him for the much less ambitious Kyudo, who always seemed satisfied with whatever modest enterprise he was running. He was never famous, like Glassman. But he seems a truer Zen man.
I felt this book reached an apotheosis at the end, something I hadn’t noticed in previous readings. There is a wonderful meeting between Kyudo Roshi and Shainberg’s aging parents, which expresses the essence of Zen and resolves any feeling of ambivalence that the reader might have. The truth is that there are all kinds of ambivalences and paradoxes in the theory of Zen, but in practice we wipe them away. We’re stunned to find out, for instance, that Kyudo prays every day for the people on his sangha, and when Shainberg asks why he does such a thing, in the midst of a non-theistic practice, Kyudo gives the true Zen response. “I have no idea. When I pray, I just pray.” He has the same kind of response to the elder Shainberg’s favorite teacher.
“Ask him has he read Krishnamurti,” Shainberg’s father says. [Shainberg is acting as a translator between his parents and teacher because, what with hearing problems and their various accents, they don’t understand each other.]
“’Yes, of course,”’ says Roshi when I’ve relayed the question. ‘Very intelligent, beautiful words.’
“’Tell him, Krishnamurti hates spiritual practice or any kind of formal meditation.’
“’Laughing, Roshi offers him a friendly pat on the shoulder. ‘Yes, yes! Very intelligent! I feel same.’
“’Then what’s all that about?’ says Dad, waving his hand in the direction of the zendo. . . . ‘How can he maintain this establishment if he doesn’t believe in formal meditation?’
“Once again, Roshi doesn’t wait for me to translate. ‘Please you tell him—I have no idea.’”
This is a marvelous and entertaining book by a true Zen student, however ambivalent, and rewards multiple readings. I can’t recommend it too highly.
March 10, 2025
A first-hand account of American Zen in the 70s and 80s.
Shainberg was almost destined to witness the early explosion of American Zen. His father, a wealthy, neurotic Memphis businessman, was an avid reader of psychology and religion (Freud, Erich Fromm, Krishnamurti, Alan Watts) and enthusiastically regaled his family over the dinner table with his latest convictions. Inspired by this reading, he takes his teenage son to New York and California to attend lectures by Watts and Krishnamurti.
Shainberg's exposure to oriental religion is reinforced through psychoanalysis. Shainberg Sr. has enrolled with a New York analyst, and is so impressed that he pays for his two sons to also attend. Here, Shainberg is told that Zen and Krishnamurti are just extensions of psychoanalysis, all part of the same program for tackling neuroses (something the Shainbergs have in spades).
Having moved to New York, Shainberg meets the first Zen practitioner of his own age, and is introduced to a small Zendo. From here, his next two decades are spent in an on-again/off-again pursuit of Zen enlightenment. He becomes a student of, successively, Eido Shimano (New York Zendo and Dai Bosatsu Zendo in the Catskill Mountains), Chang Wei (a New York martial arts teacher), Bernie Glassman (Zen Center of Los Angeles, and then Zen Community of New York), and finally Kyudo Nakagawa (Soho Zen Buddhist Society).
Shainberg's memoires reveal how money was readily available to Zen teachers in the 70s and 80s. Wealthy patrons bought into the novelty and promise of Zen, but rather than spending hours on the cushion, won recognition by funding the costly Zen centers being established by Shimano and Glassman. (Chang Wei, by contrast, had a lower budget hustle charging dojo members $1,000 for a series of hands-on "energizing sessions".)
Ambivalent Zen also reveals the dependency between Zen teachers and students. Shainberg may have been particularly prone to this, admitting to a recurrent search for father figures. But domineering Zen teachers is a larger problem: Shainberg notes the revelations of long-standing sexual abuse by Shimano as well as the careless approach by Glassman to his students, being quite ready to use them as restaurant waitstaff, as long as it earned a buck for the zendo.
While Shainberg's accounts are instructive, they lack a clear statement on whether he feels his decades of Zen practice to have been worthwhile. He tends to emphasize what appear, at the time, to be special insights gained during peak periods of sitting, rather than how his approach to life has evolved over time. One feels that, even as the memoire draws to a close, Shainberg still hasn't found himself through Zen.
Shainberg was almost destined to witness the early explosion of American Zen. His father, a wealthy, neurotic Memphis businessman, was an avid reader of psychology and religion (Freud, Erich Fromm, Krishnamurti, Alan Watts) and enthusiastically regaled his family over the dinner table with his latest convictions. Inspired by this reading, he takes his teenage son to New York and California to attend lectures by Watts and Krishnamurti.
Shainberg's exposure to oriental religion is reinforced through psychoanalysis. Shainberg Sr. has enrolled with a New York analyst, and is so impressed that he pays for his two sons to also attend. Here, Shainberg is told that Zen and Krishnamurti are just extensions of psychoanalysis, all part of the same program for tackling neuroses (something the Shainbergs have in spades).
Having moved to New York, Shainberg meets the first Zen practitioner of his own age, and is introduced to a small Zendo. From here, his next two decades are spent in an on-again/off-again pursuit of Zen enlightenment. He becomes a student of, successively, Eido Shimano (New York Zendo and Dai Bosatsu Zendo in the Catskill Mountains), Chang Wei (a New York martial arts teacher), Bernie Glassman (Zen Center of Los Angeles, and then Zen Community of New York), and finally Kyudo Nakagawa (Soho Zen Buddhist Society).
Shainberg's memoires reveal how money was readily available to Zen teachers in the 70s and 80s. Wealthy patrons bought into the novelty and promise of Zen, but rather than spending hours on the cushion, won recognition by funding the costly Zen centers being established by Shimano and Glassman. (Chang Wei, by contrast, had a lower budget hustle charging dojo members $1,000 for a series of hands-on "energizing sessions".)
Ambivalent Zen also reveals the dependency between Zen teachers and students. Shainberg may have been particularly prone to this, admitting to a recurrent search for father figures. But domineering Zen teachers is a larger problem: Shainberg notes the revelations of long-standing sexual abuse by Shimano as well as the careless approach by Glassman to his students, being quite ready to use them as restaurant waitstaff, as long as it earned a buck for the zendo.
While Shainberg's accounts are instructive, they lack a clear statement on whether he feels his decades of Zen practice to have been worthwhile. He tends to emphasize what appear, at the time, to be special insights gained during peak periods of sitting, rather than how his approach to life has evolved over time. One feels that, even as the memoire draws to a close, Shainberg still hasn't found himself through Zen.
July 12, 2010
This was such a fun and fascinating book. I was ambivalent about Zen myself, but I committed myself to it for six months and decided it's not for me, so I thought this would be a good memoir to help me make sense of my experience. Indeed, there were many concerns I had that were confirmed from reading this book.
Zen is very strict, even dogmatic, and it is laser focused on eraticating ego. It certainly makes one wonder what it would be like to really commit oneself to this practice in a serious way, and that's what this man did. He really went whole hog in the practice, but his persistent ambivalence always made him worry that his sincerity was compromised, along with the quality of his practice. I'd say it had, since doubt is called one of the five hinderances in Buddhism.
Nonetheless, it's a fascinating journey this author takes you on. You really see just how human some of these great teachers are, and sometimes it seems like they're just as wrapped up in ego-clinging as the rest of us. Buddhism is hard work, and Zen even more so, and that's all they get? Of course, I expect even more of Zen practictioners than other Buddhist traditions, because their practice is so much more intensive. I know better than to judge others when this practice is such a personal one, but I can't help but wish for more shining examples of what is possible.
Zen is very strict, even dogmatic, and it is laser focused on eraticating ego. It certainly makes one wonder what it would be like to really commit oneself to this practice in a serious way, and that's what this man did. He really went whole hog in the practice, but his persistent ambivalence always made him worry that his sincerity was compromised, along with the quality of his practice. I'd say it had, since doubt is called one of the five hinderances in Buddhism.
Nonetheless, it's a fascinating journey this author takes you on. You really see just how human some of these great teachers are, and sometimes it seems like they're just as wrapped up in ego-clinging as the rest of us. Buddhism is hard work, and Zen even more so, and that's all they get? Of course, I expect even more of Zen practictioners than other Buddhist traditions, because their practice is so much more intensive. I know better than to judge others when this practice is such a personal one, but I can't help but wish for more shining examples of what is possible.
February 5, 2020
Shainberg has a strange and deft touch in this memoir of his life through a succession of teachers.
No one that I've read has captured the relentless struggle and courage of maintaining a Zen practice. If you think such a practice is relaxing, please read this book before you step into the Zendo. Neither have I read an account more insightful about the pitfalls of teachers with egos of troubling proportion.
This is not to say that these teachers aren't earnest in their beliefs. They are both sincere and poorly skilled and Shainberg repeatedly, to the point of masochism, gives in until damage is done. While the reader might occasionally want to shout at him that this particular teacher is full of it or is taking him for a ride, Shainberg builds up his own biography so carefully, that the reader knows he's going to have to learn all this on his own.
No easy answers here. No apotheosis. No tragedy. Just a human doing his best to find answers and some peace and how that road can never be easy. I found this book riveting.
No one that I've read has captured the relentless struggle and courage of maintaining a Zen practice. If you think such a practice is relaxing, please read this book before you step into the Zendo. Neither have I read an account more insightful about the pitfalls of teachers with egos of troubling proportion.
This is not to say that these teachers aren't earnest in their beliefs. They are both sincere and poorly skilled and Shainberg repeatedly, to the point of masochism, gives in until damage is done. While the reader might occasionally want to shout at him that this particular teacher is full of it or is taking him for a ride, Shainberg builds up his own biography so carefully, that the reader knows he's going to have to learn all this on his own.
No easy answers here. No apotheosis. No tragedy. Just a human doing his best to find answers and some peace and how that road can never be easy. I found this book riveting.
August 10, 2008
This is a spiritual autobiography by a cranky, neurotic Zen student. He starts with descriptions of his father, another spiritual seeker who was reading Krishnamurti and Buddhist books and going to an analyst in the late 40s. Encouraged, he pursues his own spirituality through Zen, martial arts, monastic and lay Buddhist practices.
I found his descriptions of Bernie Glassman's Zen organization in New York in the 60s interesting - it sounds like Glassman fell into the same megalomania that Richard Baker did at the San Francisco Zen Center, though I know he's doing of work with the homeless and peace projects now. Anyway, I liked this realistic look at the Zen path.
I found his descriptions of Bernie Glassman's Zen organization in New York in the 60s interesting - it sounds like Glassman fell into the same megalomania that Richard Baker did at the San Francisco Zen Center, though I know he's doing of work with the homeless and peace projects now. Anyway, I liked this realistic look at the Zen path.
July 14, 2011
An honest (even bracing!) and humorous memoir that endears Larry S. to me and also, even, helped my meditation on the cushion. Watch out for your mind! should be posted like a road sign at all zendoors.
I can't share his love of Beckett, but that is beside the point.
Shainberg lets us see and feel how his meditative accomplishment and his humannness are inseparable and always bothered by trying to be inseparable. Many Dharma memoirs fall into the pit of overemphasizing the folly of the author, this one doesn't.
I loved the portrait of his parents, and was relieved when LS found a decent Zen master.
I can't share his love of Beckett, but that is beside the point.
Shainberg lets us see and feel how his meditative accomplishment and his humannness are inseparable and always bothered by trying to be inseparable. Many Dharma memoirs fall into the pit of overemphasizing the folly of the author, this one doesn't.
I loved the portrait of his parents, and was relieved when LS found a decent Zen master.
April 27, 2016
Simply outstanding! I found myself drawn into the story as if it was a novel and identified with the author's ambivalence around teachers and authority figures and people's willingness to surrender to authority figures even when their behavior doesn't seem to justify it. I found his time with Bernie Glassman fascinating and and at the same time disappointing, and was left with the nagging feeling that his real teacher was right under his nose all along. Perhaps there is something about the desire to build large communities that is essentially corrupting regardless of the spiritual tradition.
June 25, 2011
Very honest warts and all memoir of one man's struggles with his Zen practice.
August 8, 2025
This was a fun book to read. It was fun because the writing was lively and you got to read about people who were all worked up about their private zen trips while living within or connected with various communities that were likewise caught up in private zen trips.
Zen conjures up many ideas in the minds of westerners (a group I identify with) who come across the traces that appear to belong to it. We pick up these shiny things and ohh and ahh over them as if we've discovered that precious pearl, that tranquil moon, that ineffable something. These traces are found in zendos, dojos, monasteries, rooms set aside for sitting and the like; however, like a baby uttering the words "babawawa," the utterance "zen" along with its traces means nothing--all that we point at as "zen" is merely what seems to remain of its fading wake.
And even that is not zen.
At best "zen" is a placeholder for a possible meaning that will always escape you. In reading this book you will see just this effect, but not its cause: you cannot touch it much less hold it, and even when you say "Look!" it's already gone--if it was really ever there in the first place.
(In Dogen's words, you have been only been looking at the corner of the vast blue sky through a tube of bamboo.)
The title of the book is perfect-- zen is indeed ambivalent, it does not care about you, but then it's also not zen. It is far easier to point at something and say "not zen" than it is to do the reverse. But even in this it is easy to be mistaken.
After writing this review, I read some of the others on this site and was surprised to see reviewers mistake the ambivalence as coming from Shainberg himself. But the title doesn't read this way at all. Shainberg, like many others he writes about in this book, drives himself crazy for zen.
It is zen that is ambivalent. It doesn't just doesn't care.
What is it ambivalent about? Why just this!
The title is perfect, but the words that follow the colon are debatable--was Shainberg really on "the dharma path" or was it just his own dharma trip?
And if the path itself is pathless, how does one even know?
The zen priest in my former Sangha often said, like Helen Keller before him, that life is either an adventure or nothing at all.
Is Shainberg's story really an adventure, or is it like all stories?
Poof!!
Towards the close of his book, Shainberg tells his readers that it's easier to write about zen than it is to practice it.
As a former writing instructor I can testify on behalf of my students that writing is indeed hard, but zen?
Still, like writing about zen, it's also easier to read about zen, but then both of these actions are easier than practice because it is not zen that you are writing about or reading about. And sometimes practicing zen is just like this too.
There. I've said as much about zen in this review that Shainberg said in 318 pages. But his book is much more fun to read.
Zen conjures up many ideas in the minds of westerners (a group I identify with) who come across the traces that appear to belong to it. We pick up these shiny things and ohh and ahh over them as if we've discovered that precious pearl, that tranquil moon, that ineffable something. These traces are found in zendos, dojos, monasteries, rooms set aside for sitting and the like; however, like a baby uttering the words "babawawa," the utterance "zen" along with its traces means nothing--all that we point at as "zen" is merely what seems to remain of its fading wake.
And even that is not zen.
At best "zen" is a placeholder for a possible meaning that will always escape you. In reading this book you will see just this effect, but not its cause: you cannot touch it much less hold it, and even when you say "Look!" it's already gone--if it was really ever there in the first place.
(In Dogen's words, you have been only been looking at the corner of the vast blue sky through a tube of bamboo.)
The title of the book is perfect-- zen is indeed ambivalent, it does not care about you, but then it's also not zen. It is far easier to point at something and say "not zen" than it is to do the reverse. But even in this it is easy to be mistaken.
After writing this review, I read some of the others on this site and was surprised to see reviewers mistake the ambivalence as coming from Shainberg himself. But the title doesn't read this way at all. Shainberg, like many others he writes about in this book, drives himself crazy for zen.
It is zen that is ambivalent. It doesn't just doesn't care.
What is it ambivalent about? Why just this!
The title is perfect, but the words that follow the colon are debatable--was Shainberg really on "the dharma path" or was it just his own dharma trip?
And if the path itself is pathless, how does one even know?
The zen priest in my former Sangha often said, like Helen Keller before him, that life is either an adventure or nothing at all.
Is Shainberg's story really an adventure, or is it like all stories?
Poof!!
Towards the close of his book, Shainberg tells his readers that it's easier to write about zen than it is to practice it.
As a former writing instructor I can testify on behalf of my students that writing is indeed hard, but zen?
Still, like writing about zen, it's also easier to read about zen, but then both of these actions are easier than practice because it is not zen that you are writing about or reading about. And sometimes practicing zen is just like this too.
There. I've said as much about zen in this review that Shainberg said in 318 pages. But his book is much more fun to read.
March 24, 2025
I was tempted to write a one-word review of this memoir: meh. That seemed excessively glib however so I will try to do some justice to this book. I think the author tries very hard to be honest about his spiritual path, one that has irony at its very heart, since the "goal" of Buddhism is to attain a state in which there is no goal, no striving, no grasping after anything, no wants--and yet, how difficult to make sense of the enormous dedication required for Zen meditation without assuming that its practitioners "want" very badly to attain this state, if only for a few moments here and there. The author, "Larry" or "Larry-san" to everyone who knows him, struggles with his marriage (it ends eventually), with his relationship to his father (doesn't everyone?), and with his relationships to his various Zen guides and fellow seekers. He shares his many experiences of frustration openly, as well as moments of great exhilaration and seeming breakthroughs. I have to admit, he is far more dedicated to his chosen path than I would have been, almost as though he feels he has no choice, and yet it is never very clear what he seeks or what would satisfy. To the extent that I understand Zen, it is a form of Buddhism that is informed by the humor of Taoism, as well as by the latter's "pursuit" of a kind of effortless living. For Larry, it seems that Zen is always a lot of work, most of it painful, so I kept wondering to myself, what do you want out of this? For me the most satisfying part of the book was his brief discussion of getting to know Samuel Beckett.
July 26, 2021
Found this at a bookstore in Oregon and thought I'd give it a try, and I'm very glad I did.
Shainberg documented his life and journey with Zen through a kind of juxtaposed storytelling method. He paralleled a lot of different periods in his life, often finding similar principles from stories years apart. I really respect the effort and understanding that it must have taken to create his narrative in this way.
I found his story really interesting. We travel through the different periods of his Zen practice and learn about not only his experiences with different teachers but also about the history of Zen in America and NYC. We learn about the interesting methods of several Zen teachers such as Bernie Glassman and Chang Wei, and get to make our own judgments about their practice. I really liked that the author never stated his opinions on people, but instead just detailed his experiences and let us come to our own conclusions. I also really enjoyed all parts of the story related to Kyudo Roshi. I'm convinced that he was the most genuine holy man involved in the story, and his relationship with Larry was very heartfelt.
If you're interested in learning about Zen, Zen's history, and enjoy an unromanticized memoir, then you'll probably like this book.
Shainberg documented his life and journey with Zen through a kind of juxtaposed storytelling method. He paralleled a lot of different periods in his life, often finding similar principles from stories years apart. I really respect the effort and understanding that it must have taken to create his narrative in this way.
I found his story really interesting. We travel through the different periods of his Zen practice and learn about not only his experiences with different teachers but also about the history of Zen in America and NYC. We learn about the interesting methods of several Zen teachers such as Bernie Glassman and Chang Wei, and get to make our own judgments about their practice. I really liked that the author never stated his opinions on people, but instead just detailed his experiences and let us come to our own conclusions. I also really enjoyed all parts of the story related to Kyudo Roshi. I'm convinced that he was the most genuine holy man involved in the story, and his relationship with Larry was very heartfelt.
If you're interested in learning about Zen, Zen's history, and enjoy an unromanticized memoir, then you'll probably like this book.
August 29, 2023
This book was recommended to me by a Japanese Zen lay practitioner who felt it gave a good historical overview of the birth of Zen in the West. It does, and with transparency shows people as they were. I am no longer surprised by the abuse of power in the dominant male patriarchy of Zen, as each person is just repeating the karmic inheritance of their teachers. This book could be read alongside or in succession to “Shoes outside the door” which gives account to the happenings at SFZC, and “Sex and the spiritual teacher”. Please encourage all priests to take the Buddhist Healthy Boundaries course so that we may end the long succession of financial and sexual relationships in sanghas that continue today.
June 27, 2022
Shainberg is really thoughtful about interweaving core Zen teachings with his own personal struggles and lifelong encounters with Zen. He doesn't shy away from his failings or his issues with the philosophy, which makes him a refreshing and honest read. He seems better at this than most.
December 19, 2023
Entertaining, insightful, utterly approachable, and at turns both maddening and invigorating. I really enjoyed reading this as a lighter (but not unserious) take on one person’s path with Zen.
August 16, 2014
This takes a different approach from most Zen books - it's much more of a memoir of the author's life, in which Zen practice plays a huge part, than a discussion of the usual Zen issues. Which is totally refreshing.
Shainberg got involved with Zen in the early 50s and over the course of the next four decades (the book ends in the mid 90s) practices with and meets a number of well known figures in the Zen world, and his portraits of them here are not all flattering, so there's a bit of a "Shoes Outside the Door" feel to the book.
Shainberg got involved with Zen in the early 50s and over the course of the next four decades (the book ends in the mid 90s) practices with and meets a number of well known figures in the Zen world, and his portraits of them here are not all flattering, so there's a bit of a "Shoes Outside the Door" feel to the book.
February 1, 2008
I'm newly exploring Zen--this book made me a little worried(not enough to stop exploring)but mostly left me feeling a huge distaste for the author. I feel like the book ended abruptly. I'm sure there's something very "Zen" about the way he wrote the book, and meant to make it unsettling, but I was just left cold.
August 27, 2016
This book was recommended as a resource to learn about meditation and zen, but what I really took from it was the frustrations and dangers that come from the "process" of seeking. As a memoir, it was certainly entertaining, but with a level of detail that was sometimes aimless and unnecessary to get the story across. Perhaps a student of Zen Buddhism would take more from it than I did!
did-not-finish
June 2, 2011it was a good book, i just found others i became obsorbed in.
January 15, 2009
Recommended by my brother, an interesting memoir by a guy who thinks staring at a wall for 14 hours a day is a vacation. Enjoyed it.
May 5, 2009
Shainberg is very sympathetic and I love memoir, but by the end I was annoyed with him. The book was very good nonetheless.
October 9, 2010
Shainberg paints a balanced picture of the life of a spiritual seeker. This book has equal parts cynicism and encouragement for those on the Dharma path.
Read
July 15, 2013A somewhat cynical, though entirely realistic, memoir of what life in a contemporary Zen sangha is like.
March 17, 2016
I put this aside while reading another spiritual and when I started it again, I decided it was too 'sniveling' and self-pity and gave up on it
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