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Rating: 
Summary: Insightful and entertaining!
Review: "Ambivalent Zen" provides few answers to life's mysteries. But it has plenty of fun exploring them. Shainberg pulls double-duty as a captivating storyteller and an authority on Zen in this often humorous, sometimes illuminating and always enjoyable book. Shainberg is brutally honest about his trek along the Dharma path. He shares his joys, doubts, confusion, anger and insights with readers, which makes his book all the more compelling. And adding to that are the colorful characters in the book -- from Shainberg's father to his friends and especially his final Zen instructor, Kyudo Roshi. "Ambivalent Zen" is full of first-hand knowledge on the practice of Zen and the search for spiritual enlightenment -- and the contradictions and frustrations encountered by those on that path. Zen practitioners will surely be able to relate to many of Shainberg's adventures. Even those will little interest in Zen will likely find this book to be an enthralling page-turner that reads much more like a memoir than a textbook on Zen.
Rating:
Summary: Insightful and entertaining!
Review: "Ambivalent Zen" provides few answers to life's mysteries. But it has plenty of fun exploring them. Shainberg pulls double-duty as a captivating storyteller and an authority on Zen in this often humorous, sometimes illuminating and always enjoyable book. Shainberg is brutally honest about his trek along the Dharma path. He shares his joys, doubts, confusion, anger and insights with readers, which makes his book all the more compelling. And adding to that are the colorful characters in the book -- from Shainberg's father to his friends and especially his final Zen instructor, Kyudo Roshi. "Ambivalent Zen" is full of first-hand knowledge on the practice of Zen and the search for spiritual enlightenment -- and the contradictions and frustrations encountered by those on that path. Zen practitioners will surely be able to relate to many of Shainberg's adventures. Even those will little interest in Zen will likely find this book to be an enthralling page-turner that reads much more like a memoir than a textbook on Zen.
Rating: 
Summary: Painful
Review: Ambivalent Zen starts slow and goes slower. It took two attempts to get through it. All the Zen masters in the book have feet of clay. Shainberg struggles for the entire three hundred pages and so did I. If you are looking for a book about Zen this saga is not what you are looking for.
Rating: 
Summary: Hysterically Funny Book; Hope It Won't Scare Too Many Away
Review: First, a little background for this review. I spent 35 years searching for the truth (Who am I? Where did I come from? Is there a God? What are subatomic particles? What could explain the "observer paradoxes" in quantum mechanics? etc.). Zen helped me find everything I was searching for (it required 15 years of attentiveness). Although I ultimately left Zen behind, I am unspeakably grateful for all the help I received from various Zen Masters and other Zen practitioners I met along the way.
I read Shainberg's book when it first came out and then re-read it again this last weekend. I had forgotten how incredibly funny the book is and how honest Shainberg is in reporting his experiences. When I read it the second time, I was struck most strongly by the pernicious power of Shainberg's "monkey mind." It's hard to believe that someone could do as much zen practice as he did without his mind quietening down enough to allow a few major insights. Nevertheless, I take him at his word. It reminds me of one of my friends who told me that after meditating for two years, his internal dialogue had not diminished at all and that he had never had a single moment of mental silence. I guess some people just have bad karma. Either that, or some people just don't want to know the truth badly enough. Personally, I was eaten up by the need to understand. I felt like a rat in a trap, and the idea of dying without ever understanding the universe struck me as absolutely intolerable. I was willing to die to know the truth. Ironically, what I discovered at the end of the trip is that I had never been born! For those who are still trapped by their thinking habits, try to make sense out of that statement.
At any rate, I strongly recommend Ambivalent Zen, either as pure comedy, or as a warning about the kinds of craziness one is likely to encounter on the spiritual path. Fortunately, during his journey Shainberg met at least one authentic Zen Master who was clearly awake, and the Zen Master's conversations with Shainberg throughout the book provide a sharp contrast between an enlightened perspective and one that is still trapped in duality.
For anyone who is serious about waking up, here is the condensed version of how to do it. Stop and be still. Meditate or do whatever you have to do to create some mental silence and space. (everything you are searching for will appear out of silence). Focus your attention upon what you can see, hear, smell, taste, and touch. Trust yourself 100% (you already know what you want to know at a deep level of mind, but that level is far below the intellect--you have to go deeper than usual to get access to it). Simply bear in mind what you want to know until your questioning becomes non-verbal. Don't give up. Keep searching until you find the treasure. Hint: You searcher is not who you think it is!
Other wonderful books on the same subject include, The Power of Now, by Eckhart Tolle, Collision With The Infinite, by Suzanne Segal, and From Onions To Pearls, by Satyam Nadeen. If you can't find help anywhere else, then write to Bob Harwood, The Very Center, 1615 Brown Avenue, Cookeville, TN 38501. Cheers.
Rating:
Summary: After reading this I feel like I experienced his Zen journey
Review: I picked up Ambivalent Zen while my husband was in the midst of reading it and ended up stealing it from him until I had finished it. While I have only a passing interest in Buddhism, I was drawn into this book by his description of his relationship with his father, a somewhat angry, depressed man prone to embracing different philosophies as a cure-all. He is the one who first exposes Shainberg to Zen. This relationship frames the book, which is about Larry Shainberg's exploration of Zen Buddhism. The pace slows midway through, but his interesting use of time serves to keep it moving. Shainberg intersperses segments of his teenage years, with when he first seriously starts meditation "sitting" as a young man, and then as an older adult. I felt he could have explored more the cultish aspects of some of his experiences, for example when he was living in a community Zen center. He lays it out objectively, but he doesn't come out and tell us his emotions. Did he feel like he was in a cult? Did he feel taken advantage of? Perhaps this is because he didn't want to sound too bitter, but it sounds too careful, too thought out.
Rating:
Summary: After reading this I feel like I experienced his Zen journey
Review: I picked up Ambivalent Zen while my husband was in the midst of reading it and ended up stealing it from him until I had finished it. While I have only a passing interest in Buddhism, I was drawn into this book by his description of his relationship with his father, a somewhat angry, depressed man prone to embracing different philosophies as a cure-all. He is the one who first exposes Shainberg to Zen. This relationship frames the book, which is about Larry Shainberg's exploration of Zen Buddhism. The pace slows midway through, but his interesting use of time serves to keep it moving. Shainberg intersperses segments of his teenage years, with when he first seriously starts meditation "sitting" as a young man, and then as an older adult. I felt he could have explored more the cultish aspects of some of his experiences, for example when he was living in a community Zen center. He lays it out objectively, but he doesn't come out and tell us his emotions. Did he feel like he was in a cult? Did he feel taken advantage of? Perhaps this is because he didn't want to sound too bitter, but it sounds too careful, too thought out.
Rating:
Summary: Buddha gives you no candy
Review: One of several books about Zen which I read before actually experiencing Zen meditation, this book stands out as one of the best in communicating the stops, starts, mistakes and rewards of a spiritual quest. The author begins as a secular Jew whose father was a spiritual seeker and who constantly exposed the family to new gurus during the mid-20th Century -- often to comical effect. Eventually the author decides to give Zen Buddhism the old college try, and his experiences are funny, insightful as he gives a fair picture of studying with several different teachers. After he develops a friendship with one teacher in Greenwich Vilage, the author relates many conversations in which the Zen master, with humor and equanimity, tries to untangle his student's anxieties and delusions. Once I actually began practicing Zen meditation, I felt this book, more than most others, provided a well-balanaced picture of what it's really like to approach and try to practice Zen.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best in the Zen-Fessional genre
Review: Shainberg's book is great for all of the reasons given in the earlier customer reviews. I read it in one sitting on the shinkansen from Tokyo to Hiroshima. Couldn't put it down. It is honest and very well-written. Going past Okayama, I realized what Shainberg clearly understands, you cannot be enlightened unless you can say to yourself, "I am as enlightened as I am ever going to be." Believing that may not be a sufficient condition for actually being enlightened, but it sure is a necessary condition.
Rating:
Summary: Genius Title! and a great read!
Review: The "Ambivalent Zen" title hits on a key point for practicers: The common consumerist approach of "doing zen" as if it is something separate from oneself, always checking to see if one is getting the results that one wants. Perhaps similar to the way one would "do" a diet plan. The ambivalent outcomes (the results of our frequent and subjective self-evaluations) are predictable, seen in that light. The way to get past the habit of checking on oneself is to move from "doing zen" to a commitment of "being zen", not thinking of it as separate from ourselves. What the author is sharing with us is his 'self-consciousness' of a 'self' which he had not gotten around to realizing as 'being' non-existent. Also, that we have to find a way to respond to the nuttiness that we get from our parents, without expecting to erase it in ourselves. There really is a place for 'study' in zen, as well as sitting.
Rating:
Summary: Well, life is suffering
Review: Troubled, troubling, restless--this is a wonderful read across the American (and New York) Zen experience. Shainberg is of course funny, sometimes corrosive, and deeply concerned/consumed by his efforts to "get" zen practice. If you want a non-exotic, textured view of that practice, and of dealing with its eccentric Sanghas, this is a sharp introduction. Luckily, it's also not an inspiring one. After all, this stuff is hard work.
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