ambivalent

Wilderness
$10.00

Ambivalent Zen : One Man's Adventures on the Dharma Path
$15.95
I want to recommend Shainberg's memoir, Ambivalent Zen, to all aspiring American Zennists.

First of all, to be honest, it's always seemed to me that America and the West have their own spiritual traditions which have often not been recognized as such, and that we don't need to turn East except to gain perspective on our own civilization and to get distance from traditions which are often stifling such as the "God" tradition.

For instance, since the discovery of movable type in Gutenberg over five hundred years ago, meditation in the West has taken the form of book reading, or, staring at a book, immobile, for hours and losing our own thoughts and "mind" in the thoughts and mind of a master.

In addition, the West has developed highly stylized forms of sports which correspond to the Japanese practice of archery, Sumo, tea ceremony and other Zen arts found in Japan. In America we have baseball, golf, track and field, fly casting and many other practices which provide us with all the necessary tools for "mindless" spiritual practice that we need.

Shainberg describes a long and frustrating experience with ex-pat and other Zen masters who have "nothing" to teach except emptiness, no-mind and sitting on a cushion while staring at a wall. The book is a sometimes funny, often boring (which I believe is intentional) and ultimately critical look at various spiritually deracinated American Zen practitioners, including Shainberg himself.

It is probably not coincidental that Shainberg is from a non-practicing Jewish background and that his self-made Tennessee millionaire father provided him with a life free of financial worries. A secular, affluent Jewish childhood is ideal for producing a young man (or woman) with the courage, means and psychology to turn his back on American culture, (which his father had pronounced as having no spiritual value anyway) and to turn East instead, by first reading and listening to the works of Krishnamurti and Alan Watts and finally by joining various Zen centers around America and the world, and contributing his time, money and spiritual energy to them.

It isn't always easy to read his sometimes painful accounts of experiences with Zen "masters" who often seem to be little more than fakirs and incompetents (one of highest ranking of them confesses that he was virtually born in a Zen monastery and had little choice but to become a Zen "master.")

I suspect that Shainberg wrote his memoir as a long Zen koan to be deciphered by diligent American Zennists, in the hope that they will be spared much spiritual anguish. The reading will be painful for many but I think the pain it might possibly save over a lifetime will be well worth the read. Three thumbs up!!!

Ambivalent? Well yes and no Kids T Shirt 2T thru Youth XL
$17.99

Ambivalent Conquests: Maya and Spaniard in Yucatan, 1517-1570 (Cambridge Latin American Studies)
$82.00
This is really the first book I read in depth on the subject of the Maya. I have read substantial parts of other books, but this author's approach is remarkable in that she is able to delineate at all times between the religious and the historical which can be very much intertwined during this amazing period. It is clear that the histories of the Inca, Maya, and Aztec are very much different. You get from her account an almost novel type of reading experience as it becomes so lifelike. It is truly a remarkable book about a fascinating and extremely resilient and committed people. It was not easy for me to read in the sense that it so dense as far as the knowledge is concerned, and I was hurried. But it is extremely well documented and this helps a great deal in cementing one's understanding to the truth of what actually took place. It is truly a tragic period in human history presented in great clarity and compassion.