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Cover of Zen Confidential: Confessions Of A Wayward Monk

Zen Confidential: Confessions Of A Wayward Monk

by Shozan Jack Haubner

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A screenwriter and stand-up comic’s hilarious and profound account of his journey into Zen monkhood—featuring a foreword by Leonard Cohen Shozan Jack Haubner is the David Sedaris of Zen Buddhism: a brilliant humorist and analyst of human foibles, whose hilarity is informed by the profound insights that have dawned on him—as he's stumbled and fallen into spirituall practice. Raised in a truly strange family of Mel-Gibson-esque Catholic extremists, he went on to study philosophy (becoming very un-Catholic in the process) and to pursue a career as a screenwriter and stand-up comic in the clubs of L.A. How he went from life in the fast lane to life on the stationary meditation cushion is the subject of this laugh-out-loud funny account of his experiences.…

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"I enjoy the occasional poop joke, and books about living in the moment. You might say I prefer — wait for it — scatology to eschatology. So this was the book for me. The author is a cranky misanthrope who goes to a Buddhist monastery to get some big answers and continually rediscovers that mucking about in the daily grind is the big answer. Works for me. (And I read it on vacation in Disney World, a different kind of Zen retreat.)"
NPR Books We Love — 2013 · apps.npr.org