Four Men Shaking

Searching for Sanity with Samuel Beckett, Norman Mailer, and My Perfect Zen Teacher

By Lawrence Shainberg

$16.95
SKU
9781611807295
- Paperback
Available
Shambhala Publications
07/16/2019
Pages: 144
Size: 5 x 7
ISBN: 9781611807295
Details
“Inexplicably good karma”—to this, author Lawrence Shainberg attributes a life filled with relationships with legendary writers and renowned Buddhist teachers. In Four Men Shaking he weaves together the narratives of three of those relationships: his literary friendships with Samuel Beckett and Norman Mailer, and his teacher-student relationship with the Japanese Zen master Kyudo Nakagawa Roshi. In Shainberg’s lifelong pursuit of both writing and Zen practice, each of these men shaped his experience. The audacious, combative Mailer comes to represent, for Shainberg, the Buddhist concept of "form," while the elusive and self-deprecating Beckett seems to embody an awareness of "emptiness." Through it all is Nakagawa, the earthy, direct Zen master challenging Shainberg to let go of his endless rumination and accept reality as it is.