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Zen Confidential: Confessions of a Wayward Monk
by Shozan Jack Haubner
Shambhala, 2013

American Buddhist monk Haubner (a pseudonym) asks his readers to “[p]lease be embarrassed for me” in provocative essays exploring his experiences of Zen.

The author’s search to “grow into a true human being” is described with startling metaphors, acute insights, and humor (his seduction by the “lush, seething dharma” of American Buddhist nun Pema Chodron’s writing is priceless).

Haubner writes of defecating in his robes rather than leave his post at a meditation session; musing on the abortion “koan” due to a pregnancy scare; tormenting his oddball kitchen assistant. Tender portraits emerge as Haubner brings hard-won Zen insights to the legacy of a sometimes violent, “radical conservative” father, and finds a beloved mentor in a hard-living former Zen monk.

The collection is uneven: funny, self-deprecating essays about the hard realities of life as a Zen monk jostle against sometimes self-indu