Zen and the Art of

Motorcycle Maintenance

By, Robert M. Pirsig

Values

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle

Maintenance- An Inquiry into Values

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is

the self-told story of a middle-aged man and his son, Chris, who go on a

motorcycling trip accompanied by an adult

couple.

It incorporates a parallel presentation of trip details

and an ongoing retrospective concerning dramatic events from the Narrator's past, creating

rich symbolism and including numerous

analogies reinforcing the overall theme of coming to

terms with the mysteries of why we exist and how best

to live.

The Jist

Inspirational in a no frills way Abstract

Philosophical Metaphorical

About Motorcycle

Maintenance

About Zen

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Do you find yourself at the Crossroads of life?

Then Ride yourself through this book!

ZAMM

Zen ‘Medication’ in Japanese

The Path to Truth

Rejects

Worship of Deities

Reading of Scriptures

Performance of Rituals

Practitioners

Wait for Flashes of Intuitive Knowledge

When the Self is Quiet and Free of

Desire and Distraction

Achieved

We think of quality as a measure of a product or a

person.

We feel the right to make Judgments about it because it is clear when something is of

quality or is not.

The Narrator

Suddenly has a dream while explaining about

Quality!

RobertPirsig /Pheadrus

Crew of Young People

Fixing

Butcher it!

they

RobertPirsig /Pheadrus

Learns a Lesson

The Narrator

Attitude Technological Problem

Not simply rational knowledge of how a thing works

and

Quality

Rational Way Happens

Care Does not Care ~

That can enrich your

life

A machine

That can Explode ~

I’m Angry

You will not Succeed in Tuning the Machine or Finding the

Problem!

Sense of Mind

&

You come to see that a machine is just the Physical Expression of a set

of Ideas.

‘Objects’ begin to come Alive! When?

Thus, Quality is appreciated not as a thing, but as the

That Drives

the

Universe Force

RobertPirsig /Pheadrus

The Narrator Notes

"Obviously some things are better than others.”

"Obviously some things are better than others.” But what’s the ‘Better-ness’ ?

What we call Quality, or 'better-ness', is the same as the Eastern concept of

'Tao‘.

The universal power or essence which can never be identified as such, but whose presence or absence makes

something good.

RobertPirsig /Pheadrus

The Narrator adds

In our world, quality had become just an idle

attribute!

When in fact, it was "the parent, the source of all subjects and objects."

~ ~

An Optional Extra?

The Idea of Squareness

Square!

They leave behind a slower America where people wave and have time to chat, and start

to see ego-driven people driving along

with grim expressions.

This makes people feel that important things are

happening somewhere else.

Gumption

-Zest for Life!

The Gumption-Filling Process See Hear

Feel

Universe

RobertPirsig /Pheadrus

The Narrator adds

Technology = Art

Notes: The ugliness of modern technology stems from the uncaring attitude of

the producers . The importance of self-culture for

establishing any kind of Quality in life.

Value Free Science is an Evil that has to go.

Who is this Phaedrus?

Pirsig

Pirsig

The name that

the narrator

gives to his

former

personality!

Phaedrus was a character

in one of the Dialogues of Plato

(the great fourth-century B.C.

Greek philosopher). In the

dialogue called “Phaedrus,”

the title character relentlessly

questions the philosopher

Socrates on the nature of

rhetoric, madness, love, and

truth—the same issues the

narrator of Motorcycle

Maintenance is tackling.

Phaedrus also means “wolf ” in Greek,

and the narrator often compares

Phaedrus’s existence to that of a wolf:

isolated, aggressive, persistent.

Final Thoughts...

Society

Hippies

Abstract Art

Beat Novels

Final Thoughts...

Then maybe it could save itself from the dullness of its mental structures!

Society

ZAMM

Thanking You,

Soumya Mukherjee

“The place to improve the world is first in one's own heart and head and hands, and then work outward

from there.”