His novel topped best-seller listings for a decade, making Pirsig arguably the most widely read philosopher of the modern era.įor those who are unfamiliar with the rigorousness of Pirsig’s work, it’s easy to stereotype "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" with the dozens of the so-called “Zen and the Art of” books some titles include "Zen and the Art of Murder," "Zen and the Art of Stand-Up Comedy," "Zen and the Art of Disc Golf," "Zen and the Art of Productivity," "Zen and the Art of Poker," "Zen and the Art of Collecting Old Cars," "Zen and the Art of Business Communication," and "Zen and the Art of Vampire Slaying." Published in 1974, it sold over a million copies in its first year and sold more than 5 million copies overall. When I was 20-years-old and an undergraduate English major in college, I read the novel "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values" by Robert Pirsig, and it changed my life. “The only Zen you find on the tops of mountains is the Zen you bring up there.” - Robert Pirsig “Metaphysics is a restaurant where they give you a 30,000 page menu and no food.” “A study of the art of motorcycle maintenance is really a miniature study of the art of rationality itself.” “The Buddha, the Godhead,” he writes, “resides quite as comfortably in the circuits of a digital computer or the gears of a cycle transmission as he does at the top of a mountain or in the petals of a flower.”
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