Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Part Iii Summary
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Introduction
A cultural touchstone of the Seventies, Robert 1000. Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorbike Maintenance (ZAMM) is a smorgasbord, equal parts autobiographical novel, travelogue, and collection of philosophical essays.
The book features a two-rail structure. The first track, told in the present tense, follows an unnamed narrator (whom Shortform, because of the numerous parallels between the narrator and the existent-life Robert Pirsig, has chosen to call "Pirsig") and his eleven-year-old son Chris on a motorcycle trip from Minnesota to California. This track features the vivid descriptive language, dialogue, plot, and character evolution typical of a realist novel.
The second track consists of a series of philosophical and autobiographical discourses. Pirsig calls these discourses "Chautauquas." (In the 19th century, Chautauquas were traveling tent shows that featured lectures from religious and intellectual figures.) Pirsig'southward primary concerns in these Chautauquas are three:
- Modernistic engineering science and human beings' human relationship to it
- The story of Phaedrus, Pirsig's alter-ego
- Phaedrus'southward concept of "Quality"
The First Track: The Story
When the volume begins, Pirsig and Chris have but left Minneapolis on motorcycles. They are accompanied by John and Sylvia Sutherland, friends of Pirsig, who are riding with the Pirsigs as far every bit Bozeman, Montana. Whereas Pirsig is an editor of technical manuals, John is a drummer, and their differing attitudes toward motorbike maintenance provide the impetus for Pirsig's early Chautauquas on applied science.
As the riders make their way west, the Pirsigs' backstory is slowly revealed. The cardinal plot points are as follows:
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Some years before the ride, Pirsig suffered a mental breakup and was institutionalized. He was treated with electroshock therapy, which caused him to forget who he was before the handling. Through occasional fragments of retention and his own research, he'due south been able to become a sense of the person he was before. He calls this person Phaedrus.
-
Phaedrus was a gifted kid who enrolled in higher at 15 to study science. He found himself haunted past philosophical questions and eventually flunked out. After a stint in the army, he returned to college to written report philosophy.
-
Subsequently graduating, once again consumed by existential questions, Phaedrus spent years in India studying philosophy. He found Eastern philosophy equally every bit unsatisfying every bit Western philosophy and returned to the states. He earned a graduate degree in journalism and wound up teaching rhetoric and composition at Montana State University in Bozeman.
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His feel teaching led him to the discovery of "Quality," an indefinable philosophical concept from which (he thought) sprung all of man experience and endeavour. Both for professional and intellectual reasons, he decided to continue researching "Quality" in an interdisciplinary graduate programme at the Academy of Chicago. It was while he was living and studying in Chicago that he suffered his breakup.
-
Chris has been causing trouble at home lately. He also suffers from chronic stomach aches, but no doctor has been able to notice a physical cause. His caretakers fearfulness he'southward at gamble of a breakup too.
In Bozeman, the group stays with an old colleague of Phaedrus named DeWeese. Later a few days, the Sutherlands render to Minnesota, and the Pirsigs printing on to California. As they about their destination, Pirsig fears that Phaedrus is reviving in his heed and some other breakup is imminent.
When the Pirsigs reach California, Chris's mood is at its nadir. Pirsig feels compelled to have a frank talk with him. He tells Chris that he, Pirsig, was once insane, and that the doctors fear Chris will end up insane also. (Shortform notation: The terminology and overall depiction of mental disorders in the book is dated.) In response, Chris descends into a wailing fit. As Chris rocks and cries, Phaedrus speaks through Pirsig, and Chris responds favorably. When Chris asks if Pirsig was really insane, Phaedrus, through Pirsig, says no. Chris suddenly brightens, and the book ends with the Pirsigs cruising along the Pacific declension, reconciled.
The 2nd Runway: Chautauquas
Mod Technology and the Human Response
Pirsig's discourses on technology are a response to the "Vanquish" and "Hippie" cultural movements, which equated "technology"—machinery, engineering, concrete scientific discipline—with either soulless consumption or...
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Zen and the Art of Motorbike Maintenance Summary Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Guide Shortform Introduction
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (ZAMM) is a challenging volume, covering a wide range of ideas and interweaving philosophy with story. To aid your agreement, nosotros've crafted our summary to highlight the chief points.
Format
The published text of ZAMM is divided into four parts and 32 chapters. Because the summary features highly condensed versions of individual narrative episodes and Chautauquas, nosotros've reorganized into fewer chapters to be coherent.
Construction and Style
Although ZAMM has been categorized as a self-help or communication text, the reading experience it provides is closer to that of a novel: Both...
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Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Summary Zen and the Art of Motorbike Maintenance Guide Affiliate 1: The Journey Begins
The book opens in the meridian of summer with Pirsig on his motorcycle, his son, Chris, seated behind him. They're riding from Minneapolis to Montana alongside Pirsig's friends, John and Sylvia Sutherland; when we join the travelers, they're on a two-lane route somewhere in western Minnesota. Pirsig catches sight of a cherry-red-winged blackbird taking flight and points it out enthusiastically to Chris, but Chris, who'south xi, isn't very impressed. Pirsig theorizes that the reason he'due south and then taken with the environment is because they're jump up with his memories, memories Chris doesn't take.
Chautauqua: Motorcycle > Automobile
Pirsig follows a description of his memories—of the sights, sounds, and smells of the cold Midwest mornings of his past—with a riff on the superiority of motorcycling to automobile driving.
In a car, we see the world through the frame of the windows. Nosotros're sealed off from the scene around the states, and nosotros sentry the passing signs much like nosotros sentinel TV: passively, comfortably, disinterestedly.
On a motorcycle, all the same, we are in the scene: the road in all its solidity rushes by just a foot below the states; the current of air whips us; the sound of the engine is loud in our ears....
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Shortform Do: Mind Over Matter
Apply the concepts of "Making Good Fourth dimension" and the "spectator mental attitude" with these exercises.
Retrieve well-nigh the last trip you lot took. Were you more concerned with arriving at your destination or enjoying the act of traveling itself? Considering Pirsig's ideas nearly "making good fourth dimension" and overcoming discomfort, what are some ways that you can make your next travel experience more fulfilling?
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Zen and the Fine art of Motorcycle Maintenance Summary Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Guide Affiliate 2: The Scientist and the Artist
The next morning time, Pirsig is up earlier the residual of the grouping. To kill time, he decides to tell united states what to pack for a motorcycle trip across the Dakotas. He divides the list into four categories: clothing, personal stuff, camping equipment, and motorcycle stuff.
Along with the essentials for any long-distance riding trip—durable gloves, pelting gear, and spare parts—Pirsig also brings books. On this trip, he's brought 3: his bike's shop manual, Chilton's Motorbike Troubleshooting Guide, and Thoreau's Walden.
He's brought Walden for Chris's benefit. He errs on the side of too-sophisticated when he considers books to share with Chris, because then the book becomes a spur to conversation. He'll read a sentence, Chris'll ask a serial of questions, then he'll read some other judgement. They tin pass a whole evening reading and talking in this way.
Pirsig also notes that he hasn't brought shoelaces.
At last Pirsig decides to rouse the group. They pack up and hit the road toward Ellendale, where they'll have breakfast. Information technology'south cold out, but the scenery is cute: dawn light, sparkling dew and mist in the fields. Pirsig looks fondly at his old gloves, which are frosty from the...
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Shortform Practise: The Personality of Belongings
Retrieve about the objects that mean something to you lot.
Write downwards a possession of yours that you've held onto longer than y'all probably should. What about it keeps you coming back to it? What kind of "personality" does it have?
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Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Summary Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Guide Chapter three: Ii Ways of Thinking
Pirsig rises at 9:00 am; it'due south already too hot to sleep. Licking his wounds from the hard ride the mean solar day before, Pirsig walks among the surrounding pines lost in thought. He admits that, as he pursued his Chautauquas, he'd hoped he would merely have to refer to Phaedrus's ideas and not the human being himself. Information technology'south clear to him now, however, that he cannot avert talking nigh Phaedrus personally any longer. He recalls Chris'due south American-Indian friend, whose grandmother said ghosts appear merely when someone hasn't been buried correctly. And that'southward the trouble: Phaedrus wasn't buried right.
Presently John and Sylvia rise, and the adults brainstorm packing upward and cooking breakfast. Pirsig wakes a resistant Chris past yanking his sleeping pocketbook correct out from under him. The adults eat their eggs and bacon; Chris takes ane bit of nutrient so says his stomach hurts.
Breakfast over, the adults finish breaking down camp. As Pirsig loads the final of his gear onto his bicycle's luggage rack, he notices his rear tire is surprisingly worn down. There'due south a trouble with the chain as well, and he unpacks his tools to make the necessary adjustment. Every bit John watches Pirsig loosen and tighten the beam, he expresses...
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Shortform Exercise: Classical vs. Romantic
Figure out how you view the earth.
Are yous a classical or romantic thinker? Why? Write down an example or two that illustrates what kind of thinker yous are.
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Zen and the Art of Motorbike Maintenance Summary Zen and the Fine art of Motorcycle Maintenance Guide Chapter 4: Who Was Phaedrus?
The riders finish in a town called Baker. Pirsig's motorcycle is pipage hot—information technology's 108 degrees out—and there are some mechanical issues. He tends to them as best every bit he can. As they eat luncheon, Pirsig recommends that neither he nor John bulldoze faster than 55 mph—given the air temperature, the motorcycles are in danger of overheating and the tires might blow out.
Back on the road, John speeds alee while Pirsig slows to 55. Pirsig, resigned to whatever may happen, returns to Phaedrus.
Chautauqua: Phaedrus the Individual
Although Pirsig believes Phaedrus'southward ideas are the virtually important thing about him—more of import than his personal history or physical advent—at that place are some aspects of him as an private that are essential.
He had an exceptionally high IQ. On the Stanford-Binet IQ test, which evaluates a person'due south analytic ability, he scored a 170. Only 1 person in every 50,000 scores this highly.
He was focused. Phaedrus's intellect was similar a light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation beam: intense, far-reaching, and highly precise.
He was isolated. He had no close friends and traveled alone; and, although he had a wife and children, they couldn't get through to him.
_He was...
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Shortform Practise: The Scientific Method in Everyday Life
The scientific method can be applied broadly. Utilize these exercises to explore its uses in your ain life.
Call back of a problem, whether at work or in your personal life, that yous seem to encounter once again and again. Write it down.
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Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Summary Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Guide Chapter v: Phaedrus Adrift
Chautauqua: Phaedrus's Discovery
Phaedrus was fond of a particular oral communication Einstein gave in 1918. In the speech, Einstein described "scientific discipline" as a temple with many mansions and many inhabitants. Some take to science because they're smart and aggressive, others for practical, problem-solving reasons. If you remove these 2 types of inhabitants from the temple, you'll nearly articulate it out. But merely virtually—in that location volition remain those who pursue science equally an escape from the everyday earth, who pursue science for its ain sake. Phaedrus was this kind of scientist.
He completed his start twelvemonth of college-level science at age 15. He was already a biochemist, specializing in molecular biology. Just his rare devotion to science for its own sake led him to question the very foundations of science, in particular the development of hypotheses.
Over and over in the lab, as Phaedrus ran experiments to test hypotheses, new hypotheses would occur to him; in fact, as he ticked off hypotheses proven or disproven by his experiments, the number of possible hypotheses would grow rather than compress. At first he found this phenomenon comforting—given a detail trouble, there was...
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Shortform Practise: Lateral Thinking
Exam out your ain power to call back laterally with these prompts.
Revisit the problem yous analyzed using the Scientific Method. In the space provided, brainstorm some out-of-the-box remedies yous might try. Don't edit yourself; just let the ideas flow.
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Zen and the Fine art of Motorcycle Maintenance Summary Zen and the Fine art of Motorcycle Maintenance Guide Chapter half dozen: The Church of Reason
The riders arrive at the gates of Yellowstone Park and pay their fee to enter. Pirsig recalls that Phaedrus rarely visited the park even though he lived close to it when he was in Bozeman—information technology was likewise stagey for him.
Chautauqua: Phaedrus in Bharat
Before Phaedrus wound up in Bozeman, withal, Pirsig informs us he spent years studying Eastern philosophy at Benares Hindu University in India.
The feel wasn't revolutionary for Phaedrus, at least not at the time. He was, however, exposed to a great bargain of information that would influence his later on thought.
One such influence was the religions of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism. Phaedrus discovered that the differences amid these religions were minor compared to the tensions amongst the major Western religions (Christianity, Islam, Judaism). The core tenet of the Eastern religions he studied was Tat tvan asi—Sanskrit for "M are that." Tat tvan asi means that in that location is no division between who we are and what we perceive. Once a human being realizes that he is one with everything around him, information technology says, he has reached enlightenment.
**The best way to recognize our oneness with the earth is...
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Shortform Exercise: Activity equally Artistry
Use these exercises to get yourself thinking like an artist.
What are you all-time at? In the box below, describe the facet of your life where you excel the most and list 3–5 reasons why you excel.
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Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Summary Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Guide Chapter 7: Upwards the Mountain of Quality
The morning afterward Pirsig'south flashback, he and Chris pack their backpacks and hike into the mountains backside the DeWeeses'. Pirsig notes that mountains appear in every major religion as metaphors, especially for a spiritual obstacle that prevents the soul from reaching its highest goal.
Chautauqua: Phaedrus's Research into Quality
Phaedrus saw his inquiry into Quality every bit an endeavor to detect a new path upward the mountain of existential significant. His rising can be divided into ii phases: a artistic, unsystematic phase, which Phaedrus found enjoyable; and a rigorous, hierarchical phase, which Phaedrus thought resulted in a new conception of homo existence but came at the toll of his family and freedom.
Pirsig believes that a new theory of the meaning of existence—a new path upwards the mountain—is needed at present more than ever. Many mod people still follow the precepts of Jesus and Moses, but if those figures were to appear today and start spreading their bulletin, they wouldn't be taken seriously. This isn't because their ideas aren't wise or true, only rather because the historical context has inverse—a reference to "Heaven above," in an age when we tin see into distant space,...
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Zen and the Art of Motorbike Maintenance Summary Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Guide Affiliate 8: Cultivating Quality
The hikers have stopped at a h2o source and are eating lunch. They're descending the ridge along a different trail, into a unlike canyon. Although Chris is disappointed that they won't be summiting the mountain, he offers to carry some of the heavy stuff Pirsig transferred to his pack.
Back on the trail, the going is relatively crude—the slope is steep, and Pirsig has to hack through the overgrown brush with his machete—but somewhen the hikers make it to a road. Some fellow campers give them a ride back into Bozeman; information technology's late by the time they arrive, and Pirsig decides to check them into a hotel rather than wake the DeWeeses. They're asleep almost as soon every bit they lie down.
In the morning time, Pirsig and Chris return to the DeWeeses' to say their goodbyes, then they're back on Pirsig's cycle, heading West.
Chautauqua: Coming Downwards the Mountain
Pirsig wants to event a change in emphasis, from the abstract to the practical. His final judgment is mixed on whether Phaedrus advanced man knowledge either of the Tao or Quality, just what he did achieve was an expansion of our notion of reason. Although he was a dyed-in-the-wool classical thinker, Phaedrus used the...
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Shortform Exercise: Recognizing Quality
Quality can be a difficult concept to grasp. Try these exercises to train yourself to recognize Quality.
Think of the last time yous were "stuck," whether at work or in your personal life. What strategies did you use to get "unstuck"? Or, if you lot're still stuck, listing some reasons why you think you lot might still be stuck.
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Zen and the Art of Motorbike Maintenance Summary Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Guide Chapter 9: Gumption, Gumption Traps, and Motorcycle Maintenance
In the morning, Pirsig packs everything upward before waking Chris. Made mischievous by the coldness of the morning, Pirsig screams "Wake!" to rouse him and immediately starts reciting Western farsi poetry (which Chris, in his half-awake state, doesn't appreciate).
Soon they're on the road over again. Every bit they cross into Oregon, Pirsig is still reciting verses from The Rubáiyat of Omar Khayyám to himself. Chris yells to Pirsig that he has diarrhea again, breaking Pirsig'southward reverie. They pull over at a stream, and Chris hops off to clean himself.
Chautauqua: On Gumption
In the process of attention to our job with a calm mind, at that place'due south always the possibility that unforeseen problems may ascend. Pirsig calls these annoyances "gumption traps," for they siphon off the initial enthusiasm—the gumption—nosotros feel equally nosotros become attuned to Quality and immersed in our piece of work.
Although there are likely an infinite number of gumption traps, Pirsig narrows the field to 2 primary types: Setbacks, which are external circumstances that divert us from the Quality path; and Hang-Ups, which are internal circumstances that do.
An all-besides-mutual setback is the "leftover part" setback....
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Shortform Exercise: Chirapsia Gumption Traps
Utilize these exercises to make sure you lot keep your gumption levels loftier.
Which of Pirsig's gumption traps is your kryptonite? Write it down and include what activities cause information technology. (If you have several, feel free to list them.)
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Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Summary Zen and the Fine art of Motorcycle Maintenance Guide Chapter 10: Phaedrus at the Brink
Pirsig has his recurring dream, except this time he's more interested in the shadowy effigy than Chris. He interrogates the figure; the figure seems to cower in fearfulness as Pirsig approaches it. Suddenly Pirsig lunges for the shadow's neck—it writhes like a snake—merely just as Pirsig is about to see its face he's awakened by Chris's cries.
As he calms Chris downwardly, he tells Chris he saw the figure'southward face: it was his own. Pirsig realizes that the shrouded effigy in the dream is him—and the dreamer, the person trying to get through the glass door to Chris, is Phaedrus. This epiphany leaves Pirsig despondent. He believes Phaedrus is trying to reassert himself in Pirsig's listen.
Pirsig has a flashback to a wintertime's solar day when Chris was six. Phaedrus and Chris were in the car, but Phaedrus didn't know where they were going or where in town they were. Chris had to remind him they were going to buy a bunk bed. Eventually Chris had to get out of the auto to ask people for directions. They managed to notice their manner home, where Chris'southward mother was irate that they weren't able to detect the bunk-bed shop.
Haunted by this incident, Pirsig contemplates heading to San Francisco, putting Chris on a bus...
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Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Summary Zen and the Fine art of Motorcycle Maintenance Guide Chapter 11: The Travelers Arrive
Chautauqua: Phaedrus's Stop (cont'd)
Phaedrus returned to his study of Plato and Aristotle with renewed interest. He now wondered why Plato had spurned the Sophists and their instruction of aretê. But information technology turned out Plato hadn't washed away with aretê, or at to the lowest degree not completely. What he'd done was transmute information technology into an entity chosen the "Good," which Plato considered the highest goal of human life except for Truth. The problem with Plato's "Good" was that information technology was eternal and unchangeable—exactly the opposite of the Sophists' aretê, which adapted to people's beliefs and historical contexts.
Phaedrus guessed that Plato reinterpreted aretê to keep immutable Truth at the top of his hierarchical system. Considering, if for every question there is but i truthful reply, then there must be but 1 true definition of aretê.
This demotion of aretê in favor of Truth left the door open up for a philosopher like Aristotle, who sidelined aretê even more in favor of the kind of scientific inquiry, based on empirical ascertainment, that we would find familiar today. In Aristotle'due south organisation, which formed the basis of not just the Academy of Chicago's educational approach but besides...
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