Introduction I recently completed yet another reading of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig. There is a section near the end of the book where Pirsig, in his attempt to point the root of our current metaphysical crises, reaches the philosopher of ancient Greece. I’ve always experienced both a draw to […]
Tag Archives: Robert Pirsig
Realms Beyond Reason
n” … the crisis is being caused by the inadequacy of existing forms of thought to cope with the situation. It can’t be solved by rational means because the rationality itself is the source of the problem … the solution to the problem isn’t that you abandon rationality but that you expand the nature of […]
Posted in Quality, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Also tagged quality
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Yoga incorporates felt experience
nAgain this reminded me of Alexander and unfoding wholeness – a process of making in which felt experience is constantly incorporated in guiding choices … and of Pirsig’s sitting on a hot stove. “Practice is action. In this, Yoga differs from – without exclding – other schools of philosophy and of belief that rely solely […]
Posted in Yoga, Yoga & Life
Also tagged Christopher Alexander, TKV Desikachar
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Robert Pirsig on Writing
n“The basic unit of that particular process is a comparison. You take two slips and you say: “Which one comes first?”. And I don’t know of any rational way in which you can pass a rule as to which one comes first but it seems like you always know. And now you get two slips […]
Radiating
n“The Zen master, he doesn’t have any particular teaching. He just sets you a good example. He just lives his own life as best he can. The most Dynamic, the most good high quality way he can and it kind of radiates out.” Robert Pirsig – Source
Reading Lila – Dharma
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Dharma is Quality itself, the principle of ‘rightness’ which gives structure and purpose to the evolution of all life …
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Reading Lila – Rta
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The mythos is the social culture and the rhetoric which the culture must invent before philosophy becomes possible
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Reading Lila – Meditation
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Just as mystics traditionally seek monasteries and ashrams … so are the insane treated by isolation in places of relative calm and austerity and silence.
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Reading Lila – Shock
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The value of shock treatment is not that it returns a lunatic to normal cultural patterns. It certainly does not do that. It’s value is that it destroys all patterns … cultural and private, and leaves the patient temporarily in a Dynamic state …
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Reading Lila – Religion
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Religious mysticism is one of those delusions that isn’t called insane only because there are so many people involved …
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Reading Lila – Dynamic
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Dynamic Quality is a higher moral order than scientific truth, and it is as immoral for philosophers of science to try to suppress Dynamic Quality as it is for church authorities to suppress scientific method. Dynamic value is an integral part of science. It is the cutting edge of scientific progress itself.
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Reading Lila – Contrarians
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Sometimes the insane and the contrarians and the ones who are closest to suicide are the most valuable people society has …
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Reading Lila – Sanity
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… the insane person is running a private unapproved film which he happens to like better than the current cultural one …
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Reading Lila – Do You See the Light?
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When a cartoonist wants to show someone getting a great idea he puts an electric bulb over the character’s head. Everybody understands … Why?
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Reading Lila – Facts & Culture
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Your static value system filters out the undesirable opinions & preserves the desirable ones … it isn’t just opinions that get filtered out. It’s also data.
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