“And what is good, Phaedrus, And what is not good- Need we ask anyone to tell us these things?”
― Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
In the "second half of life", Carl Jung indicated, people gravitate towards making meaning of their years. This often manifests in a spritual quest. This channel is a means to me exploring and expressing that quest. I use as a framework the notion of Quality, as discussed extensiely in the book "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance". I see this pattern of Quality in so many places. I hope to discuss these as I make meaning out of my own relationship with Quality and depict the considerable effort it takes to integrate it, and live "A Quality Existence".
"Everybody thought that the intellectual level was the highest, and the quality was the fifth level. But the intellectual level is actually a dead end. You can't get into the quality level of existence if you follow your title for this series through the intellectual level. You have to get out of the intellectual level and get into the direct experience. Abraham Maslow terms it like all of the intellect is vicarious experience. You learn everything intellectually from the works of others, condensed and distilled into books and rationalism. But what you really need to learn is intuitively through your direct experience, and then you get into a quality experience in a very direct, in a very different routine. And that comes through in the Eastern world through meditation, through being mindful instead of being mindless. "
bravo..I needed the captions to fully understand..Liked the comments about getting to the source and whether you live it or not, also relating the ideas in communication...
I arrived here serching for Peterson and the book stuff. But, since Im here. Lady, Jordan is spot on. IT IS a judgement, and ultimatlely it comes from our consciousness. The judgement is just tellin you something you already know that you know is worst and not as good. Pirsig mentions that as well in the book, even about Religon, witch I believe he was, Christian.
Hey Sevila, hard to believe that's it's been 50 years, but I bought it shortly after it came into print, and read it while hitchhiking in the Rockies a whole summer before my senior year of high school. I went onto do a double major in Philosophy and English in college, and it was Pirsig and that book started my journey into philosophy and eventually theology. Though I am not a religious man by any stretch, I ended up on that journey due to Pirsig initially. Thanks for all your content, I'm slowly chewing through all of it. And, like you, I am a romantic. Being a believer, I also love science and rational thought and find myself more often in the camp of the atheists or agnostics versus religious people, because the journey is an internal one that we walk alone, and it requires all of my mind, heart and soul. I still love Pirsig, both the man and his writings, and wish I could have his perspective on all of the changes we have endured since he has passed on. Thank you!
Wish I would have known about that get together and the exhibit, I'd have been there. I was 16 when I hitchhiked out to the Rockies from Milwaukee, to spend the summer backpacking around the Rockies and learning to be good at it. To be good at making fires and catching trout, to be comfortable in a tent during thunderstorms or invasions of mosquitoes, or to have my tent pitched above the treeline, and for the first time in my life, to see the stars so plentiful and magnificent and infinite all around me. To feel right-sized for the first time in my young life. I brought three books with me in 1976, On the Road by Jack Kerouac, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig, and Notes on Love and Courage, by Hugh Prather. I also picked up a paperback in Boulder of short stories by Hemingway...all of which kept me great company that bicentennial summer, where I was trying to piece together myself and the world around me. I still keep those books on one of my nightstands, and though I have read many, many more books those still hold a special place in my heart. Thank you for channel and your readings and thoughts on what I consider to be still one of the greatest ever written.
I was 16 when I hitchhiked out to the Rockies from Milwaukee, to spend the summer backpacking around the Rockies and learning to be good at it. To be good at making fires and catching trout, to be comfortable in a tent during thunderstorms or invasions of mosquitoes, or to have my tent pitched above the treeline, and for the first time in my life, to see the stars so plentiful and magnificent and infinite all around me. To feel right-sized for the first time in my young life. I brought three books with me in 1976, On the Road by Jack Kerouac, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig, and Notes on Love and Courage, by Hugh Prather. I also picked up a paperback in Boulder of short stories by Hemingway...all of which kept me great company that bicentennial summer, where I was trying to piece together myself and the world around me. I still keep those books on one of my nightstands, and though I have read many, many more books those still hold a special place in my heart. Thank you for channel and your readings and thoughts on what I consider to be still one of the greatest ever written.
22:55 - “we all go into these processes wanting answers, desiring certainty; and what your saying it is that the transformation into understanding the process itself that is legitimate and that the final outcome was much less important than actually holding the quality within the process.”
12:28 is gold. Knowing your orientation 100% and being respons able is what helps people most. Fact. Very Rick Rubinish when it comes to you creating for yourself and that’s what helps other people most. Agree
It's a difficult path leading with Pirsig into discussions. I tended to use his ideas as an internal resource or tool, which doesn't help spread the word. To avoid evangelising I suppose, I spent much of my time translating Pirsig into other people's language.
I have found the closest literal 'rational' proofed signature of Value that we all 'experience' but few recognise its nature. It is proofed, conserved, cannot be touched or cut and we use it everyday. Recent technologies encapsulate it as intrinsic 'value' and time-proofs it, a superior store of 'value' - see if you can guess.
Sevilla.. Bob can see your little corner.. for he is behind the eyes of your Cat & moreover behind all measures of consciousness of every pattern around you.
Social layers seem to many Souls to be 'the end', nothing higher(not aware of higher moral intellectual pattern layer) and to that end that is where they 'look' to covet others in that layer whom they 'feel' can 'give' them, the 'coveter', what they seek. This lack of a 'just be' 'stance' can manifest itself as disease, ills of the cells which can self consume - as they rarely find their higher growth away from their carbon static towards Dynamic Quality of higher Intellectual layer.. in a 'freedom' similar movement. Thus yes a Stance , a position of 'just be' yes, no judge, that is the posture to adopt for health and to not covet and seek from others. As if a Stance of no thought, at least a emptier Teacup can indeed 'give' the cells what they covet - a route upwards and growth into a greater Intellectual position - and this resolves the social layer 'seeking' and all the ills that can bring.
It's wise for all to consider that they themselves are Philosophers in a strict definition, yet most assume because their name is not Plato nor are their birthyears circa 1700C or 'Ancient' Greek', that there is NO way a humble 'ordinary' Soul could be. A typical modern Social pattern assumption of 'role' 'identity by acting in an arena'. We are each as capable as those noted in 'His-story'. Bob does not 'own' MOQ, as I would say he would have agreed; That he just revealed the genius of reverse containerization to us as a window to see 'Value' as undefinable source of patterns our sense data brings to us with priorie of mind giving us 'substance'. MOQ 'just is' and always 'was'.. Bob's genius like most 'Great(another 'r''t' word! ;) Artists (Arete' in Engineers caring) is that he painted a picture of words to efficiently communicate MOQ to us all as best as possibly could.
Probably easy for Robert to fall under the strong sense that many readers did not fully 'stand beneath'.. ie. understand MOQ to the depth that it may indeed be a natural medicine for all sorts of physical and mental 'ills', as Philosophy is in general -for the Soul's intellectual 'food' for dynamic patterns ie new thought or seeing more clearly. Perhaps Robert may have naturally overestimated the layperson reader's capacity to think around each word he wrote and could have put the book down after they read the section describing Biological layer morality in a lower moral layer that Social layer patterns yet biological dynamic quality quite moral within its layers. ie picking up bar ladies after a beer is part of life and dynamic Quality - well in a biological sense of course.. but.. that section of Lila may.. just may have 'unsettled' lay readers - as some may see or indeed, may not have seen the morality within each layer is moral.. but of course some/most laypersons live in the world of 'social codes', as Rob rightly said. The knowledge that MOQ brings(upon the 20th slow reading w/notes on pages lol) could be suggested that such torments as people/society using Morals across pattern paradigms as a means of manipulation could result in biological unhappiness of the cells if higher moral Societal patterns or Social 'codes' are pressed onto the body - biological needs for dynamic Quality. MOQ can bring advances to greater understanding of the infinite ancient immune system layers.. modern industrial Object/Subject 'products' as 'solutions' where as the cells just often need freedom from Static patterns and feed them intellectual level stimulus ie give them what they seek.. Freedom of Purpose.. not so called 'betterness' of working in a cubicle.. w/car payments and high inflation stress - which can enslave at the societal - Social pattern moral layer. This is where Bitcoin / Pure decentralized intellectual patterns have evolved - evolving.. and showing its impact now on Social layer patterns - offering many the joys of seeing their Savings (energy) grow in stored Value not stolen(as in holding ones Energy in Fiat/$ currency - which is diluted immorally by Central forces). These Joys not only make domestic social pattern level bliss 'better' .. less stress.. less Divorce.. etc.. but it seems that such Technology as a self sovereign store of ones Value also seems to affect the intellectual patterns of the Bitcoin 'holder' .. as if it supplies a 'freedomain'.. a higher purpose of 'Goodness' which seems to come from the Responsibility of being 'Free'er'.. the responsibility of higher purpose higher 'sense' of Freedom - which is a word just as ephemeral as 'Value' / 'Quality' .. can't quite put ones finger on it - yes and it takes a while to train ones mind to drop any Subject/Object link in mind to those words when brought to mind.. not easy ! but spooky when one reaches that High Country.. then just static latch by having a Beer ! and descend the summit ridge. Social layer patterns of 'betterness' of Product, Profit - look good taste good fast foods that are actually poison/processed foods.. maybe seeing a blossoming of understanding in years ahead as decentralized intellectual patterns influence/dominate the Social 'Centrally' oriented patterns implemented by Centralized(often Evil Banking fractional reserve 'law' of money printing) ie such intellectual patterns of 'control' of Social layer monsters - Cities... to Nation states.. 'freeing' the Mind MOQ could well help the immune system do its job by supplying knowledge of ever new patterns, Priories of Mind and Time etc.. thus cure Cancers(a symptom of a unhappy ancient immune system.. its not a disease.. that occurs naturally - Gamma rays- mutation of DNA in cells etc..before supernatural(behind your eyes) selection took over as a more efficient evolutionary mechanism. BTW. i had a Sailboat in San Diego.. and yes a new Sailboat attract nothing but trouble! .. the coveting of Objects by Observers. Riegel's of the world desperate to validate themselves that they themselves are 'ok' by first liking ya for what they want then hating ya for not getting what ya have... Trick is to 'just be' not to 'want'.. and live in a TP and have nothing but a raggety Dog.. no one bothers your Soul then let alone understand ones 'Values' Look after 'your Goodness' everyone. PS. I 'suspect' that intellectual patterns such as Social 'Values' of a Social layer culture.. that yes can never been 'seen' accurately by anyone outside that defined cultural pattern.. moreover of course I sense that Values of that pattern are rooted in the Inorganic.. ie the Land.. Testing this presently as a multi-cultural pattern aware observer it is remarkable how one 'feels' the true 'Value!' of the Values of native peoples when one lives on the same lands and away from Cities/non-nomadic central patterns. Fantastic! feels like the Land owns me now... and there is no property Tax Assessor or Insurance criminal sales agent to bother me now.
Wow! Fascinating. I would like to have been there. Having read ZAMM 6 or 8 times through my life, I intended to write to Pirsig to tell him what an impact his book made on my life. But due to my chronic procrastination, I didn't get round to it before he passed.
Thanks for showing the presentation, I like the typewriter and the leather jacket(there is a similar jacket hanging in my closet somewhere). Wish the exhibit has the index cards that was used for outlining the themes. Do you think the cards were handwritten or typed out?
I really wanted to see the index cards too. I think the index cards may be in the 'back exhibit', unreleased to the public yet, or somewhere high up in a tower, guarded by Wendy, where all the gold is kept waiting there. I'm almost positive he starts them as handwritten ('pencil is mightier than pen') to keep them as dynamic as possible- writing, drawing, origami, scattered (he was afraid of Lila knocking off his slips by her suitcase, so this thought/experience of picking up knocked off slips probably part of the random access, as this does increase the ability of yourself to randomly access the slips, when they're scattered around and accessed accidentally at a time you can't even predict - he does do this just on a much smaller scale). It's a pretty 'disorganized organized system' as it is tho. He does have a premonition of losing all the slips as they hover above the water above his sinking sailboat- 'would be easier to lose the boat than these slips' and kind of randomly picking up the wet and ruined slips as a nightmare. I don't know why he didn't explain losing slips and finding them as a good thing. But... Even when he can't think of things, during "creating unassimilated" where the cards are being created currently, where more than one card was currently created recently, at a desk or on a boat, he says he just started drawing sometimes which lead him on an important tangent. He probably wrote things down here with a pencil and index card because having a typewriter at hand while your away working on a boat or cruising down a strait would be too heavy to carry with you everywhere. And then when he can't think of anything else, and also can't recognize or capture fleeting hunches or ideas and/or by looking at other neighboring ideas, when at a desk or not, but certainly not creating now anymore, he goes to work on the "processing unassimilated", which is not while working away on a boat or driving down a strait, but is at a desk where the cards must be able to be accessed and are taken one by one from the 'creating unassimilated' by comparing them into groups of 3s, and then those form a line ("processing unassimilated"), earlier and later slips merge about a common topic, and I don't know if this processing part ever involved drawing over an already typed out slip. But this is a really good question because he used the apple II yet "Lila" is written by index cards, and the book is in a dedicated font family, not his own handwriting, yet the book dimensions perfectly match a 4x6 index card, paralleling how it was written. So I presume there were more first-handwritten-down slips and then converted to font family than the other way around, but I like to imagine he has sexy program slips written in some robotic-like font, really any native typewriter font (kind of what those program slips are like- robots- telling other slips and other ideas about how other ideas are combined how to work) but that may make some slips look different than others, and feel different too, and if they are thicker they pop out other slips and make groupings of 3s a little bulkier than normal, it may go against some slips being naturally better/more likable than others, however, discriminating against how ideas are made, if they must be made a certain way, is something pirsig wouldn't like. He already avoids this with his system with Joe as a natural stratagem working all the time to help avoid making decisions based on the 'pre-fittingness' of things. However he does make his own slip trays instead of buying them, so this would support the idea that he creates slips by himself, without the help of a machine, like a typewriter or a computer.
My dad gave me Zen in the early 70s, the only book he ever recommended to me. Started reading it in the 80s in college but skipped over the zen parts and focused on the bike trip ( I was a long distance rider). I read it again a few years ago but didn't skip the Chautauquas and made sure to understand the free form ramblings. I went up one hat size after getting through all the internal conflict his character endured. A few years later I was moving my sailboat south and went through the Erie barge canal system from lake Ontario to Sandy Hook New Jersey and beyond. My life kind of took a similar path to Roberts minus Lila and the introspection. I don't ride anymore ( cell phone distracted drivers) and sold my boat after getting it back from the Bahamas. Inspirations can come from doing big adventures and enduring miss adventures. I was in a 5 day major wind event at Sandy Hook and got seasick at anchor. I wrote " Dispatches from Blew Jay" that was enjoyed by friends and sisters. Never wrote anything before or since. Thanks for your deep dive into a fascinating writer.
Again, thank you for your insights. Your commentary is so "in depth" and complete. Every chapter of Pirsig contains many "gems" of insight. However, for me, Pirsig uses this chapter to come back down to earth, to more practical things after the the brilliant but confusing ghost story chapter. He doesn't want to lose his readers. Good luck!
First I want to thank you for your endeavor to "spread the gospel" of the MOQ. Pirsigs two books have had a great impact on me. I have just decided to produce my own book reviews and become active in spreading the gospel as well. Hope to be in touch in the future. I am based in the Netherlands.
'comfort' is uncomfortable as yes one is defined by what the other is not and thus whomever tries to reach the 'Paradise' this way sign desination, does in fact never reach it unless one comes from non-paradise or a place of the opposite. ie. People whom inherit 'comfort'.. and yet have no purpose are done a hugse dis-service, especially children, by their beneficiaries. True 'Freedom' when you reach it, as I have done.. then shows you many serious responsibilities of now 'what to 'do' with that freedom-from?.. ' "Purpose" then shows itself to you as your Master of 'make it new again' in a Ezra Pound sense.. without it .. reaching the sign's destination is not what is says it is.
thank you so much for reading this. your voice is lovely and this book isn't available as an audiobook anywhere. i loved the first book, so great seeing you have the whole thing uploaded. thanks in advance, looking forward to listening ♥️
@@aqualityexistence4842 hey sorry. this is me, i am darkuncle77. *lifts off face mask. I can confirm myself by asking where is (my favorite quote) this question from: "Have you ever talked with x, and discussed your feelings about paparazzi with x?"
