Self Improvement – The Top 101 Experts that Help Us Improve Our Lives

they are.

ith Robert M. Pirsig

• The solutions all are simple—after you have arrived at them. But they’re
  simple only when you know already what

The Best Way to Get Started w

he best way to get started with Robert M. Pirsig is to read Zen and the Art of
Mo r cle
journey that he and his 11-year-old son embark on:

ing on a motorcycle in a way that is

completely different from any other. In a car you’re always in a

gh that car window everything you see is just more TV. You’re

gly in a frame.

. You’re completely in contact with it all.
You’re in the scene, not just watching it anymore, and the sense of

wn

it anytime, and the whole thing, the whole experience, is

never removed from immediate consciousness.

his book can best be described as “a personal and philosophical odyssey into
he n r
leads to a power t
austerely beauti g science, religion, and humanism.”

the preface to his book, Pirsig notes that it “should in no way be associated with
at great body of factual information relating to orthodox Zen Buddhism.” He
goes on to add that “it’s not very factual on motorcycles, either.”

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance has sold millions of copies and has
profoundly affected many people. The book, first published in 1974, continues to
be a major source of debate and inquiry for its many readers. An ongoing
discussion of the meaning of Pirsig’s writings and philosophy can be found on the
web at http://www.moq.org.

T

to cycle Maintenance. The first chapter sets up the scene for the motorcy

You see things vacation

compartment and because you’re used to it you don’t realize that

throu

a passive observer, and it is all moving by you borin

On a cycle the frame is gone

presence is overwhelming. That concrete whizzing by five inches

below your foot is the real thing, the same stuff you walk on; it’s right

there, so blurred you can’t focus on it, yet you can put your foot do

and touch

T

fundamental questions of how to live. T arrato 's relationship with his son
ful self-reckoning; the craft of mo orcycle maintenance leads to an
ful process for reconcilin

In
th