Selected Texts

<BODY topmargin="0" leftmargin="0" MARGINHEIGHT="0" MARGINWIDTH="0"> <FORM> <script type="text/javascript" language="JavaScript1.1" src="/adm/ad/common_scripts.js"></script><script type="text/javascript" language="JavaScript1.1">setAdGroup('24.159.100.128');</script> <script type="text/javascript">var cm_role = "live" var cm_host = "tripod.lycos.com" var cm_taxid = "/memberembedded" </script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://scripts.lycos.com/catman/init.js"></script><script type="text/javascript" language="JavaScript1.1">var objAdMgr = new AdManager(); objAdMgr.setForcedParam("keyword", "defensemechanism"); if(adChannel != "") { objAdMgr.setForcedParam("google_ad_channel", adChannel); } var strProdSetName = objAdMgr.chooseProductSet(); objAdMgr.renderHeader(); </script><script type="text/javascript" language="JavaScript1.1">function tripodShowPopup() { var bName=navigator.appName; var bVer=parseInt(navigator.appVersion); var now = new Date(); var popupURL = "/adm/ad/popup_source.shtml?"+"member_name=ghostofamemory&path=WOM_19SelectedTexts.htm&client_ip=24.159.100.128&ts=1120263673&ad_type=POPUP&search_string=defensemechanism&id=3a92548b3b02904cb6496a88e412bd25"; var popupName = "TripodPopup"; if (bName=="Netscape" && bVer<=3) { var popupWin = window.open("", popupName, 'toolbar=0,location=0,directories=0,status=0,menubar=0,scrollbars=0,resizable=0,width=755,height=200,left=200,top=550'); } else { var popupWin = window.open("", popupName, 'toolbar=0,location=0,directories=0,status=0,menubar=0,scrollbars=0,resizable=0,width=745,height=185,left=200,top=500'); } if (popupWin) { popupWin.blur(); popupWin.location = popupURL; } else { var nopopImg=d.createElement('IMG'); var random_num = Math.round((Math.random()*999999)); nopopImg.src="/adm/img/common/ot_popupblocked.gif?type=pop&rand=" + random_num; } } function changeOpenFunction() { var original_window_open = window.open; function new_open_function(url, name, features, replace) { if (name != "TripodPopup") { return original_window_open(url, name, features, replace); } } window.open = new_open_function; } tripodShowPopup(); var bName = navigator.appName; if(bName != "Netscape") { changeOpenFunction(); } window.onload = function () { setKeywordCookie('defensemechanism'); buildExitHandler(); } if (!displayAd()) document.write(" </script><script type="text/javascript" language="JavaScript1.1">if (displayAd() || displayTopAd()) { objAdMgr.renderFooter(); } </script><TABLE CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0" BORDER="0" HEIGHT="100%"> <TR> <TD VALIGN="TOP" WIDTH="215" BGCOLOR="#444444" TEXT="#080000"> <div><B><script language="JavaScript1.2" type="text/javascript" src="http://pub16.bravenet.com/counter/code.php?id=365910&usernum=1296537305&groupnum=16&cpv=1"></script><noscript> </noscript> </B></div><div><B>Previous Postings:</B></div> <div><U><A HREF="WOM_65SelectedTextsZenMiracles.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Zen Miracles">Zen Miracles</A></U></div> <div><U><A HREF="WOM_59SelectedTextsTheBookOfLies.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="The Book Of Lies">The Book Of Lies</A></U></div> <div><U><A HREF="WOM_42SelectedTextsAngelTech.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Angel Tech">Angel Tech</A></U></div> <BR> <div>This is an excerpt from</div> <div></div><div><B>&quotZen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance&quot</B></div> <div><I>An Inquiry Into Values</I></div> <div>by Robert Pirsig</div> <BR> <div>&quotThe real cycle you're working on is a cycle called 'yourself.'&quot</div> <BR> <div>&quotThe study of the art of motorcycle maintenance is really a miniature study of the art of rationality itself. &nbspWorking on a motorcycle, working well, caring, is to become part of a process, to achieve an inner peace of mind. &nbspThe motorcycle is primarily a mental phenomenon.&quot</div></TD> <TD VALIGN="TOP" BGCOLOR="#ffffff" TEXT="#080000"> <div><FONT COLOR="#003399" SIZE="+1" FACE="Comic Sans MS">Hey...</FONT> &nbsp<FONT COLOR="#003399" SIZE="+2" FACE="Comic Sans MS">Hey...!</FONT> &nbsp<FONT COLOR="#003399" SIZE="+2" FACE="Comic Sans MS">Hey!!!</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000bf" SIZE="-2" FACE="Comic Sans MS"> &nbsp&nbsp&nbsp</FONT><FONT COLOR="#003399" SIZE="-1" FACE="Comic Sans MS"> | &nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp</FONT><U><FONT SIZE="-1" FACE="Comic Sans MS"><A HREF="legacy.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Hey... Hey...! Hey!!!">home</A></FONT></U></div> <div><U><A HREF="WOM_17ImageGallery.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Image Gallery">Image Gallery</A></U> &nbsp&nbsp| &nbsp&nbsp<U><A HREF="WOM_18ShortStories.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Short Stories">Short Stories</A></U> &nbsp&nbsp| &nbsp&nbspSelected Texts &nbsp&nbsp| &nbsp&nbsp<U><A HREF="WOM_20OtherSites.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Other Sites">Other Sites</A></U> &nbsp&nbsp| &nbsp&nbsp<U><A HREF="WOM_21ContactUs.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Contact Us">Contact Us</A></U></div> <div>________________________________________________________________________________________________</div> <BR> <div>Selected Texts</div> <div><B>Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance</B></div> <BR> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspStuckness. &nbspThat's what I want to talk about today. &nbsp</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspBack on our trip out of Miles City you'll remember I talked about how formal scientific method could be applied to the repair of a motorcycle through the study of chains of cause and effect and the application of experimental method to determine these chains. &nbspThe purpose then was to show what was meant by classic rationality.</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspNow &nbspwant to show that that classic pattern of rationality can be tremendously improved, expanded and made far more effective through the formal recognition of Quality in its operation. &nbspBefore doing this, however, I should go over some of the negative aspects of traditional maintenance to show just where the problems are.</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspThe first is stuckness, a mental stuckness that accompanies the physical stuckness of whatever it is you're working on. &nbspThe same thing Chris was suffering from. &nbspA screw sticks, for example, on a side cover assembly. &nbspYou check the manual to see if there might be any special cause for this screw to come off so hard, but all it says is &quotRemove side cover plate"in that wonderful terse technical style that never tells you what you want to know. &nbspThere's no earlier procedure left undone that might cause the cover screws to stick.</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspIf you're experienced you'd probably apply a penetrating liquid and an impact driver at this point. &nbspBut suppose you're inexperienced and you attach a self-locking plier wrench to the shank of your screwdriver and really twist it hard, a procedure you've had success with in the past, but which this time succeeds only in tearing the slot of the screw. &nbsp</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbsp</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspYour mind was already thinking ahead to what you would do when the cover plate was off, and so it takes a little time to realize that this irritating minor annoyance of a torn screw slot isn't just irritating and minor. &nbspYou're stuck. &nbspStopped. &nbspTerminated. &nbspIt's absolutely stopped you from fixing the motorcycle.</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspThis isn't a rare scene in science or technology. &nbspThis is the commonest scene of all. &nbspJust plain <I>stuck</I>. &nbspIn traditional maintenance this is the worst of all moments, so bad that you have avoided even thinking about it before you come to it.</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspThe book's no good to you now. &nbspNeither is scientific reason. &nbspYou don't need any scientific experiments to find out what's wrong. &nbspIt's obvious what's wrong. &nbspWhat you need is a hypothesis for how you're going to get that slotless screw out of there and scientific method doesn't provide any of these hypotheses. &nbspIt operates only after they're around.</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspThis is the zero moment of consciousness. &nbspStuck. &nbspNo answer. &nbspHonked. &nbspKaput. &nbspIt's a miserable experience emotionally. &nbspYou're losing time. &nbspYou're incompetant. &nbspYou don't know what you're doing. &nbspYou should be ashamed of yourself. &nbspYou should take the machine to a <I>real</I> mechanic who knows how to figure these things out.</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspIt's normal at this point for the fear-anger syndrome to take over and make you want to hammer on that side plate with a chisel, to pound it off with a sledge if necessary. &nbspYou think about it, and the more you think about it the more you're inclined to take the whole machine to a high bridge and drop it off. &nbspIt's just outrageous that a tiny little slot of a screw can defeat you so totally.</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspWhat you're up against is the great unknown, the void of all Western thought. &nbspYou need some ideas, some hypotheses. &nbspTraditional scientific method, unfortunately, has never quite gotten around to saying exactly where to pick up more of these hypotheses. &nbspTraditional scientific method has always been at the very <I>best</I>, 20-20 hindsight. &nbspIt's good for seeing where you've been. &nbspIt's good for testing the truth of what you think you know, but it can't tell you where you <I>ought</I> to go, unless where you ought to go is a continuation of where you were going in the past. &nbsp&nbspCreativity, originality, inventiveness, intuition, imagination - &quotunstuckness,"in other words - are completely outside its domain.</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbsp</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspWe continue down the canyon, past folds in the steep slope where wide streams enter. &nbspWe notice the river grows rapidly now as streams enlarge it. &nbspTurns in the road are less sharp here and straight stretches are longer. &nbspI move into the highest gear.</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspLater the trees become scarce and spindly, with large areas of grass and underbrush between them. &nbspIt's too hot for the jacket and sweater so I stop at a roadside pulloff to remove them.</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspChris wants to go hiking up a trail and I let him, finding a small shady spot to sit back and rest. &nbspJust quiet now, and meditative.</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspA display describes a fire burn that took place here years ago. &nbspAccording to the information the forest is filling in again but it will be years before it returns to its former condition.</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspLater the crunch of gravel tells me Chris is coming back down the trail. &nbspHe didn't go very far. &nbspWhen he arrives he says, &quotLet's go."&nbspWe retie the pack, which has started to shift a little, and then move out onto the highway. &nbspThe sweat from sitting there cools suddenly from the wind. &nbsp</div> <BR> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspWe're still stuck on that screw and the only way it's going to get unstuck is by abandoning further examination of the screw according to traditional scientific method. &nbspThat won't work. &nbspWhat we have to do is examine traditional scientific method in the light of that stuck screw. &nbsp</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspWe have been looking at the screw &quotobjectively."&nbspAccording to the doctrine of &quotobjectivity,"which is integral with traditional scientific method, what we like or don't like about the screw has nothing to do with our correct thinking. &nbspWe should not evaluate what we see. &nbspWe should keep our mind a blank tablet which nature fills for us, and then reason disinterestedly from the facts we observe. &nbsp&nbsp</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspBut when we stop and think about it disinterestedly, in terms of this stuck screw, we begin to see that this whole idea of disinterested observation is silly. &nbspWhere <I>are</I> those facts? &nbspWhat are we going to observe disinterestedly? &nbspThe torn slot? &nbspThe immovable side cover plate? &nbspThe color of the paint job? &nbspThe speedometer? &nbspThe sissy bar? &nbspAs Poincare would have said, there are an infinite number of facts about the motorcycle, and the right ones don't just dance up and introduce themselves. &nbspThe right facts, the ones we really need, are not only passive, they are damned <I>elusive</I>, and we're not going to just sit back and &quotobserve"them. &nbspWe're going to have to be in there <I>looking</I> for them or we're going to be here a long time. &nbspForever. &nbspAs Poincare pointed out, there <I>must</I> be a subliminal choice of what facts we observe.</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspThe difference between a good mechanic and a bad one, like the difference between a good mathematician and a bad one, is precisely this ability to <I>select</I> the good facts from the bad ones on the basis of quality. &nbspHe has to <I>care</I>! &nbspThis is an ability about which formal traditional scientific method has nothing to say. &nbspIt's long past time to take a closer look at this qualitative preselection of facts which has seemed so scrupulously ignored by those who make so much of these facts after they are &quotobserved."&nbspI think that it will be found that a formal acknowledgement of the role of Quality in the scientific process doesn't destroy the empirical vision at all. &nbspIt expands it, strengthens it and brings it far closer to actual scientific practice.</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspI think the basic fault that underlies the problem of stuckness is traditional rationality's insistence upon &quotobjectivity,"a doctrine that there is a divided reality of subject and object. &nbspFor true science to take place these must be rigidly separate from eachother. &nbsp&quotYou are the mechanic. &nbspThere is the motorcycle. &nbspyou are forever apart from one another. &nbspYou do this to it. &nbspYou do that to it. &nbspThese will be the results.&quot</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspThis eternally dualistic subject-object way of approaching the motorcycle sounds right to us because we're used to it. &nbspBut it's not right. &nbspIt's always been an artificial interpretation <I>superimposed</I> on reality. &nbspIt's never been reality itself. &nbspWhen this duality is completely accepted a certain nondivided relationship between the mechanic and the motorcycle, a craftsmanlike feeling for the work, is destroyed. &nbspWhen traditional rationality divides the world into subjects and objects it shuts out Quality, and when you're really stuck its Quality, not any subjects or objects, that tells you where you ought to go. &nbsp</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspBy returning our attention to Quality it is hoped that we can get technological work out of the noncaring subject-object dualism and back into craftsmanlike self-involved reality again, which will reveal to us the facts we need when we are stuck.</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbsp</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspIn my mind right now is an image of a huge, long railroad train, one of those 120-boxcar jobs that cross the prairies all the time with lumber and vegetables going east and with automobiles and other manufactured goods going west. &nbspI want to call this railroad train &quotknowledge"and subdivide it into two parts: &nbspClassic Knowledge and Romantic Knowledge.</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspIn terms of the analogy, Classic Knowledge, the knowledge taught by the Church of Reason, is the engine and all the boxcars. &nbspAll of them and everything that's in them. &nbspIf you subdivide the train into parts you will find no Romantic Knowledge anywhere. &nbspAnd unless you're careful it's easy to make the presumption that's all the train there is. &nbspThis isn't because Romantic Knowledge is nonexistent or even unimportant. &nbspIt's just that so far the definition of the train is static and purposeless. &nbspThis was what I was trying to get at back in South Dakota when I talked about two whole dimensions of existence. &nbspIt's two whole ways of <I>looking</I> at the train.</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspRomantic Quality, in terms of this analogy, isn't any &quotpart"of the train. &nbspIt's the leading edge of the engine, a two-dimensional surface of no real significance unless you understand that the train isn't a static entity at all. &nbspA train really isn't a train if it can't go anywhere. &nbspIn the process of examining the train and subdividing it into parts we've inadvertently stopped it, so that it really isn't a train we're examining. &nbspThat's why we get stuck. &nbsp</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspThe real train of knowledge isn't a static entity that can be stopped and subdivided. &nbspIt's always going somewhere. &nbspOn a track called Quality. &nbspAnd that engine and all those 120 boxcars are never going anywhere except where the track of Quality takes them; and Romantic Quality, the leading edge of the engine, takes them along the track.</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspRomantic reality is the cutting edge of experience. &nbspIt's the leading edge of the train of knowledge that keeps the whole train on the track. &nbspTraditional knowledge is only the collective memory of where that leading edge has been. &nbspAt the leading edge there are no subjects, no objects, only the track of Quality ahead, and if you have no formal way of evaluating, no way of acknowledging this Quality, then the entire train has no way of knowing where to go. &nbspYou don't have pure reason - you have pure confusion. &nbspThe leading edge is where absolutely all the action is. &nbspThe leading edge contains all the infinite possibilities of the future. &nbspit contains all the history of the past. &nbspWhere else could they be contained?</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspThe past cannot remember the past. &nbspThe future can't generate the future. &nbspThe cutting edge of this instant right here and now is always nothing less than the totality of everything there is. &nbsp</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspValue, the leading edge of reality, is no longer an irrelevant offshoot of structure. &nbspIt's the preintellectual awareness that gives rise to it. &nbspOur structured reality is preselected on the basis of value, and really to understand structured reality requires an understanding of the value source from which it's derived.</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspOne's rational understanding of a motorcycle is therefore modified from minute to minute as one works on it and sees that a new and different rational understanding has more Quality. &nbspOne doesn't cling to old sticky ideas because one has an immediate rational basis for rejecting them. &nbspReality isn't static anymore. &nbspIt's not a set of ideas you have to either fight or resign yourself to. &nbspIt's made up, in part, of ideas that are expected to grow as you grow, and as we grow, century after century. &nbspWith Quality as a central undefined term, reality is, in its essential nature, not static but dynamic. &nbspAnd when you really understand dynamic reality you never get stuck. &nbspIt has forms but the forms are capable of change.</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspTo put it in more concrete terms: &nbspIf you want to build a factory, or fix a motorcycle, or set a nation right without getting stuck, then classical, structured dualistic subject-object knowledge, although necessary, isn't enough. &nbspYou have to have some feeling for the quality of the work. &nbspYou have to have a sense of what's good. &nbsp<I>That</I> is what carries you forward. &nbspThis sense isn't just something you're born with, although you <I>are</I> born with it. &nbspIt's also something you can develop. &nbspIt's not just &quotintuition,"not just unexplainable &quotskill"or &quottalent."&nbspit's the direct result of contact with basic <I>reality</I>, Quality, which dualistic reason has in the past tended to conceal. &nbsp&nbsp&nbsp</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspIt all sounds so far out and esoteric when it's put like that it comes as a shock to discover that it is one of the most homespun, down-to-earth views of reality you can have. &nbspHarry Truman, of all people, comes to mind, when he said, concerning his administration's programs, &quotWe'll just try them . . . and if they don't work . . . why then we'll just try something else."&nbspThat may not be an exact quote, but it's close.</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspThe reality of the American government isn't static, he said, it's dynamic. &nbspIf we don't like it we'll get something better. &nbspThe American government <I>is</I> stuck, <I>is</I> incapable of change in response to Quality, but that argument is not to the point. &nbspThe point is that the President and everyone else, from the wildest radical to the wildest reactionary, agree that the government <I>should</I> change in response to Quality, even if it doesn't. &nbspPhaedrus' concept of changing Quality as reality, a reality so omnipotent that whole governments muct change to keep up with it, is something that in a wordless way we have always unanimously believed in all along.</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspAnd what Harry Truman said, really, was nothing different from the practical, pragmatic attitude of any laboratory scientist or any engineer or any mechanic when he's not thinking &quotobjectively"in the course of his daily work.</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspI keep talking wild theory, but it keeps somehow coming out stuff everybody knows, folklore. &nbspThis Quality, this feeling for the work, is something known in every shop.</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbsp</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspNow finally let's get back to that screw. &nbsp</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspLet's consider a reevaluation of the situation in which we assume that the stuckness now occurring, the zero of consciousness, isn't the worst of all possible situations, but the best possible situation you could be in. &nbspAfter all, it's exactly this stuckness that Zen Buddhists go to so much trouble to induce; through koans, deep breathing, sitting still and the like. &nbspYour mind is empty, you have a &quothollow-flexible"attitude of &quotbeginner's mind."&nbspYou're right at the front end of the train of knowledge, at the track of reality itself. &nbspConsider, for a change, that this is a moment not to be feared but cultivated. &nbspIf your mind is truly, profoundly stuck, then you may be much better off than when it was loaded with ideas. &nbsp</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspThe solution to the problem often at first seems unimportant or undesirable, but the state of stuckness allows it, in time, to assume its true importance. &nbspIt seemed small because your previous rigid evaluation which led to the stuckness made it small.</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspBut now consider the fact that no matter how hard you try to hang onto it, this stuckness is bound to disappear. &nbspYour mind will naturally and freely move toward a solution. &nbspUnless you are a real master at staying stuck you can't prevent this. &nbspThe fear of stuckness is needless because the longer you stay stuck the more you see the Quality-reality that gets you unstuck every time. &nbspWhat's <I>really</I> been getting you stuck is running from the stuckness through the cars of your train of knowledge looking for a solution that is out in front of the train.</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspStuckness shouldn't be avoided. &nbspIt's the physic predecessor of all real understanding. &nbspAn egoless acceptance of stuckness is a key to an understanding of all Quality, in mechanical work as in other endeavors. &nbspIt's this understanding of Quality as revealed by stuckness which so often makes self-taught mechanics so superior to institute-trained men who have learned how to handle everything except a new situation.</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspNormally screws are so cheap and small and simple you think of them as unimportant. &nbspBut now, as your Quality awareness becomes stronger, you realize that this one, individual, particular screw is neither cheap nor small nor unimportant. &nbspRight now this screw is worth exactly the selling price of the whole motorcycle, because the motorcycle is actually valueless until you get the screw out. &nbspWith this reevalution of the screw comes a willingness to expand your knowledge of it.</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspWith the expansion of the knowledge, I would guess, comes a reevalution of what the screw really is. &nbspIf you concentrate on it, think about it, stay stuck on it for a long enough time, I would guess that in time you will come to see that the screw is less and less an object typical of a class and more an object unique in itself. &nbspThen with more concentration you will begin to see the screw as not even an object at all but as a collection of functions. &nbspYour stuckness is gradually eliminating patterns of traditional reason.</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspIn the past when you separated subject and object from one another in a permanent way, your thinking about them got very rigid. &nbspYou formed a class called &quotscrew"that seemed to be inviolable and more real than the reality you are looking at. &nbspAnd you couldn't think of how to get unstuck because you couldn't think of anything new, because you couldn't <I>see</I> anything new. </div><div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspNow in getting that screw out, you aren't interested in what it <I>is</I>. &nbspWhat it <I>is</I> has ceased to be a category of thought and is a continuing direct experience. &nbspIt's not in the boxcars anymore, it's out in front and capable of change. &nbspYou are interested in what it <I>does</I> and why it's doing it. &nbspYou will ask functional questions. &nbspAssociated with your questions will be a subliminal Quality discrimination identical to the Quality discrimination that led Poincare to the Fuchsian equations.</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspWhat your actual solution is is unimportant as long as it has Quality. &nbspThoughts about the screw as combined rigidness and adhesiveness and about its special helical interlock might lead naturally to solutions of impaction and use of solvents. &nbspThat is one kind of Quality track. &nbspAnother track may be to go to the library and look through a catalog of mechanic's tools, in which you might come across a screw extractor that would do the job. &nbspOr to call a friend who knows something about mechanical work. &nbspOr just to drill the screw out, or just burn it out with a torch. &nbspOr you might just, as a result of your meditative attention to the screw, come up with some new way of extracting it that has never been thought of before and that beats all the rest and is patentable and makes you a millionaire five years from now. &nbspThere's no predicting what's on that Quality track. &nbspThe solutions all are simple - after you have arrived at them. &nbspBut they're simple only when you know already what they are.</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbsp</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspHighway 13 follows another branch of our river but now it goes upstream past old sawmill towns and sleepy scenery. &nbspSometimes when you switch from a federal to a state highway it seems like you drop back like this in time. &nbspPretty mountains, pretty river, bumpy but pleasant tar road . . . old buildings, old people on a front porch . . . strange how old, obsolete buildings and plants and mills, the technology of fifty and a hundred years ago, always seem to look so much better than the new stuff. &nbspWeeds and grass and wild flowers grow where concrete has cracked and broken. &nbspNeat, squared, upright lines acquire a random sag. &nbspThe uniform masses of the unbroken color of fresh paint modify to a mottled, weathered softness. &nbspNature has a non-Euclidian geometry of her own that seems to soften the deliberate objectivity of these buildings with a kind of random spontaneity that architects would do well to study.</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspSoon we leave the river and the old sleepy buildings and now climb to some sort of dry, meadowy plateau. &nbspThe road rolls and bumps and rocks so much I have to keep the speed down to fifty. &nbspThere are some bad chuckholes in the asphalt and I watch carefully for more.</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspWe're really accustomed to making mileage. &nbspStretches that would have seemed long back in the Dakotas now seem short adn easy. &nbspBeing on the machine seems more natural than being off it. &nbspWe're nowhere that I'm familiar with, in country that I've never seen before, yet I don't feel a stranger in it.</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspAt the top of the plateau at Grangeville, Idaho, we step from the blasting heat into an air-conditioned restaurant. &nbspDeep cool inside. &nbspWhile we wait for chocolate malteds I notice a high-schooler sitting at the counter exchanging looks with the girl next to him. &nbspShe's gorgeous, and I'm not the only other one who notices it. &nbspThe girl behind the counter waiting on them is also watching with an anger she thinks no one else sees. &nbspSome kind of triangle. &nbspWe keep passing unseen through little moments of other people's lives.</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspBack in the heat again and not far from Grangeville we see that the dry plateau that looked almost like prairie when we were out on it suddenly breaks away into an enormous canyon. &nbspI see our road will go down and down through what must be a hundred hairpin turns into a desert of broken land and crags. &nbspI tap Chris's knee and point and as we round a turn where we see it all I hear him holler, &quotWow!&quot</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspAt the brink I shift down to third, then close the throttle. &nbspThe engine drags, backfiring a little, and down we go.</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspBy the time our cycle has reached the bottom of wherever it is we are, we have dropped thousands of feet. &nbspI look back over my shoulder and see antlike cars way back at the top. &nbspNow we must head forward across this baking desert to wherever the road leads.</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbsp</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspThis morning a solution to he problem of stuckness was discussed, the classic badness caused by traditional reason. &nbspNow it's time to move to its romantic parallel, the ugliness of the technology traditional reason has produced.</div> <BR> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspThe road has twisted and rolled over desert hills into a little, narrow thread of green surrounding the town of White Bird, then proceeded on to a big fast river, the Salmon, flowing between high canyon walls. &nbspHere the heat is tremendous and the glare from the white canyon rock is blinding. &nbspWe wind on and on through the bottom of the narrow canyon, nervous about fast-moving traffic and oppressed by th fiery heat.</div> <BR> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspThe ugliness the Sutherlands we fleeing is not inherent in technology. &nbspIt only seemed that way to them because it's so hard to isolate what it is within technology that's so ugly. &nbspBut technology is simply the making of things and the making of things can't by its own nature be ugly or there would be no possibility for beauty in the arts, which also include the making of things. &nbspActually a root word of technology, <I>techne</I>, originally <I>meant</I> &quotart."&nbspThe ancient Greeks never separated art from manufacture in their minds, and so never developed separate words for them.</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspNeither is the ugliness inherent in the materials of modern technology - a statement you sometimes hear. &nbspMass-produced plastics and synthetics aren't in themselves bad. &nbspThey've just acquired bad associations. &nbspA person who's lived inside stone walls of a prison most of his life is likely to see stone as an inherently ugly material, even though it's also the prime material of sculpture, and a person who's lived in a prison of ugly plastic technology that started with his childhood toys and continues through a lifetime of junky consumer products is likely to see this material as inherently ugly. &nbspBut the real ugliness of modern technology isn't found in any material or shape or act or product. &nbspThese are just the objects in which low Quality appears to reside. &nbspIt's our habit of assigning Quality to subjects or objects that gives this impression.</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspThe real ugliness is not ther esult of any objects of technology. &nbspNor is it, if one follows Phaedrus' metaphysics, the result of any subjects of technology, the people who produce it or the people who use it. &nbspQuality, or its absence, doesn't reside in either the subject or the object. &nbspThe real ugliness lies in teh relationship between the people who produce the technology and the things they produce, which results in a similar relationship between the people who use the technology and the things they use.</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspPhaedrus felt that at the moment of pure Quality perception, or not even perception, at the moment of pure Quality, there is no subject and there is no object. &nbspThere is only a sense of Quality that produces a later awareness of subjects and objects. &nbspAt the moment of pure Quality, subject and object are identical. &nbspThis is the <I>tat tvam asi</I> truth of the Upanishads, but it's also reflected in modern street argot. &nbsp&quotGetting with it,"&quotdigging it,"&quotgrooving on it,"are all slang reflections of this identity. &nbspIt is this identity that is the basis of craftsmanship in all the technical arts. &nbspAnd it is this identity that modern, dualistically conceived technology lacks. &nbspThe creator of it feels no particular sense of identity with it. &nbspThe owner of it feels no particular sense of identity with it. &nbspThe user feels no particular sense of identity with it. &nbspHence, by Phaedrus's definition, it has no Quality.</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspThat wall in Korea that Phaedrus saw was an act of technology. &nbspIt was beautiful, but not becasue of any masterful intellectual planning or any scientific supervision of the job, or any added expenditures to &quotstylize"it. &nbspIt was beautiful because the people who worked on it had a way of looking at things that made them do it right unselfconsciously. &nbspThey didn't separate themselves from the work in such a way as to do it wrong. &nbspThere is the center of the whole situation.</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspThe way to solve the conflict between human values and technological needs is not to run away from technology. &nbspThat's impossible. &nbspThe way to resolve the conflict is to break down teh barriers of dualistic thought that prevent a real understanding of what technology is - not an exploitation of nature, but a fusion of nature and the human spirit into a new kind of creation that transcends both. &nbspWhen this transcendance occurs in such events as the first airplane flight across the ocean or the first footstep on the moon, a kind of public recognition of the transcendant nature of technology occurs. &nbspBut this transcendance should also occur at the individual level, on a personal basis, in one's own life, in a less dramatic way. </div><BR> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspThe walls of the canyon here are completely vertical now. &nbspIn many places room for the road had to be blasted out of it. &nbspNo alternate routes here. &nbspJust whichever way the river goes. &nbspIt may be just my imagination, but it seems the river's already smaller than it was an hour ago.</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspSuch personal transcendance of conflicts with technology doesn't have to involve motorcycles, of course. &nbspIt can be as simple as sharpening a kitchen knife or sewing a dress or mending a broken chair. &nbspThe underlying problems are the same. &nbspIn each case there's a beautiful way of doing it and an ugly way of doing it, and arriving at the high-quality, beautiful way of doing it, both an ability to see what &quotlooks good"and an ability to understand the underlying methods to arrive at that &quotgood"are needed. &nbspBoth classic and romantic understanding of Quality must be combined.</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspThe nature of our culture is such that if you were to look for instruction in how to do any of these jobs, the instruction would always give only one understanding of Quality, the classic. &nbspIt would tell you how to hold the blade when sharpening the knife, or how to use the sewing machine, or how to mix and apply glue with the presumption that once these underlying methods were applied, &quotgood"would naturally follow. &nbspThe ability to see directly what &quotlooks good"would be ignored.</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspThe result is rather typical of modern technology, an overall dullness of appearance so depressing that it must be overlaid with a veneer of &quotstyle"to make it acceptable. &nbspAnd that, to anyone who is sensitive to romantic Quality, just makes it all the worse. &nbspNow it's not just depressingly dull, it's also phony. &nbspPut the two together and you get a pretty accurate basic description of modern American technology: &nbspstylized cars and stylized outboard motors and stylized typewriters and stylized clothes. &nbspStylized refrigerators filled with stylized food in stylized houses. &nbspPlastic stylized toys for stylized children, who at Christmas and birthdays are in style with their stylish parents. &nbspYou have to be awfully stylish yourself not to get sick of it once in awhile. &nbspIt's the style that gets you; technological ugliness syruped over with romantic phoniness in an effort to produce beauty and profit by people who, though stylish, don't know where to start because no one has ever told them there's such a thing as Quality in this world and it's real, not syle. &nbspQuality isn't something you lay on top of subjects and objects like tinsel on a Christmas tree. &nbspReal Quality must be the source of the subjects and objects, the cone from which the tree must start.</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspTo arrive at <I>this</I> Quality requires a somewhat different procedure from the &quotStep 1, Step 2, Step 3"instructions that accompany dualistic technology, and that's what I'll now try to go into.</div> <BR> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspAfter many turns in the canyon wall we stop for a break under a scrubby patch of small trees and rocks. &nbspThe grass around the trees is burned and brown and scattered with litter from picnickers.</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspI collapse into some shade, and after awhile squint up at the sky, which I haven't really looked at since we entered this canyon. &nbspUp there above the canyon walls it's cool and dark blue and far away.</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspChris doesn't even go over to see the river, something he'd normally do. &nbspLike me, he's tired and content just to sit under the scant shade of these trees.</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspAfter awhile he says there's an old iron pump, it looks like, between us and the river. &nbspHe points to it and I see what he means. &nbspHe goes over and I can see him pump water onto his hand and then splash it onto his face. &nbspI go over and pump for him so he can use both hands. &nbspThen I do the same. &nbspThe water feels cold on my hands and face. &nbspWhen done we walk to the cycle again and climb on and pull back on to the canyon road.</div> <BR> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspNow that solution. &nbspThroughout this Chautauqua so far this whole problem of technological ugliness has been looked at in a negative way. &nbspIt's been said that romantic attitudes towards Quality such as the Sutherlands have are, by themselves, hopeless. &nbspYou can't live on just groovy emotions alone. &nbspYou have to work with the underlying form of the universe too, the laws of nature which, when understood, can make work easier, sickness rarer and famine almost absent. &nbspOn the other hand, technology based on pure dualistic reason has also been condemned because it obtains these material advantages by turning the world into a stylized garbage dump. &nbspNow's the time to stop condemning things and come up with some answers.</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspThe answer is Phaedrus' contention that classic understanding should not be overlaid with romantic prettiness; classic and romantic understanding should be united at a basic level. &nbspIn the past our common universe of reason has been in the process of escaping, rejecting the romantic, irrational world of prehistoric man. &nbspIt's been necessary since before the time of Socrates to reject the passions, the emotions, in order to free the rational mind for an understanding of nature's order which was as yet unknown. &nbspNow it's time to further an understanding of nature's order by reassimilating those passions which were originally fled from. &nbspThe passions, the emotions, the affective domain of man's consciousness, are a part of nature's order too. &nbspThe central part.</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspAt present we're snowed under with an irrational expansion of blind data-gathering in the sciences because there's no rational format for any understanding of scientific creativity. &nbspAt present we are also snowed under with a lot of stylishness in the arts - thin art - because there's very little assimilation or extension into underlying form. &nbspWe have artists with no scientific knowledge and both with no spiritual sense of gravity at all, and the result is not just bad, it is ghastly. &nbspThe time for real reunification of art and technology is really long overdue.</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspAt the DeWeeses I started to talk about peace of mind in connection with technical work but got laughed off the scene because I brought it up out of the context in which it had originally appeared to me. &nbspNow I think it <I>is</I> in context to return to peace of mind and see what I was talking about.</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspPeace of mind isn't at all superficial to technical work. &nbspIt's the whole thing. &nbspThat which produces it is good work and that which destroys it is bad work. &nbspThe specs, the measuring instruments, the quality control, the final checkout, these are all <I>means</I> toward the end of satisfying the peace of mind of those responsible for the work. &nbspWhat really counts in teh end is their peace of mind, nothing else. &nbspThe reason for this is that peace of mind is a prerequisite for a perception of that Quality which is beyond romantic Quality and classic Quality and which unites the two, and which must accompany the work as it proceeds. &nbspThe way to see what looks good and understand the reasons it looks good, and <I>to be at one with this goodness</I> as the work proceeds, is to cultivate an inner quietness, a peace of mind so that goodness can shine through.</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspI say <I>inner</I> peace of mind. &nbspIt has no direct relationship to external circumstances. &nbspIt can occur to a monk in meditation, to a soldier in heavy combat or to a machinist taking off that last ten-thousandth of an inch. &nbspIt involves unself-consciousness, which produces a complete identification with one's circumstances, and there are levels and levels of this identification and levels and levels of quietness quite as profound and difficult of attainment as the more familiar levels of activity. &nbspThe mountains of achievement are Quality discovered in one direction only, and are relatively meaningless and often unobtainable unless taken together with the ocean trenches of self-awareness - so different from self-consciousness - which result from inner peace of mind.</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspThis inner peace of mind occurs on three levels of understanding. &nbspPhysical quietness seems the easiest to achieve, although there are levels and levels of this too, as attested by the ability of Hindu mystics to live buried alive for many days. &nbspMental quietness, in which one has no wandering thoughts at all, seems more difficult, but can be achieved. &nbspBut value quietness, in which one has no wandering desires at all but simply performs the acts of his life without desire, that seems the hardest.</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspI've sometimes thought this inner peace of mind, this quietness is similar if not identical with the sort of calm you sometimes get when going fishing, which accounts for much of the popularity of this sport. &nbspJust to sit with the line in the water, not moving, not really thinking about anything, not really caring about anything either, seems to draw out the inner tensions and frustrations that have prevented you from solving problems you couldn't solve before and introduced ugliness and clumsiness into your actions and thoughts.</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspYou don't have to go fishing, of course, to fix your motorcycle. &nbspA cup of coffee, a walk around the block, sometimes just putting off the job for five minutes of silence is enough. &nbspWhen you do you can almost feel yourself grow toward that inner peace of mind that reveals it all. &nbspThat which turns its back on this inner calm and the Quality it reveals is bad maintenance. &nbspThat which turns toward it is good. &nbspThe forms of turning away and toward are infinite but the goal is always the same.</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspI think that when this concept of peace of mind is introduced and made central to the act of technical work, a fusion of classic and romantic quality can take place at a basic level within a practical working context. &nbspI've said you can actually <I>see</I> this fusion in skilled mechanics and machinists of a certain sort, and you can see it in the work they do. &nbspTo say that they are not artists is to misunderstand the nature of art. &nbspThey have patience, care and attentiveness to what they're doing, but more than this - there's a kind of inner peace of mind that isn't contrived but results from a kind of harmony with the work in which there's no leader and no follower. &nbspThe material and craftsman's thoughts change together in a progression of smooth, even changes until his mind is at rest at the exact moment the material is right.</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspWe've all had moments of that sort when we're doing something we really want to do. &nbspIt's just that somehow we've gotten into an unfortunate separation of those moments from work. &nbspThe mechanic I'm talking about doesn't make this separation. &nbspOne says of him that he is &quotinterested"in what he's doing, that he's &quotinvolved"in his work. &nbspWhat produces this involvement is, at teh cutting edge of consciousness, an absence of any sense of separateness of subject and object. &nbsp&quotBeing with it,"&quotbeing natural,"&quottaking hold"- there are a lot of idiomatic expressions for what I mean by this absense of subject-object duality, because what I mean is so well understood as folklore, common sense, the everyday understanding of the shop. &nbspBut in scientific parlance the words for this absence of subject-object duality are scarce because scientific minds have shut themselves off from consciousness of this kind of understanding in the assumption of the formal scientific outlook.</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspZen Buddhists talk about &quotjust sitting,"a meditative practice in which the idea of the duality of self and object does not dominate one's consciousness. &nbspWhat I'm talking about here in motorcycle maintenance is &quotjust fixing,"in which the idea of a duality of self and object doesn't dominate one's consciousness. &nbspWhen one isn't dominated by feelings of separateness from what he's working on, then one can be said to &quotcare"about what he's doing. &nbspThat is what caring realy is, a feeling of identification with what one's doing. &nbspWhen one has this feeling then he also sees the inverse side of caring, Quality itself. &nbsp</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspSo the thing to do when working on a motorcycle, as in any other task, is to cultivate the peace of mind which does not separate one's self from one's surroundings. &nbspWhen that is done successfully then everything else follows naturally. &nbspPeace of mind produces right values, right values produce right thoughts. &nbspRight thoughts produce right actions and right actions produce work which will be a material reflection for others to see of the serenity at the center of it all. &nbspThat was what it was about the wall in Korea. &nbspIt was a material reflection of a spiritual reality.</div> <div> &nbsp&nbsp&nbspI think that if we are going to reform the world, and make it a better place ot live in, the way to do it is not with talk about relationships of a political nature, which are inevitably dualistic, full of subjects and objects and their relationships to one another; or with programs full of things for other people to do. &nbspI think that kind of approach starts at the end and presumes the end is the beginning. &nbspPrograms of a political nature are important <I>end products</I> of social quality that can be effective only if the underlying structure of social values is right. &nbspThe social values are right only if the individual values are right. &nbspThe place to improve the world is first in one's own heart and head and hands, and then work outward from there. &nbspOther people can talk about how to expand the destiny of mankind. &nbspI just want to talk about how to fix a motorcycle. &nbspI think that what I have to say has more lasting value.</div> <div>_______________________________________________________________________________________________</div></TD> </TR> </TABLE></FORM> </BODY>