"Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" Reading Notes

1#

We deliberately avoid following a fixed itinerary, preferring to wander and stop as we please, because the journey itself is far more enjoyable than rushing to a destination.
We are always busy, with no time for meaningful conversations, resulting in a monotonous life day after day, so dull that years later we can't help but wonder where the time went, while also regretting its passage.
We haven't spoken; after traveling together for so long, we are already very familiar with each other, just exchanging glances to know what the other is thinking.
Unless he truly feels the need for help from others, their intervention will only annoy him.
If you've tried to fix a faucet but the problem persists, it means you are destined to have a dripping faucet.

2#

I believe that physical discomfort only becomes prominent when emotions are off; at that time, everything seems wrong. But if emotions are normal, physical discomfort becomes trivial. Look at Siweiya; I don't think she has any discomfort.
Perhaps this endless grassland and long wind can make her understand that when you accept monotony and boredom, you can see deeper meanings behind them.
That radio is a clue; working while listening to music makes it impossible to think deeply. Perhaps they don't think their work requires any thought; it's just a matter of fiddling with a few wrenches.
I don't want to rush things because rushing itself is an undesirable attitude of the twentieth century. When you do something, the moment you seek speed, it means you no longer care about it and just want to do something else. So I want to take my time, carefully and thoroughly, with the attitude of finding the severed pin. Only with this attitude can you discover the reasons; there is no other way.

3#

In fact, modern people are not necessarily smarter than those in the past; human IQ hasn't changed much. Those Native Americans and people from the Middle Ages are quite similar to us, but they lived in different environments. In their past environments, they believed in spirits, just as modern people believe in atoms, protons, photons, and quanta. From this perspective, I believe in ghosts, meaning modern people also have their own spirits, you know.

4#

Usually, I choose a book he doesn't understand for the sake of dialogue; I read a couple of sentences first, then wait for him to ask a series of questions, and then answer them, before reading another couple of sentences. This method of reading classic works is very useful; they must have been written this way. Sometimes, we spend the whole evening reading and discussing, often only covering two or three pages, which was a reading style a century ago... At that time, Xiaotaoxuan was very popular; unless you did the same, you wouldn't know how enjoyable it was.

7#

Everyone eventually dies, but living is ultimately the purpose of life. So the smartest minds among humanity strive to conquer various diseases, hoping that people can live a little longer. Only a madman would question why this is so. A person's pursuit of longevity is simply to live longer. Life has no other purpose; this is what the ghost that Phaedrus seeks says.
They mistakenly believe that personality is a kind of object, like a set of clothes that can be changed, but what else is there besides personality? Just some bones and flesh, perhaps some statistics, but certainly no one is in there, so a person is merely personality clad in bones, flesh, and some statistics, nothing more.

9#

To solve problems that common sense cannot, one must continuously alternate between induction and deduction through your observations and the structures provided in your manuals to find a solution. The correct application of this intertwined process is formally known as the scientific method.

10#

He once read a passage and repeated it to himself, so now I can recite it verbatim; it begins like this: In the halls of science, there are many deep courtyards... Various people live within, and their motives for residing here are diverse and varied. Some are devoted to science because of superior intelligence; science becomes their unique activity, where they gain vivid experiences and satisfy their ambitions. Some, however, are entirely practical, offering their thoughts as sacrifices on the altar. If angels sent by God were to expel these two types of people from the hall, it would clearly be much emptier, but a group of historical figures would still reside there... If the hall originally housed only these two types of people, then it would now be merely an empty wooden house, with only creeping vines... Those favored by angels... are somewhat eccentric, silent, and lonely, with little in common except for being equally unwelcome. What brought them into the hall... the answers vary... escaping the chaos and hopeless boredom of ordinary life; breaking free from the shackles of their desires. A good-natured person wants to escape the noisy, tense environment and come to the quiet mountains, where you can gaze far and wide, through the tranquil, fresh air, joyfully sketching the eternal tranquility of the mountain scenery. This passage comes from a speech by the young scientist Einstein in 1918.
However, these laws cannot be obtained through logical reasoning; they can only be reached through a consciousness built on a deep understanding of experience...

11#

He believes that institutions like schools, churches, governments, and political organizations aim to guide others' thinking with specific goals rather than truth, so that their institutions can survive and control others to continue serving these institutions.

13#

It's just a continuous cycle of classes, classes, classes, until your spirit is exhausted and your creativity disappears. You become a machine, endlessly repeating the same dull curriculum to those naïve students who flood in like a tide. They don't understand why you've become so tedious, thus losing respect for you and making you infamous. The reason you keep having classes, classes, classes is that it's the most economical way to run a school, making outsiders mistakenly believe that students are receiving a real education.
A true university is not material in essence, nor is it a collection of buildings that can be protected by police.
A true university does not answer to any public opinion body, nor is it constituted by any buildings; as long as it declares that this place is no longer a sanctuary, the true university has already disappeared, leaving only some brick walls, books, and various material structures.
A true university has no specific location and no property; it neither pays salaries nor accepts material rewards. A true university is a world of the mind, a rational thought passed down to us over many centuries; it does not exist within any specific building. This world of the mind has been transmitted for many centuries by a group of so-called professors, and the title of professor is not part of the true university; the essence of the university lies in the rationality that has been passed down.
They believe that since school professors receive salaries, once given instructions from above, they should abandon their own opinions and accept the school's commands without dissent, just like employees in a regular company who must speak for their boss.

14#

Reaching the destination is not as good as being on the journey.
Suddenly the sun sets, and the entire canyon becomes pitch black.
The art of work relies not only on the material aspect of machines but also on your own thoughts and spirit.
In fact, this idea is not strange; sometimes you only need to compare a novice or a clumsy person with an expert to see the differences. An expert does not follow instructions; he makes choices as he works, so he must focus entirely on the task at hand. Even if he doesn't do it intentionally, there is a natural harmony between his movements and the machine. He doesn't need to follow any written instructions because the nature of the material in his hands determines his thoughts and actions, while his thoughts and actions continuously change the nature of the material in his hands. Thus, both the material and his thoughts change together until his inner self and the material reach a state of normalcy and tranquility.
If you keep looking ahead or only see the current situation, it means nothing to you. Once you look back, you will see a pattern emerging. If you start from this pattern, something may very well burst forth. The insights about science and art just now come from a pattern that has emerged from my own life, representing a transcendence that I believe many others also wish to transcend.
Rational methods cannot solve the problems that rationality itself has produced.
Whenever the foundation is expanded, the world becomes as confusing as it is now, and the goals become unclear.
But the problem is that articles always have a god-like tone, as if the subjects discussed could be immortal. However, this is not the case; people should understand that this is merely a person's viewpoint expressed in a specific time and space context, and nothing more, but you cannot make people understand this within the article.

15#

At this moment, he is himself, not what he or others expect him to be, in this small space, encompassing so much...

16#

Just like those people in the valley behind us, most look towards the spiritual peaks but have never climbed them in their lives; they are satisfied just by hearing others' experiences and are unwilling to invest any effort themselves. Others rely on experienced guides who know the safest paths, thus reaching their destinations smoothly. But there is another group of people who not only lack experience but also do not fully trust others' experiences and want to carve their own paths.
In this space age, the meaning of heaven above has gradually faded. Where is above? However, although these old paths are about to lose their everyday meanings due to linguistic rigidity, and even become closed off, it does not mean that the mountain has disappeared; it still exists as long as people are conscious of it.
Everything has infinite hypotheses; the more you observe, the more you see.
Imitation seems to be an external oppression; children never do this; it seems to be something added later, likely a result of school education.
If most students come to school for education not for degrees and scores, it is indeed a bit hypocritical. Of course, some students come purely for education, but the mechanized teaching methods in schools quickly make them abandon their ideals.
Due to years of carrot-and-stick education, he has developed a mental inertia. It's like a donkey: "If you don't hit me, I won't work." If no one whips him, he won't work hard. And the civilized cart he is trained to pull may slow down because of this.
This hypothetical student, like a donkey, will continue to wander for a while; he may find another precious learning opportunity, like the so-called "social university," no longer wasting time and money to be a high-class donkey. He may find a job and comfortably be a low-class donkey.
In as little as six months, or as long as five years, changes may occur; he will become increasingly uninterested in his daily mechanized work, and the creative instincts suppressed by school theories and scores may now be awakened due to the boredom of work. He has spent thousands of hours solving mechanical problems, thus becoming more interested in mechanical design. He may want to design machines himself because he believes he can do better, so he tries to modify some engines. After succeeding, he seeks greater success. However, at this point, he may encounter a bottleneck because he lacks a theoretical foundation. Thus, he will find that the theories he previously found uninteresting and worthless now hold some respectability.
He does not need others to force him to learn; his motivation comes from within.
The smarter and more serious students need scores less, likely because they are more interested in the knowledge itself. In contrast, the lazier and more foolish students need scores more because it tells them whether they have passed.
It is this experiment that exposes the flaws of the grading system, triggering Phaedrus's inquiry into quality. The grading system can obscure teaching failures. If a teacher is poor, it is likely that they haven't taught students anything throughout the semester, but instead arranged scores based on some meaningless tests, leading people to believe that some learn well while others do not. However, once scores are eliminated, students will be forced to think daily about what they have learned, what the teacher has taught, what the goals are, how to achieve those goals, and so on. Therefore, after eliminating scores, a very frightening and vast vacuum zone emerges.

17#

Students who write entirely according to his rules are destined to lose creativity or write articles that cannot reflect their true level.
Cromwell once said, "Only a person without a goal can climb to the highest."

18#

There is a branch of philosophy that specifically discusses the definition of quality, known as aesthetics, which poses the question of what constitutes beauty.
"Worth" is a term associated with quality; life will no longer have any value or goals.
This world is dominated by knowledge, but its fundamental principles are not merely knowledge. The basic attitude towards how this world operates is to assume that the operation of this world relies on laws—reason—and that human progress lies in discovering these laws and applying them to satisfy one's desires.
If you take reaching the mountain top as your goal, you will struggle much more, and this is merely a nominal goal; the true goal is to experience every minute of climbing the mountain. While reaching the top is the same, it is much more pleasurable. We slowly climb up, not carrying resentment on our backs.
Romantic people appreciate quality itself, while classical people attempt to break it down into cognitive modules for their use.
Quality is the hub of knowledge, around which knowledge can be arranged in various styles.

19#

Those physical properties can be measured with instruments, but his qualities—excellence, value, goodness—do not belong to the physical realm, so they cannot be measured.
Adults train children not to do what they like, but... but what? Of course! To do what others like. And who are others? Parents, teachers, supervisors, police, judges, bosses, kings, dictators—these are all authorities. Once you are trained to belittle your own preferences, you will naturally become more obedient to others—becoming a good slave. Once you learn not to do what you like, you will be accepted by the system.
According to Phaedrus's view, this world consists of three things: mind, matter, and quality.

21#

Now we can at least know that the root of quality and Buddha in Old English is actually the same (Good and God).

24#

Quality is Buddha. Quality is the reality of science. Quality is the goal of art. These concepts still need to be integrated into daily life for understanding. And the most practical and closely related method is what I have always mentioned—repairing motorcycles.
True knowledge trains are not in a state of rest, so they cannot be stopped or disassembled.

25#

There are a group of people who have never known the existence of quality in the world; to create beauty and profit, they cover the ugly exterior of technology with a thick layer of romantic hypocrisy.
When a person does not feel alienated from the work they do, it can be said that they care about their work; this is the true meaning of caring—developing a sense of identity with the work at hand. When a person develops this sense of identity, they will see another side of caring—quality.

26#

If a person can maintain a long-lasting silence, seeing, hearing, and feeling the true universe rather than some clichéd thoughts, they will inevitably be filled with ambition. Ambition is not some strange thing.
Quality relationships are the relationships between machines and people.
If you cannot humble yourself for a moment, one method is to pretend to have this attitude no matter what. Because if you deliberately assume that you are not performing well, then once the facts prove that this is indeed the case, your ambition will actually increase. You will continue to do so until the facts prove your assumption wrong.
When you feel very bored, you must stop! Put down your work to watch a performance, turn on the TV, or finish work. Do anything, just don't touch that machine. If you don't stop, you are likely to encounter big problems next. All the dullness and problems will accumulate to a certain extent and then suddenly explode, leaving you truly unable to move.
The vehicle you are really repairing is actually "yourself." The external machine and the internal person are not unrelated; they will either draw closer to quality or drift away from it together.

30#

An incompetent person is easily taught. A truly capable person will always bring a sense of threat to others.
The life of sheep is determined by the shepherd.
Now the shadow of the city looms over him; in his peculiar views, this city has become the opposite of his faith, not the stronghold of quality, but rather the stronghold of form and essence, like reinforced concrete docks and roads, bricks, asphalt roads, parts, old radios, tracks, and animal corpses—form and essence, without quality. This is the soul of this city. Blind, enormous, evil, and devoid of humanity; at night you can see a great furnace in the south blazing with flames, while between the signs of beer, pizza, and laundromats lies thick coal ash, with many unknown and meaningless signs along the street.
This poem also mentions, "No one can walk for you." Its connotation seems to exceed the literal meaning, "You must go through that valley of the shadow of death alone."

31#

I live by pleasing others, so I can escape. You guess what others want to hear and then pretend to say it actively and naturally, so you can escape. You must convince others. If I hadn't betrayed him, I might still be in the hospital now. Yet he has always remained faithful to his beliefs; this is the difference between us, and Chris knows this. This is also why sometimes I feel he is a living person, while I am the ghost.

32#

As long as a person is alive, unpleasant and unfortunate things will happen. But I now have a feeling I have never had before, a feeling that goes beyond the surface and penetrates deep inside: we have won. The situation is slowly improving. We can almost expect it this way.

Dialogue with Phaedrus#

If readers want to understand thoughts more deeply, they might as well read the sequel, "Lila."
Quality is the common foundation of art and technology.

About this Book#

Ultimately, this is a book about living and how to live, making you ponder why.