Rev. Odessa Cathode Ray :vepi:
@bmacDonald94 Pirsig's a fascinating fellow. This quote of his blew my mind when I first read it:
"I just sat there cross-legged in the room for three days. All sorts of volitions started to go away. My wife started getting upset at me sitting there, got a little insulting. Pain disappeared, cigarettes burned down in my fingers ... This is described in the psychiatric canon as catatonic schizophrenia. It is cited in the Zen Buddhist canon as hard enlightenment. I have never insisted on either."
Robert Link
@odessa @bmacDonald94 The point of the book being that the "therapeutic" shocks and acid were wearing off and his original persona was re-asserting itself...just as his kid was showing teen onset schizophrenia. A very sad book.
Robert Link
@bmacDonald94 I wrote Pirsig, asked if he had read Korzybski, since much of what Pirsig deals with in "Zen" and in "Lila" touch on topics close to Korzybski's work. He returned my SASE saying he hadn't read Korzybski but I had piqued his interest.
"Lila" is, I think, just as brilliant, but under appreciated. And I think both are largely misunderstood.
Robert Link
@bmacDonald94 I learned long ago to be wary of telling people anything about zen or related topics, because so many of us already know it all, unlearned it all, re-learned it, were reincarnated and spun on the karmic wheel again and again. My contact with such thoughts neither begins nor ends with Pirsig. Most recently I'm reading Trungpa. https://terebess.hu/english/tao.html
Bram Moreinis
@bmacDonald94 @phaedral I discovered Z&TAOMM at 15. I would read a chapter and then sit and ponder. It got me to spend a year in a Zen community later in life. I recently listened to the audio book. It was beautiful, vulnerable, honest, imaginative, inspiring and brilliant. I owe so much to Pirsig and his journey.
Robert Link
@bmoreinis @bmacDonald94 We are united in that. Love is not too strong a word for my relationship to those works.
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