Zen and Motorcycle Maintenance Technology Author: Robert M. Pirsig Translator: Zhang Guochen Publisher: Chongqing Publishing House

On a hot summer day, the father and his son rode a motorcycle with John and his wife from Minnesota to California, crossing the American continent. The journey was interspersed with the process of a young Fedro studying science and technology and Western classics, seeking self-liberation, and exploring the meaning of life. Along the way, the father combined the natural scenery he saw, the experience of camping in the wild, the conversation in the hotel at night, the motorcycle repair technology and other daily life with the in-depth and easy-to-understand explanation and commentary of the rational philosophy of the West since Socrates in the form of a philosophical chautaurog. He reflected on the subject-object dualism of the metaphysical tradition, and thought about the relationship between things divided by the Western dichotomy such as science and art, knowledge and value, classicism and romanticism, spirit and matter, mechanism and mysticism, West and East. He also dived into his own past to explore the origin of his own spiritual split under modern civilization, completing an exploration of his own mind and human civilization.

Robert M. Pirsig was born in 1928 in the Twin Cities, Minnesota, USA. He majored in chemistry and philosophy at the University of Minnesota, and then studied for a master's degree in communication at the university. He went to the Bernares Hindu University in India to study Eastern philosophy and served as a professor of rhetoric. He was hospitalized for shock therapy due to a mental breakdown and became a computer technician after recovery. In 1968, he and his eldest son Chris set out on a motorcycle from the Twin Cities to engage in spiritual exploration in the wilderness of the Midwest, the Rocky Mountains and the West Coast. He hoped to free himself from his narrow and limited self, so he began this long journey across the American continent. After complex experiences and introspective thinking along the way, he faced his past lives and finally temporarily restored his spiritual integrity and tranquility.