Zen and the Art of Donkey Maintenance

Author: Robert Crisp
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1448215226
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 252

Book Description
I looked again at the folded map of Europe in my hand. Then I crossed the road to the Continental booking office and bought a ticket for Salzburg in Austria. “Return?" asked the clerk. “Definitely not," I told him. In December 1966, the New Year looked exciting for fifty-five-year-old Robert Crisp. As a man whose youth was spent in constant adventure, leading a calm, domestic life in England had become a burden from which he needed to break free. Named by Wisden as "One of the most extraordinary men ever to play Test cricket" Crisp served as a soldier in the Second World War in Greece and North Africa for which he was decorated for bravery, later becoming a writer and journalist. With his marriage over and his sons old enough to fend for themselves, Crisp decided to start a new life. With sixty pounds in his pocket, his wartime disability pension of ten pounds a month, and a plan to write about his adventures under a pseudonym, his journey began. Through twenty columns filed from abroad over years of rustic living and travel, Crisp, as Peter White, shared his experiences of hitch-hiking through Yugoslavia, settling in a beach shack in Greece where he attempted to cultivate the stubborn land, and a nearly fatal solo boat trip around Corfu. As the first year of his dream life came to a close, he found out that the stomach pain he had been suffering was not a side effect of too much Greek wine, but cancer. With a prediction of only one year to live, he set off on a trek around Crete, his only companion a donkey with plenty of personality. Robert Crisp's account of his travels, originally serialised in the Sunday Express, is an honest, funny, touching account of this charming rogue's journey through a foreign land and culture in search of inner peace and happiness.

Guidebook to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Author: Ron Di Santo
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0688060692
Category : Reference
Languages : en
Pages : 409

Book Description
When Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was first published in 1974, it caused a literary sensation. An entire generation was profoundly affected by the story of the narrator, his son, Chris, and their month-long motorcycle odyssey from Minnesota to California. A combination of philosophical speculation and psychological tension, the book is a complex story of relationships, values, madness, and, eventually, enlightenment. Ron Di Santo and Tom Steele have spent years investigating the background and underlying symbolism of Pirsig’s work. Together, and with the approval of Robert Pirsig, they have written a fascinating reference/companion to the original. Guidebook to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance serves as a metaphorical backpack of supplies for the reader’s journey through the original work. With the background material, insights, and perspectives the authors provide, Guidebook to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is destined to become required reading for new fans of the book as well as those who have returned to it over the years.

Zen and Now

Author: Mark Richardson
Publisher: Vintage Canada
ISBN: 0307373150
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 5

Book Description
On the Trail of Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Zen and Now is the story of a story that will appeal to the 5 million readers of the original and serve as an initiation to a whole new generation. Since its original publication in 1968, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values has touched whole generations of readers with its serious attempt to define “quality” in a world that seems indifferent to the responsibilities that quality brings. Mark Richardson expands that journey with an investigation of his own – to find the enigmatic author of Zen and the Art, ask him a few questions, and place his classic book in context. The result manages to be a biography of Pirsig himself – in the discovery of an unknown life of madness, murder and eventual resolution – and a splendid meditation on creativity and problem-solving, sanity and insanity.

Lila

Author: Robert Pirsig
Publisher: Bantam
ISBN: 0307764214
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 482

Book Description
In this bestselling new book, his first in seventeen years, Robert M. Pirsig, author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, takes us on a poignant and passionate journey as mysterious and compelling as his first life-changing work. Instead of a motorcycle, a sailboat carries his philosopher-narrator Phaedrus down the Hudson River as winter closes in. Along the way he picks up a most unlikely traveling companion: a woman named Lila who in her desperate sexuality, hostility, and oncoming madness threatens to disrupt his life. In Lila Robert M. Pirsig has crafted a unique work of adventure and ideas that examines the essential issues of the nineties as his previous classic did the seventies.

On Quality

Author: Robert M. Pirsig
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 006308466X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 132

Book Description
Featuring long-awaited selections from Robert M. Pirsig's unpublished writings, from before and after Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, an original collection illuminating the central theme of Pirsig's thought: “Quality” “The ultimate goal in the pursuit of excellence is enlightenment." —Robert M. Pirsig, 1962 More than a decade before the release of the book that would make him famous, Robert M. Pirsig had already caught hold of the central theme that would animate Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: “Quality,” a concept loosely likened to “excellence,” “rightness,” or “fitness” that Pirsig saw as kindred to the Buddhist ideas of “dharma” or the “Tao.” As he later wrote in Zen, “Quality is the Buddha.” Though he was revered by fans who considered him a guru, the famously private Pirsig published only two books and consented to few interviews and almost no public appearances in later decades. Yet he wrote and thought almost continually, refining his “Metaphysics of Quality” until his death in 2017. Now, for the first time, readers will be granted access to five decades of Pirsig’s personal writings in this posthumous collection that illuminates the evolution of his thinking to an unprecedented degree. Skillfully edited and introduced by Wendy K. Pirsig, Robert’s wife of four decades, the collection includes previously unpublished texts, speeches, letters, interviews, and private notes, as well as key excerpts from Zen and the Art of the Motorcycle Maintenance and his second book, Lila. Since its publication in 1974, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance has established itself as a modern classic of popular philosophy; selling millions of copies and inspiring a generation, while serving as a perennial touchstone for the generations that follow. On Quality is a remarkable contribution to our understanding of one of the most influential thinkers and writers of our time.

Victoria and Albert

Author: Hector Bolitho
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1448216842
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 475

Book Description
On 10 February 1840 a young Queen formed a union that would define an age. Victoria and Albert charts the passionate relationship of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, and examines how their loving and forward-thinking union propelled Britain into a golden age of innovation, conquest and social reform. Drawing on diary entries, contemporary letters and memoirs, Bolitho explores how Victoria defied expectations and created a new dawn in which sovereignty and domesticity were unified. While many monarchies across Europe were threatened with revolution, Queen Victoria became a symbol of security for her nation by leading Britain through the advancing industrial age, taxing European wars, and glories of an empire. This sincere account paints a portrait of a concerned mother, a dutiful wife, and a resolute Queen.

Zen and the Art of Happiness

Author: Chris Prentiss
Publisher: SCB Distributors
ISBN: 0943015626
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 85

Book Description
Cutting-edge science and spirituality tell us that what we believe, think, and feel actually determine the makeup of our body at the cellular level. In Zen and the Art of Happiness, you will learn how to think and feel so that what you think and feel creates happiness and vibrancy in your life rather than gloominess or depression. You’ll learn how to adapt to life’s inevitable changes, how to deal with stress in a healthy way, and how to nurture a mindful happiness in your daily life. Most importantly, the gentle wisdom of Zen and the Art of Happiness will show you how to invite magnificent experiences into your life and create a personal philosophy that will sustain you through anything. A timeless work about the art of happiness, the way of happiness, the inner game of happiness.

Secrets of the Blue Cliff Record

Author: Thomas Cleary
Publisher: Shambhala Publications
ISBN: 0834828839
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 369

Book Description
The Blue Cliff Record is a classic text of Zen Buddhism, designed to assist in the activation of dormant human potential. The core of this extraordinary work is a collection of one hundred traditional citations and stories, selected for their ability to bring about insight and enlightenment. These vignettes are known as gongan in Chinese and koan in Japanese. Secrets of the Blue Cliff Record is a fresh translation featuring newly translated commentary from two of the greatest Zen masters of early modern Japan, Hakuin Ekaku (1685–1768) of the Rinzai sect of Zen and Tenkei Denson (1648–1735) of the Soto sect of Zen. This translation and commentary on The Blue Cliff Record sheds new light on the meaning of this central Zen text.

The Book of Equanimity

Author: Gerry Shishin Wick
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 086171802X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 353

Book Description
The Book of Equanimity contains the first-ever complete English language commentary on one of the most beloved classic collections of Zen teaching stories (koans), making them vividly relevant to spiritual seekers and Zen students in the twenty-first century. Continually emphasizing koans as effective tools to discover and experience the deepest truths of our being, Wick brings the art of the koan to life for those who want to practice wisdom in their daily lives. The koan collection Wick explores here is highly esteemed as both literature and training material in the Zen tradition, in which koan-study is one of two paths a practitioner might take. This collection is used for training in many Zen centers in the Americas and in Europe but has never before been available with commentary from a contemporary Zen master. Wick's Book of Equanimity includes new translations of the preface, main case and verse for each koan, and modern commentaries on the koans by Wick himself.

The Mind of Clover

Author: Robert Aitken
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 1466895241
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 195

Book Description
In Taking the Path of Zen, Robert Aitken provided a concise guide to zazen (Zen meditation) and other aspects of the practice of Zen. In The Mind of Clover he addresses the world beyond the zazen cushions, illuminating issues of appropriate personal and social action through an exploration of the philosophical complexities of Zen ethics. Aitken's approach is clear and sure as he shows how our minds can be as nurturing as clover, which enriches the soil and benefits the environment as it grows. The opening chapters discuss the Ten Grave Precepts of Zen, which, Aitken points out, are "not commandments etched in stone but expressions of inspiration written in something more fluid than water." Aitken approaches these precepts, the core of Zen ethics, from several perspectives, offering many layers of interpretation. Like ripples in a pond, the circles of his interpretation increasingly widen, and he expands his focus to confront corporate theft and oppression, the role of women in Zen and society, abortion, nuclear war, pollution of the environment, and other concerns. The Mind of Clover champions the cause of personal responsibility in modern society, encouraging nonviolent activism based on clear convictions. It is a guide that engages, that invites us to realize our own potential for confident and responsible action.