exam help (zmm)?

Question

I have to study the book "zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance" for my exam. It has lots of points and moments to remember. Can someone tell me which points are the most important to remember pls?

Answer 1

Pirsig seems to me to have been concerned with finding out the answer to the question Plato asked, "What is Good?" The answer I think he found was "Be Here Now." Whatever you do, give it your whole attention, become the process. Here are some quotes from Chapter 1.

"You're completely in contact with it all. You're in the scene, not just watching it anymore, and the sense of presence is overwhelming...and the whole thing, the whole experience, is never removed from immediate consciousness."
"We want to make good time, but for us now this is measured with emphasis on "good" rather than "time" and when you make that shift in emphasis the whole approach changes. "
"I would like, instead, to be concerned with the question "What is best?," a question which cuts deeply rather than broadly..."
"The Buddha, the Godhead, resides quite as comfortably in the circuits of a digital computer or the gears of a cycle transmission as he does at the top of a mountain or in the petals of a flower. To think otherwise is to demean the Buddha...which is to demean oneself. "

Wikipedia has this to say about the book in general:
"In this book, Pirsig explores the meaning of the concept "quality" (a term which he capitalizes). In the sequel (Lila: An Inquiry into Morals), Pirsig expands his exploration of Quality into a complete metaphysic which he calls The Metaphysics of Quality. The Metaphysics of Quality is a philosophy, a theory about reality; it asks questions such as what is real, what is good and what is moral. As the title suggests, much of the Metaphysics of Quality has to do with a non-intellectualizing, non-conceptualizing, Zen-like direct viewing of the universe. Yet Pirsig departs from Eastern thinking by arguing that reason and logic are just as important in seeking understanding."

And the American Society of Authors and Writers has this:
"Pirsig created the Metaphysics of Quality (MOQ) to explain in his books the connection between quality and morality to reality. Both of his books claim that the topic they are exploring cannot be precisely defined because of humanity's limited experience. ZMM in particular is an important work because it functions at several different levels:
>as a history or summary of philosophy
>as a reply to anti-technology movements
>as an introduction to thinking in general
>as a skeptical book, questioning everything from our language and education system to the scientific method
>as a complaint of the low level of craftsmanship in modern trades"

Don't know if that really covers all you asked, but I hope it gives you a place to start. I assume you've read the book ...
Good luck on the exam!