Zen and the Art of Blogging

Whilst I’m on the topic of Zen (&TAOMM), I came across this on the Freemind site (an Open Source mind-mapping tool).

So you want to write a completely new metaphysics? Why don’t you use FreeMind? You have a tool at hand that remarkably resembles the tray slips of Robert Pirsig, described in his sequel to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance called Lila.

And from the Zen book itself, a desciption of the structure of his narrative …

What is in mind is a sort of Chautauqua…that’s the only name I can think of for it…like the traveling tent-show Chautauquas that used to move across America, this America, the one that we are now in, an old-time series of popular talks intended to edify and entertain, improve the mind and bring culture and enlightenment to the ears and thoughts of the hearer.

I find it an amazing coincidence that mind-maps resemble his ‘tray slips’ … and blogs Pirsig’s Chataqua.

Here we see the tools of our day reflecting his calls for a unification of spiritual feeling & technological thought, the division of which is the discontent of our age. Just as Pirsig offers some unorthodox solutions and serious alternatives to material success — an expansion of the meaning of success to somthing larger than just getting a good job and staying out of trouble — blogging, open source, podcasting etc. all represent methods by which people appear to be grasping this concept.

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