As a residual effect of reading a book called Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance which touches only vaguely on anything actually related to Zen or motorcycle maintenance, I have been on somewhat of an epic adventure consisting of trying to find the right book about Zen and the right situation in which to read it for several years.  To clarify, I started this book a year before leaving school just short of graduating and am now close to finishing it weeks before taking the last class required to obtain my degree two years after leaving school.  (Three years for the mathematically disinclined, i.e. me)

I have finally settled on reading by flashlight under the covers of my bed after 2AM.  The title, though I am slightly embarrassed to admit, is “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Understanding Buddhism”.  To be honest, when I went to the library to check it out, I stacked it beneath a more advanced monogram on the teachings of a specific American Zen teacher and “The Encyclopedia of Eastern Philosophy and Religion” Hoping that the first two books would disinterest the librarian enough that she wouldn’t notice the third.

Unfortunately, I forgot which library I was checking these books out from.  Checking out the single title would have passed unnoticed.  The presence of a pattern in my selections tagged me, apparently, as somebody who is not “down” with God.  She looked suspiciously up at me as she scanned my library card and asked as un-nonchalantly as is humanly possible, “What’s this sudden interest in Buddhism?”

I wanted to shout at her. “You’ve never even met me!?”  What made her think I was “suddenly” interested in Buddhism?  Why should she care why I’m interested in Buddhism?  Unfortunately, she was far too old and fragile to be yelled at.  In fact, now that I think about it, she may well have been the same little old lady who has been working that desk since the last time I was in that library over ten years ago.  The most confrontational response I could muster was, “I’ve been meaning to build a basic understanding of the most widely accepted belief system in the world for a few years now.”

I shit you not, she answered, “Well, what’s wrong with God?”  First, I pondered whether to answer in terms of the angry God through whose hands so many sinners have passed (Jonathan Edwards would most likely have been proud of her) that she was referring to, or the compassionate God that she thought she meant.  The former would have been an easy answer that she wouldn’t have liked.  I have nothing against that God, but she is convinced that I must if I’m reading about Buddhism.  Answering for the latter meant deciding where to start, and the list of possibilities is long enough that the decision would necessarily be left to letting the question go without an answer.

I couldn’t just not answer, though, that would have been rude.  I collected my books, then told her it depended entirely upon which God she meant and scurried away before she could realize that telling me which God she meant would lead to the metaphysical tautology of the incompatibility of multiple monistic religions.

I can only suppose that she has already contacted the FBI to turn over my library records under the title “Potential Terrorist Sympathizer.”  I’m a little worried, too, because I did check out a lot of Hardy Boy’s books in elementary school, and all of those included very detailed descriptions of espionage-type activities.  If I go missing soon, could somebody please alert the authorities?

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So the basics of empiricism are that “reality” as we know it is in truth only what our brains construct from adding sense data (things we perceive with our eyes, ears, nose, etc.) to things our brain already knows (a priori knowledge as Kant would call them) about the sense data it is receiving and that true reality is something we can never actually perceive without the filter built up by our a priori knowledge.  It gets a lot deeper than that, but it’s not really important right now. Pirsig’s protagonist was theorizing about “quality” as the event where the bridge between the true reality which empiricists say can never be truly known and the reality with which we are all familiar.  He was trying to figure out why people can know what quality in any given item is but are incapable of defining the term and frequently disagree as to which items possess quality and which do not even though it seems to be something which is mostly inherent in the object itself rather than being subjective. 

All the while I’m sitting outside of starbucks with Outkast also invading my already fragile consciousness.  Imagine trying to read a much longer, more detailed, example-ridden version of my summary of empiricism with Stankonia vibrating into your head.  Needless to say, I think my brain has now become a pile of mush which must now be rebuilt.  Maybe I can get a job at NASA and say it was a work-related injury so they have to fix me.  Then I can talk them into giving me a bionic space-brain.  That would be killer fun.

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