The purpose of this research is to examine the significance of the title in Robert M. Persig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. On a concrete level, the title refers to two very distinct times in the life of the narrator. Early in his life, as Phaedrus, the narrator spent several years studying Oriental philosophy at Benares Hindu University. During this period he discovered that western logic is not final wisdom because it presupposes a dichotomy between the thing perceived and the perceiver. The elimination of activity – physical, mental, and emotional – is the path to truth and final wisdom, since it dispels the illusion of the subject/object duality:

There are many disciplines for this. One of the most important is the Sanskrit dhvana, mispro- nounced in Chinese as Chan and again mispro- …