Question: Have you ever seen a bigger load of horse feces than Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance?

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Halfway through. What a bunch of horse shit. But I like something about it that i cant quite figure out. Going to finish it this time or die trying
 
Flamencology said:
I keep my zen in my coffee and my coffee in my zen.

Self-help is the worst of all literary genres, and it’s one of the most successful.
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Followed very closely, if not tied, if not slightly behind business books.

I will give Spencer Johnson credit, though - he got way rich off "Who Moved My Cheese", which is one of the greatest frauds foisted upon mankind.
 
The business/self-help thing is the worst. I think it’s because a lot of “business” is just management. And a lot of management is just prioritization, nagging, charisma, and persuasion—but it seems like there should be a method or process or “trick” to it. So it creates a lot of emotional angst about why nothing seems to work or be fulfilling. All my peers on my job’s executive team are currently reading/in thrall to this thing called Ten Percent Happier right now. They asked me why I wasn’t reading it and my response was that I don’t philosophically believe that happiness is the point and they’ve let the matter drop. I have no real interest in optimized meditation lite for fun and profit. And “mindfulness culture” and toxic positivity are not my jam.
 
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I don’t think i ever read that one. My brother gave me “The Tao of Pooh” years and years ago, and I never read that either. I do use some mindfulness techniques to help my anxiety and depression symptoms. But I access that more through my counselor and some other self discovery (using things learned during counseling) utilizing concepts of bi-lateral stimulation rather than through the self help section of Barnes and Noble.
 
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Well I finally finished this book last night. I’ve got to admit I didn’t really understand it. Maybe I don’t know enough about Greek philosophy to really get what he was talking about. I did enjoy it, but it took a long time to get through just because there were long stretches where I really had no clue what he was talking about. I’m not real bright.
 
Never read it. My dad loved it so I assumed I wouldn't. I did venture into the Zen thing years ago, however, but not so much in its Westernized form which to me is often just another variant of bottom line Buddhism/performance boost self-help nonsense.

I dig the old stories though. There are countless koans that touch on a very similar theme about people from various walks of life who approach a master with the question of how to achieve Zen, and is immediately either met with a 'smug' counter-question or simply rejected.

They often go like: 'How do I diminish my desires?' - 'When you stop desiring to diminish your desires!" or 'How can I learn acceptance?' - 'By accepting that you can't!' or 'Great Master, how do I..' - 'Oh, fuck off!'

In the '70s quite a few Westerners returned from Japan with shattered illusions because they had been doing nothing but ordinary housework in the monasteries.
 
I came in to mention Who Moved My Cheese but CBHScott beat me to it. Never read Zen but I did read WMMC and it was shit. Just looking at that first page tells me I'd hate ZEN.
 
To answer your OP question, yes I have. Without moving this into the political forum, I'll just imply that it has two main sections, the old and the new.
 
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