When analytic thought, the knife, is applied to experience, something is always killed in the process.
Robert M. PirsigRead
The way to see what looks good and understand the reasons it looks good, and to be at one with this goodness as the work proceeds, is to cultivate an inner quietness, a peace of mind so that goodness can shine through.
Interpretation
Cultivating inner peace allows one to appreciate and understand beauty in art and life.
In this quote, Robert M. Pirsig emphasizes the importance of inner tranquility in recognizing and appreciating beauty, both in art and in our lives. He suggests that through achieving peace of mind, one can allow goodness and artistic quality to emerge and be fully appreciated during the creative process.
In practice
This quote can be shared in an art class to inspire students to find peace in their creative process.
When analytic thought, the knife, is applied to experience, something is always killed in the process.
The Buddha resides 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.
It's better not to see than to see wrongly.
The truth knocks on the door and you say, go away, I'm looking for the truth, and it goes away. Puzzling.
You want to know how to paint a perfect painting? It's easy. Make yourself perfect and then just paint naturally.
This inner peace of mind occurs on three levels of understanding. Physical quietness seems the easiest to achieve, although there are levels and levels of this too, as attested by the ability of Hindu mystics to live buried alive for many days. Mental quietness, in which one has no wandering thoughts at all, seems more difficult, but can be achieved. But value quietness, in which one has no wandering desires at all but simply performs the acts of his life without desire, that seems the hardest.
A grain of poetry suffices to season a century.
Everybody has the same energy potential. The average person wastes his in a dozen little ways. I bring mine to bear on one thing only: my paintings, and everything else is sacrificed to it...myself included.
I started out as a writer and a director. I started acting because I wanted to know how to relate to the actors. When people ask me what I do, I don't really say that I'm an actor, because actors often wait for someone to give them roles.
I don't sing operatically, and I sing very intimately, but I still do the scales, and I think in terms of intonation and making sure that I'm hitting the notes right on the head... and having it appear quite effortless.
Writers write because they cannot allow the characters that inhabit them to suffocate them. These characters want to get out, to breathe fresh air and partake of the wine of friendship; were they to remain locked in, they would forcibly break down the walls. It is they who force the writer to tell their stories.
Maybe I am not very human - what I wanted to do was to paint sunlight on the side of a house.
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