In Tibetan Buddhism, the symbolic union of male and female deities is completely bound up with the highest spiritual experience of enlightenment. This is not the world of God the Father or even God the Mother. This is the world of ecstatic union, of father and mother, male and female, the Great Bliss. . . . I was on unknown ground (Galland 102-103).

Although Pirsig marks his journey continuously with meditations on Western philosophers, the heart of his book is the concept of Quality, which turns out to be a thoroughly mystical and Eastern-oriented phenomenon. Pirsig sees philosophy not as a willful act of the consciousness alone, but a more natural event which flows from the unconscious: : "He knew he had reached some kind of culmination of thought he had been unconsciously striving for over a long period of time" (Pirsig 215).

Again and again in both books we find references to the creative nature of the spiritual journey, the importa

Pirsig, Robert M. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. New York: Bantam, 1985.

This is darkness to the thinking mind, to the ego that grasps and holds that there is such a thing as "mine.' This goes beyond thinking mind, beyond the world of appearances, into the vast direct experience of being. This is not ordinary reality. This is the black of starless midnight, imminence, that comes before the pre-dawn of enlightenment. . . . (Galland 342).

These . . . instructions begin and end exclusively with the machine. But the kind of approach I'm thinking about doesn't cut it off so narrowly. What's really angering about instructions of this sort is that they imply there's only one way to put this [machine] together---their way. And that presumption wipes out all the creativity. Actually, there are hundreds of ways to put the [machine] together. . . . [Sticking to the instructions,] you lose feeling for the work. . . . And it's very unlikely that they've told you the best way (Pirsig 147).

For example, Galland captures this natural part of the spiritual journey and of enlightenment in the final lines of her book:

There are, however, more similarities than differences between the two books. At the heart of the spiritual journey for both authors are the little things in life which give delight and wonder, rather than the explosive moment of sudden and complete illumination which many believe to mark the enlightenment experience. To both authors, the small, everyday connections with life and nature and other human beings are the real moments of enlightenment which are available at any moment of the night or day.

I am perplexed by the tiny flickers of light going off. . . . After a moment I realize that these are the glimmer of birds' wings as they flit from bush to bush. . . .