禅与摩托车维修艺术

In a burning hot summer, both father and son together with John and his wife ride motorcycles from Minnesota to California, crossing the continental United States; The traveling process with the process of a young guy, Fei Deluo researching and studying the science and technology and the Western Canon, in order to free himself and explore the meaning of life alternate each other. On the way, the father taking the form of philosophy Chautauquan, combines the natural scene, camping experience, evening dialogue in the inn, vehicle maintenance technology and other things in daily life with the profound and pellucid explanation and comments to western rational philosophy since Socrates, and makes a reflection on the traditional metaphysics subjective and objective dualism as well as the deep meditation on the relationship between the things divided according to Western Dichotomy including science and art, knowledge and value, classicism and romanticism, spirit and material, mechanistic and mysticism, west and east etc. Moreover, the father continues, in the consideration of his past, to explore the origin of the division of his own spirit, finishing an exploration of self-soul and human civilization.