The Zen way to Go

Overview

The more I read from the Zen masters, the more connections I see between its legacy and the goban. Ergo, here is a collection of quotations from the Zen tradition which strike me as being directly relevant to Go.

-- Scartol

Quotes

"...a Zen patriarch said, 'The slightest miss is as the distance between sky and earth..'"
-- Chinul, as quoted in Kensho: The Heart of Zen by Thomas Cleary

"When a fish meets the fishhook
If he is too greedy, he will be caught
When his mouth opens
His life is already lost."
-- Ekai, called Mu-mon, in The Gateless Gate

32. As, subjectively, letters flow into words and words into sentences, and as, objectively, circles flow into worlds and worlds into principles, find at last these converging in our being.
33. Gracious one, play the universe is an empty shell wherein your mind frolics infinitely.
--From Centering, an Indian text as shared by Lakshmanjoo (original emphasis)

"In the buddha way, you should always enter enlightenment through practice."
-- Dogen

Not Zen, but these quotes from Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching also seem to apply:

• "To be overbearing when one has wealth and position is to bring calamity upon oneself." -- Book One, IX: 23 (see greedy)
• "Lay plans for the accomplishment of the difficult before it becomes difficult; make something big by starting with it when small. Difficult things in the world must needs have their beginnings in the easy; big things must needs have their beginnings in the small." -- Book Two, LXIII: 149-149a (see fuseki)

Application

Applying the general advice of these Zen masters to the specific activity of Go.

• YinYang Principle
  
• A Zen way to joseki
  
• Selfless Go

AvatarDJFlux: I will try to connect Zen stories and koan to specific aspects of Go, if my laziness allows me to...
I will list below the pages as long as I create them.

See also DogenAndGo.