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The Zen way to Go
Path: MentalityPath   · Prev: PhilosophyOfGo   · Next: AZenWayToJoseki
Path: PhilosophyAndGo   · Prev: GoAndMartialArts   · Next: YinYangPrinciple

    Keywords: Culture & History

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


"...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)

Bob Myers: SL readers might find of interest that Eihei Dogen Zenji, the founder of the Soto school of Zen, referred specifically to go in the "Spring and Autumn" fascicle of his philosophical masterwork Shobogenzo, or "Treasure of the True Dharma Eye", where he wrote:

"Suppose there is a go game; who are the two players? If you say that you and I are playing go, it means you have a handicap of eight stones. If you have a handicap of eight stones, it is no longer a game.

"What is the meaning of this? When you answer, answer this way: You play go by yourself; the opponents become one. Thus steadying your mind and turning your body, you should examine Hongzhi's words, "You do not respond to my move." That means "you" are not yet "you." You should not neglect the words, "I'll swallow you up". Mud within mud. Wash your feet, wash the tassel on your hat. A jewel within a jewel. Illuminate other, illuminate the self."

(Kazuaki Tanahashi translation from "Moon in a Dewdrop".)


YinYang Principle


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.

A Zen way to joseki



Path: MentalityPath   · Prev: PhilosophyOfGo   · Next: AZenWayToJoseki
Path: PhilosophyAndGo   · Prev: GoAndMartialArts   · Next: YinYangPrinciple

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(OC) 2004 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.