Get the Dao Where I Can

It is very safe to say that over the last 12 months I have been immensly influenced by Daoism.  It has been my way of dealing with the loss of my grandfather, and it will probably be how I deal with the loss of my dad.  It also made me want to take up Tai Chi and play Go.

Both are lovely activities, but neither are at this point my true path (pun intended).  I order my time with Daoism by the following hierarchy:

1) Time in nature, with the right silence, openness, and stillness of mind.  This is where perfect days should be spent.

2) Time with the Daodejing.  Last year I copied passages by hand.  This year I will memorize my favorite passages.  In the future, I might take up calligraphy and really make some beautiful copies.  Also, there is the possibility of copying it in Spanish, French, or other languages.

3) Tai Chi.  I plan to pick it up in the winters, when the land has lost most of its scents and bird song.  True story: I was doing quite a bit of Tai Chi in the winter and then one day I went out in February and I could just smell the spring.  After that, I have not learned any new moves.  I mostly just used it for stretches when we got out of the car during our vacation.  I think when nature speaks to me less, I will take up Tai Chi again.  It's a seasonal thing.

4) The game of Go.  So in the end, I am not going with Go.  A dozen games or so of Go forms the basis of some images that serve as metaphors for the Dao, but after that it just a game.  Granted, an absorbing game full of tactics.  Oh my, just in writing, I am getting an itch to play.  But that is nothing that losing a few games to a computer wont fix.

Go as a metaphor can help in my spiritual enlightenment, but the actual practice of Go does not get past being a game.  And as I get older, I find more satisfaction from getting things done in real life and progressing in useful skills.

I also find more purpose in spirituality.  And I want the time I spend in my life to reflect that.

Let's Go With Go

I am indeed starting off again in learning the game of Go.  My first textbook will be River Mountain Go.

It has this advice:

as you read this book, please play at least ten games of Go for every chapter you read. If you play one game of Go per day, spend about a week on each chapter. 

That's the kind of advice I like to hear; I want to play the game and enjoy my summer -- a real summer now that Nationals has ended.

A Turn Back To Go?

While I haven't been blogging much, on account of the learning curve with learning Dvorak, I have been doing a lot of thinking and walking, and some meditating.  There have been many epiphanies, including the meta-epiphany that I can and should have my epiphanies about my craft of teaching, and that is as much of a challenge, and spiritual journey, as any.

In addition, on those long walks, my mind keeps going back to a need to make the spaces at school work for me better.  One idea is plants, another is a desktop sized waterfall, and yet another is the screaming need inside of me to declutter my classroom (naturally, I have started there, working on getting rid of much of what I inherited in the classroom), but lastly I see again and again in my mind's eye a Go board.

The game stands out as a representation of harmony in motion.  This is important because I don't have a window. and thus I have no portal to nature.  A Go game can represent that dynamism, I think. For it to really be beautiful, I will need to understand the game a bit better.  

For beauty's sake, the game of Go may be the next thing I work on.

Some Free Go Literature

The American Go Association has a nice page for people learning the game.  I am going to start with River Mountain Go: Volume 1 and at the same time look at problems in Improve Fast in Go as more of a stretch read, so I gather from looking at it.  

Process those both, though, and play a lot, and it looks like I should be a 20 kyu (if that label has any robust meaning).

I'm not sure I can keep ego and notions of progress out of my conception of the game of Go, and mythology around the game notwithstanding, I'm not sure many others have succeeded either.  But I like the game.  I think its beauty stems from its elegance, and I think it is a lovely martial art of the mind.

Also, my thinking on ego has turned away from the thought of its elimination to thinking about its balance with the outside world.

Defending 9X9 Go

I have read that 9X9 Go teaches a new comer bad habits, and should be avoided because it you will have unlearn so much.

I counter that with the following: 9X9 Go is really fun. The games don't take too long, and it easier to hold in my mind the flow of the game, thus even at my level of having 30 games in, I can now look back and usually figure out what move I make the big mistake that cost me winning at my handicap.

I see 9X9 Go more as more like playing scales on a piano.  I have deepened an understanding of "life and death" problems and other aspects of shape. I know that if I play hundreds of games my ability to read would only improve.

For now, Go is one of my favorite free hobbies.  If I still like it after the house is paid off, I might spend money on a library of good Go books.  It is from that reading that I would expect to learn the right habits and really develop the craft.

I have to convince myself over and over again that I am not trying to progress in Go at maximum speed.  With that in mind, why should I care if 9X9 is teaching me bad habits, if I it is the most fun way to play for right now? 

And so I'll play on a 9X9 board as long as it is fun.

Perhaps this Need not be Gibberish

I was reading a discussion of just how much play on a 9X9 Go board is appropriate for a beginner and I came across this: 

Malweth: I learned how to play solely on the 19x19 board - I believe that my first 9x9 game was after I'd broken 20k, and I'm positive that my first 13x13 game was when I was SDK (and versus a ~25k child).There are important things to learn at the 25k level, and as important as life and death is, the opening is IMHO more critical. Basic shape life and death problems take a close second. Look at it this way, the most important part of the game is the fuseki (joseki aside, of course, for the 25 kyu).The progression, as I see it, is:1) Learn the rules 2) Learn the big points and why they are big (start with the 3-4 shimari, then the kakari) 3) Simultaneously with #2, learn the basic nakade.9x9 is good for time purposes - it does teach good tactics, but should be used in conjunction with 19x19. I personally don't find much value in 13x13. I think it is better to play half a 19x19 game than to complete a 13x13 game, not even discussing that playing quickly (15-20 min absolute per side) is perfectly fine for weaker players. 

I might play around with these suggestions, but first I have to learn what "shimari," "kakari," and "nakade" in fact are.  

Vocabulary is always important in learning a new endevour.  

Joseki (Go Strategy)

While I like Go for the big-picture strategy which evokes potent metaphorical understandings of spirituality in practice, and I like to think of one day hooking up with a community of people who play the game for the right reasons, losing all the time to the Fuego is not my favorite experience.

For that reason, I am watching some strategy videos on Youtube.  (In a year and half or so, after the house is paid off, and my spending moratorium is ended, I might even buy Go books  . . . shocking, I know).

The current beginner fundamental for me is Joseki.




Update: just internalizing this concept alone helped me to move up a handicap on the 9X9 board against Fuego.

Go Progress

Through game 15 of losing 50 games as fast as I can.  I actually won a game on a 15X15 board.  I only need a nine stone handicap.  (Let it never be said I was an over-night success at Go).

I enjoyed this lecture on mid-game shapes, from the Sunday Go Lessons Channel:

Go as Meditation in Action

I have been saved the trouble of needing to write further pieces on the philosophical implications of Go by one I have read today.  (This is not to say I wont use Go to express insights into other areas; I have already begun one such piece in my notebook.  Also, if I will write about my Go studies, if nothing else so I can have them scrap-booked for me somewhere.)

Though the piece tries to make the most important implication of Go is an answer to nihilism,  But I don't see that argument as unique to Go.  It is basically that rules make parameters on the chaos of reality, giving us a framework for interaction.  Without that framework we are left in a nihilistic situation:

 When two people confront each other across a Go board, they could do virtually anything—throw the stones at each other, carve their initials in the board, etc. Why play Go? The broader question is, why do anything at all?

To answer that we need to know what kind of beings we are: impermanent and interconnected.  And the stones in Go serve the purpose of showing representing this truth:

 A stone’s real significance lies in its potentiality for interaction with other stones. It can surround territory or disrupt the ability of stones of the other color to do so, and even capture those stones . . .  the significance of any stone or group of stones is subject to the possibility of radical change. A stone or group of stones that is important at one point can become dispensable as a result of later developments . . .  The significance of the vulnerability of the stones accustoms the players to the reality of impermanence, and again this is found to be not a dreadful situation, but one that greatly enriches the experience of playing.

 We are impermanent beings who can only cobble together temporary, contextual truths (much harder to have Truths).  So why not play a game that mirrors that reality?  Throw in some aspects of harmony and interconnections, and adjust the handicaps of the game so that you are only winning 50-60% of the time, and you have an enjoyable game that becomes more of an enjoyable art.

The article is worth the read (and reread).