What is Zen?

What reply do you want?

You may or may not have played GO.

You should.

Intimately linked with oriental culture and thought, it combines an elegant simplicity with complex interactions between the local and the global.

Much easier to learn than chess, but needing a lifetime to become a real master, it can bring you hours of interesting, entertaining and fulfilling pleasure.

You can get some idea of what I mean from the fascinating IGS Art Gallery.

Some beautiful examples of Japanese art involving the game of GO.

This is a marvellous collection which encapsulates much of Japanese culture.

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The game itself depends on combining attention to detailed local situations with a "feel" for pattern and influence.

Just as in Zen the philosophy should not detract you from sweeping the yard, so in GO your overall strategic plan should not detract from the details of the bottom left corner.

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• The easiest way to learn is probably from Mindy McAdam's excellent How to Teach GO. Although, as the name implies, intended as an aid to teachers it is actually a self contained rapid course in GO, the best I have seen, with excellent illustrations. You should be playing within half an hour at most.
• An alternative method of learning is Hiroki Mori's The Interactive Way to GO. A different approach, but equally well presented and illustrated. The choice between this method and the method in "How to Teach GO" (above) is a matter of personal preference. Both are good.

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Continue to my next topic - Zen.

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This document was last updated 21 July 2019

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© 2019 Graham G Hawker
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