Attachment

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Attachment

by William Cobb

Attachment is an important concept, both in Go and in Buddhist philosophy, although the concept seems quite different in the two contexts. For Buddhists, attachment is one way of describing the source of all suffering. It is what keeps us tied to the wheel of birth and death; ceasing to be attached to things is crucial for achieving enlightenment. In Go, on the other hand, in the right circumstances, attaching to one of the other player's stones can be a very useful tactic. It's especially effective as a way of settling stones in a hostile environment. Attachment strengthens the other player's stone, but it strengthens your own as well, and thus can lead to the establishment of a living group. Thus, in Go attachment can give you life in a difficult situation, while in Buddhism true life comes from ceasing to make attachments.

According to Buddhist philosophy, those who are not yet enlightened are fond of attachment, while in Go beginners are often terrified of it and panic when the other player attaches to one of their stones. Can we learn anything about these two kinds of attachment by thinking of them together?

In Buddhism being attached means treating something as though it were of inherent value, a thing whose worth is clear and whose loss would therefore be a bad, even devastating thing. Parents are often attached to their children in this sense, and people to their jobs or other things they see as essential to their identity and their survival. Buddhists see this as a mistake, and in fact think of it as a kind of greed, that is, trying to have more than is appropriate or even possible by using things to provide your life with some sort of inherent worth. Since things, such as children and victories, come and go, and their coming and going is dependent on many things over which one has no control, if the value of one's existence is dependent on holding on to some of them, one is doomed to a life of fear and anxiety.

So, in Buddhist philosophy being attached to something means holding on to it desperately, thinking that giving it up would be disaster. The task is to learn to appreciate the value of things, to enjoy them, but to do so without thinking that their value and our ability to enjoy them depends on having them in some sort of permanent way. And now the parallel with attaching in Go begins to emerge.

The stone with which you attach is very valuable, but its value is often realized by giving it up. This seems paradoxical to beginners, who tend to think that they must not allow any of their stones to be captured. So they hold on to the stone to which the opponent has attached with great determination. They eagerly grab the attaching stone if they can, failing to see that this is simple greed and a mistaken judgment about the value of something. "Ah, you want that stone?", the stronger player thinks, "Would you care for another?" Good things are not just to be held on to forever. Often giving them up can lead to even better things. This understanding of the principle of sacrificing stones, of treating stones lightly, is an important step forward on the path of learning to play Go.

Go players, therefore, are well prepared to understand the Buddhist concept of attachment. One puts down a few stones and begins to construct a framework or a life, but one is not afraid to give up a stone or even a group in order to gain a better position overall. In order to achieve the end of having a larger share of the board when the game concludes, one treats every stone as both precious and dispensable. Buddhists look at their possessions, their jobs, their children, and even their lives in a not dissimilar way. The only way to truly enjoy these things is to recognize that none of them is essential and all of them are ephemeral. Thus, when one loses one of them one is not devastated, nor deterred from the path toward enlightenment. That does not mean that one does not treat them as valuable. The only way to truly appreciate the value of the world is precisely to renounce it, to treat it lightly. In life, attachment to things makes one heavy. From the practice of attachment in Go, we can learn how to make our lives light, even enlightened.

The Empty Board #2

American Go Journal XXIX, 1 ((Winter 1995), 20-21