The Martial Game

Folytatom az üres tábla esszéket, vagy mik ezek, bár egyre szárazabbnak tűnnek nekem, de értelme mindig van megkapargatni ezeket a szavakat is. Több, mint egy tétlenül átücsörgött munkaórának.

The Martial Game

by William Cobb

Those who have read earlier versions of this column will not be surprised to learn that, although I find the reference to go as the sedentary martial art amusing, I tend to resist using martial language and metaphors in talking about go. I find it much more helpful to think of go as a peaceful game rather than a game of war-to talk about capturing stones rather than killing groups, for example. Nevertheless, the tradition of speaking of go as a martial game is a long and strong one that invokes a positive response in many players and that is deeply ingrained in ordinary ways of talking about go in English. In fact, there is a parallel here between go and the activities more commonly known as the martial arts, such as the Way of the Sword (kendo) and the Way of the Empty Hand (karate). Many people question how the apparent violence of such pursuits can be reconciled with the compassionate character of the Buddhism that is supposed to be so closely associated with these martial arts. How can learning to kill an opponent with one blow be part of a path to enlightenment? This concern may lie behind the resistance to calling go a game of war.

The initial difficulty here is the assumption that violence and compassion are inherently incompatible. Buddhism is appropriately seen as advocating a non-violent approach to dealing with conflict. Yet violence comes in many forms, and this characterization can be misleading. The issue is overcoming self, abandoning attachment to one's own goals and values as having some sort of ultimacy. The acts that are usually called violent are precisely those in which someone is destroying something as a means of furthering their own ego, but there are many acts of traumatic disruption that do not have that aim. Obvious examples are giving birth or chewing food. It would be odd to call such acts violent because they usually lack the attitude of "me first". (Eating because one is hungry is appropriate; eating so that one can continue to try to dominate others is not.) This opens the possibility that acts which are usually seen as violent might be performed in such a manner that they are really non-violent insofar as they lack attachment to self.

Thus, a devotee of karate would note that it is not compassionate to always allow an attacker to destroy one without resistance. In fact this is a form of attachment to a particular image of oneself and an effort to further that personal aim at all costs. Slapping a small child's hand, for example, to help the toddler understand that the stove is off limits, is an obvious compassionate act-we don't want the child to be burned. So is killing an attacker. It depends on the circumstances. What does this have to do with go? The point is that a wholesale rejection of martial language and metaphors as though they were inherently evil is a mistake. There is something to be learned from the fact that such terms are often used of go, so I will try to overcome my predispositions and see what I can find in the thought of go as a martial art.

One of the first things one notices about war is that it is a very intense activity. Being involved in battle focuses one's attention in a dramatic way. The threat is the ultimate one. The enemy must be thwarted. Everything is focused on that aim, and no barriers to its achievement can be tolerated. This intensity means that one will put all one's effort into finding the best way of achieving the goal of victory. However, this does not mean that one sets out to mindlessly slaughter the enemy. One of the interesting discoveries of modern warfare is that wounding the enemy is much more effective than killing them because it uses up much more of the enemy's total resources to care for the wounded. (It is better to harass the other's stones than to try to capture them.) What is more, even an aggressor wants to preserve as much as possible of the enemy's resources for later use. Hence, the notion that war is necessarily a matter of aiming at total annihilation is mistaken.

In the application to go, therefore, what one finds in the notion of go as a game of war is an emphasis on the importance of total intensity, of a maximum effort to find the play that will gain the upper hand. This is not a peaceful, leisurely activity in which half-hearted efforts and moderate attentiveness are appropriate. This is war. One must put everything one is capable of into it, as though one's life and everything one cared about were at stake. Only then will one find the best game one is capable of.

The problem with the image of peaceful pursuits is that we think of them as involving being nice, of giving way, of not being tough on others, of making room for everyone. This attitude will not do in go. Of course, as everyone knows, this does not mean that one just embarks on a one-sided campaign of attacking (fighting). Unless the field is decidedly unlevel (the handicap is not appropriate), this is a sure formula for disaster. The Charge of the Light Brigade and Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg are familiar examples. One must respect one's opponent and not indulge in the illusion that one is entirely in charge of what is happening. War is not a crusade; it is an engagement, an engagement that, because of its intensity, can bring out the best one is capable of. And that, of course, requires a complete abandonment of ego.

So there is some positive value in thinking of go as the sedentary martial art. It can be a useful balance for offsetting the possibility of encouraging lackadaisical attitudes by emphasizing the peaceful character of the game. But I think I will still start beginners on the way by teaching them the "capturing" game rather than the "killing" game, and I still prefer the metaphor of "hand-conversation" to that of "war".

The Empty Board #6

American Go Journal XXX, 3 (Summer 1996), 34-35, 39