Bonus Episode: The art of living and the game of Weiqi
Yang sheng is not just about physical or breathing exercises, it is cultivating the art of living in all its rich variety and interest. Underneath all of that rich variety, however, is a unity of being that is ultimately supportive and nourishing; most traditional societies know this, and are structured to foster this understanding over the course of a life.
I remember one day back in China when I was young, I heard three teachers of completely different disciplines use the same words to describe what they were doing. At a morning Taichi class, the teacher said ‘Your qi must reach the tip of the sword, just as if it were reaching the tip of your finger!’ At noon, the calligraphy teacher insisted ‘Don’t just hold the brush in your hand – the qi must flow through and reach through the brush into the ink!’ And later I heard an acupuncture teacher explaining to a beginner: ‘Stand properly! Your intent must pass into the needle, and your qi must flow to the tip of the needle. Only then can you rectify the qi of the patient!’
That was when I realized that the whole of Chinese traditional society was designed to foster an understanding of fundamental cosmic principles, learned by experience, and by different experiences in different disciplines. The goal of this was to produce a complete person, a real human being.
A gentleman (and many women) in traditional China would learn music, calligraphy, painting and the game of Weiqi (‘surrounding chess’). Qín qí shū huà were the four arts of the cultivated person, literally ‘zither, chess, writing and painting’. All of these arts introduce different facets of the same cosmic principles. Let us take the most apparently trivial: Weiqi.
According to the Encyclopedia Brittanica, Weiqi, or as it is mainly known in the West, Go (from its Japanese name I-go), of Baduk in Korea, was invented in China in 2306 BC. Confucius mentioned it in his Analects in the 6th century BC. There is a first century AD text dedicated to Go still extant. At present there are approximately 10 million Go players in the world at the ‘strong beginner’ level or better. Many Go clubs exist around the world, but even more Go is played on-line, internationally.
How to play
The game is very simple: There are 361 identical black and white round pieces, called ‘stones.’ These are used to mark off territory. The winner has the most territory.
You begin with an empty board marked with nineteen lines horizontally and nineteen lines vertically. Black begins by placing a stone at any of the intersections of those lines, then white follows, placing a stone at any other intersection. Stones do not move, and the pieces remain on the board unless captured. A piece is captured when it, or a group it is linked with, has no connection with open intersections – no ‘breathing space.’ The game is over when both players agree to end.
Despite this simplicity, until 2015 there had been no computer program that could beat a high-ranking player in Go, and designing one that could had been a premier challenge in AI for several decades. In 2016 AlphaGo, a project using neural network deep learning, was developed by Deepmind Technologies, and more recent programs have not only become stronger but have influenced the way the game is played by humans by challenging long established “best” moves in certain set positions.
Famous Players
Confucius and Mencius both mention the game. Legend has it that the Daoist patriarch Lu Dong-Bin (‘Guest of the Cavern’) was an exceedingly skilful hand at Weiqi. It is a matter of history that the Japanese Tokugawa government subsidized Go education as a matter of national importance for 250 years. The German mathematician Liebniz described a game of Go in Europe in the 16th century – he was also intrigued by the Yi Jing (Book of Changes). Mao Tse-Tong was a consummate player,[1] and it is argued that this contributed in no small way to his success at guerrilla warfare.
All the principles in Sun Zi’s Art of War apply perfectly to Go (much more so than to chess), as we shall see.
The principles of the universe
What are the ‘cosmic principles’ one would learn by playing Weiqi? Normally, one would simply play the game, and subtly absorb the principles in the usual Daoist way; ‘learning without words.’ Of course, if a student was particularly slow, one’s Weiqi master would point these things out. Here is what my Weiqi master told me:
The board is square ‘like the earth,’[2] the lens-shaped stones are round ‘like the sky.’ There are nineteen lines on each side, which gives 361 intersections, ‘like the days of the year.’ The four sides are like the four seasons, and the four directions.
Movement takes place against an unmoving background, the sky moving over the unmoving earth, the stones placed on an unmoving board. The stones are black and white, yin and yang; and also like yin and yang, players alternate moves (in ancient times, for this reason, players were not allowed to ‘pass’).
As the Yi Jing – Classic of Changes – describes infinite change, no game is ever the same: the board is empty at the start, and the interplay of forces creates a unique pattern, a pattern that remains visible at the end of the game.
Without qi, a stone or group of stones is dead – it must have ‘breathing space.’ As lines of stones take shape into groups, they map the ebb and flow of qi across the board; those groups with much qi are lively and free, those which are constricted and ‘heavy’ often die.
During the course of play, a player’s fortunes change frequently, as in life; how the player reacts to these changes can tell them (and everyone else watching) what degree of cultivation they have reached.
Do they lose with grace? Do they win kindly?
Do they play impulsively, or calculate each move?
One can become obsessed with a small portion of the board, completely missing the momentous changes happening elsewhere. Or one can learn to view the total situation, objectively, even wisely – but this wisdom is usually learned over a long painful apprenticeship, with many lost games.
'One improves in the game by learning to see,’ I was told.
‘See what?’ I asked.
‘What is in front of your face all the time!’ my teacher laughed. ‘You will learn to see the patterns that will determine what is to come, and when you learn to see those patterns on this board, you may learn how to see those patterns in life, as well.’
Here are some selections from a 13th century text on Go, called The Very Mysterious Classic of Weiqi (玄玄棋經)
The text begins with a series of classic parallels referring to weiqi:
Yin and Yang, the circle and the square, active and passive, and so on. One of the prefaces recounts an autobiographical event which occurred in 1330 at the court of the Mongol emperor Wendi.
The sovereign asked the author, as a member of the imperial Hanlin Academy, if it was dignified for the Son of Heaven to play weiqi. He answered:
When the ancients invented an object, they allowed themselves to be perfectly absorbed by its spirit, and from each object they extracted its usefulness. And indeed, there is no object which does not have its particular use.
Regarding the game, Confucius long ago said that playing weiqi was better than doing nothing, and Mencius even believed that it was an art.
One may understand it therefore only by concentrating on it with a will of iron. Moreover, the methods of organization and preparation, the Dao of conquest and preservation, reasoning and decision, all recall the logic followed in compiling state laws and preparing military orders according to division, brigades, battalions and companies. After having studied all these things and absorbed their contents, one’s attention will remain vigilant even in times of peace.
The emperor was so favorably impressed by these words that he permitted the author to carve an inscription on the box containing his personal weiqi set.
The number of the Ten Thousand Beings originates from the One.
Therefore, the three hundred and sixty intersections of the weiqi board also have their One. The One is the generative principle of numbers and, considered as a pole, produces the four cardinal points.
The three hundred and sixty intersections correspond to the number of days in a year30. Divided into four “corners” like the four seasons, they have ninety intersections each, like the number of days in a season. There are seventy two intersections on the sides, like the number of five-day-weeks in a year. The three hundred and sixty pieces are equally divided between black and white, modelled on Yin - Yang .
The player whose configurations are correct can exercise power over his adversary. He must therefore establish his strategy internally, so that his configurations are complete externally too.
If he is able to work out who will win while the game is still being played, he has calculated well. If he is not able to work this out, he has calculated badly. If he does not know who is the winner and who is the loser at the end of the game, he has made no calculations at all!
The wise man is able to foresee even things which are not yet visible.
The foolish man is blind even when the evidence is placed in front of his eyes.
Thus, if you know your own weak points, you can anticipate what may benefit your adversary, and thereby win. You will also win if you know when to fight and when to avoid conflict; if you can correctly measure the intensity of your efforts; if, exploiting your preparation, you can prevent your adversary from being prepared too; if, by resting, you can exhaust your adversary; and if, by not fighting, you can subdue him.
In Laozi it is written: “He who knows himself is enlightened!”
It is generally believed that sometimes many pieces may be lost, provided that the initiative is not lost. This is because losing the initiative means passing it to the other player, who did not have it before.
Before attacking to the left, observe the right; before invading the space behind your opponent’s lines, observe what is in front of them.
Rather than keeping endangered pieces alive, it is better to abandon them and acquire new positions.
Instead of expending effort in making worthless moves, exploit every opportunity which allows you to strengthen your position.
When there are many enemy pieces but few of your own in a given territory, first of all carefully consider your own chances of survival. If the opposite situation arises, when your own pieces are numerous and your enemy is in difficulties, exploit that situation to extend your configurations.
As the best victory is that gained without fighting, so the best position is one which does not provoke conflict. In any case, if you fight well you will not lose, and if your ranks are not in disorder, you will lose well.
Although at the beginning of the game, you must arrange the pieces according to the rules, at the end you must use your imagination in order to win.
Do not boast of victory, nor complain about defeat! It is proper for a junzi to appear modest and generous; only vulgar persons manifest expressions of anger and rage. A good player should not exalt his skills; the beginner should not be timorous, but should sit calmly and breathe regularly: in this way, the battle is half won. A player whose face reveals a disturbed state of mind is already losing.
It may be said that, in weiqi, the life of one is the non-life of the other, that the near and the far complement each other, that the strong configuration of one corresponds to the weakness of the other, that the advantage of one is the disadvantage of the other. This means peace but not serenity, it means that one may establish oneself but not remain inactive. In the same way that danger may lurk behind peace and serenity, remaining inactive means being annihilated.
Remember the words contained in Yijing: “The junzi is at peace but does not forget the danger; he affirms his position but does not forget the possibility of being destroyed!”
Endnotes:
[1] There is even a book entitled: The Protracted Game: A Wei-Ch'i Interpretation of Maoist Revolutionary Strategy.
[2] China was thought to be like a go-board, square and divided into a 9x9 grid, and floating on and surrounded by water. Even today, weiqi beginners learn on a board of 9x9 lines.