Here is our empty goban, nothing has already happened on it.
Nothing.
If we play with a clock running, White asks Black:ready? If Black answers yes, White makes the Black’s time to start. The game has begun. It has started with Nothing.
The value we give to The Nothing is a crucial point. In order to explain why it is a crucial point, perhaps the best thing is to relate my experience about it, done with Tsuda Sensei, or Monsieur Tsuda, as he was known in France, where i met him.
Just for reference, Monsieur Tsuda studied Aiki directly with Ueshiba Morihei, the founder of modern school of Aikido, and he received from him the 6 dan. When Ueshiba Morihei died in 1968, Monsieur Tsuda came back to France, where he had studied Sociology before World War II, and he started to teach on his own. About this story you can find out more in Internet.
Why Monsieur Tsuda choosed to teach on his own? Because the value he gave to Nothing.
Remembering my experience with Monsieur Tsuda, i think that he took seriously a question that Ueshiba Morihei was used to ask to his pupils: did you read Ko-Gi-Ki?
Ko-Gi-Ki is one of the oldest japanese books. It relates the birth of Japan, starting from Gods.
We can’t read Ko-Gi-Ki just as a story more or less legendary. To read Ko-Gi-Ki we have to know a key of lecture called Kototama. Kototama is the practice of sounds. Well, it is a little complicated. We just can say, to give an idea, that Kototama is correlated with “in the beginning there was the verbe” of western tradition.
The question: did you read Ko-Gi-Ki? was a really serious one, because Aiki is a manifestation of Kototama sounds. Then the correlation Aiki > Kototama > Ko-Gi-Ki.
Please, just an other moment of pacience, and we arrive to the crucial point.
Monsieur Tsuda, when he started to teach, stopped to call his practice “Aikido”, and gave it the name of “Breathing practice of Ueshiba Sensei”. Why? Because he was convinced that this practice was the most important part of Aiki, and that without this part the Aiki practice would have been denaturated.
Exactly the part that quite everybody didn’t want to practice any more, still Ueshiba Morihei alive. People was more interested in fighting technics, in their efficacity and beauty.
This part was the beginning of the Aiki session of Ueshiba Morihei, who started with the recitation of a very old Norito linked with Kototama, after wich he practised the “Soul Vibrations”, divided in three parts: slow – medium – fast vibrations. Before each part he invoked a Ko-Gi-Ki god as Kototama sound.
The first sound/god is Ameno minaka nushi, the sound/god of Nothing.
The second one is Kuni toko tachi, the sound/god of Emptiness.
The third one is the well known Amaterasu, the sound/god of All Created Forms.
The basic reason of this sequence is the same of the existence of the dojo “the space in wich we practice the Way (Tao)”: when we enter in the dojo space we leave outside everithing of our dayly life, everithing of our mental and emotionals habits. We don’t want to be disturbed by that. It corresponds to western temple: inside the sacred space, outside the prophane.
As you see, it is just a practical idea: if you want to learn to play a musical instrument you prefere a quiet room, and you try to forget the current problems, don’t you.
In the case of Ueshiba Morihei, his purpose was as much simple as that, of course taking in account that his field of research was Aiki: put yourself at the beginning where/when the Sound started, step by step descend to your present condition; then Aiki, manifestation of the Sound, will reveal itsef to you in a totally natural way and it will teach you about itself.
In other terms: at any session follow the sequence Nothing-Emptiness-Created Forms. If you start your practice from Created Forms, Aiki will not be there, and you just loose yourself, adding confusion to confusion.
Well, i can’t even imagine what Go should be studying it in this way, but i would like to bring your attention to the structure of the game in itself. This structure is the same of the session of one of the most important modern Masters.
At the beginning of the game there is Nothing. We are automatically at the Beginning, at a point Zero in wich we can start our game free from the past. This continuous start from Zero is a powerful way to get rid of our actual limitated conditions.
Just in these days an european Go teacher told me this:
Tsurukame: you can still improve by getting rid of things you learned wrongly
Tsurukame: we all are getting certain bad habits, or we believe to understand things which are wrong actually
Tsurukame: it’s sometimes impossible to move further without getting rid of these weights, unneeded or bad things
Tsurukame: even if i tell you which is the mistake you’re making more often, you won’t be able to get rid of it, because it’s sometimes carved very deep in your mind
Tsurukame: only by seeing it happening over and over, you’ll get to the real understanding and you’re getting aware of it before it happens
Tsurukame: otherwise, you’ll still make it unconsciously, out of an old reflex
Tsurukame: there’s another “danger” here
Tsurukame: the moment you’ll understand that some principles, techniques or moves, are wrong, you will get quite depressed, because you have to split up with old acquintances
Tsurukame: until finding new friends to rely upon, you’ll feel lonely and lost
Tsurukame: this is the moment many people are quitting go
Tsurukame: i was about to do the same, 20 years ago
Tsurukame: there’s a void that takes time to be filled
Tsurukame: first step is to aknowledge what’s wrong, then see if you can get rid of them, then fill the void with new, better things
Tsurukame: this takes time and a strong will
As you see, we can have different approaches and experiences, but the crucial point is always the same. When we learn something, we have to be prepared to leave it behind us soon or later, or it will become an obstacle instead of an help.
As the game starts from The Nothing, and in the Nothing our limits desappear, we can take profit very easily from it.
Don’t skip Nothing, let it a chance to work on you by the means of Go.
