learn weiqi (go), the harmony culture game, for fun

8/9/2019 LEARN WEIQI (GO), THE HARMONY CULTURE GAME, FOR FUN

1/9

LEARN WEIQI (GO), THE HARMONY CULTURE GAME, FOR FUN

Presenter: Francis C W Fung, Ph.D., Director General, World Harmony OrganizationEducation: B.Sc. Aeronautical Engineering, Brown University

M.S. Fluid Mechanics, Johns Hopkins University

Ph.D. Aerospace Engineering, University of Notre Dame

From Shibumi, bestseller by TrevanianThose interested in impressing others with their intelligence play chess. Those who

would settle for being chic play backgammon. Those who wish to become individuals of

quality, take up Go [Weiqi].

Weiqi, the ancient Asian chess game, is all about harmony philosophy and extendinginfluence by people soft power. It is about sharing through extending influence and not

confrontation. Also known as GO in some parts of the world, Weiqi is played by two

with 361 equally ranked black and white stones (influences). Players take turns to deploy

a stone of their color one at a time to gain more presence (influence) on a board with19X19 horizontal and vertical intersecting lines (in the full version) representing potential

points of influence. The objective is to extend influences across the playing board, andnot to annihilate the opponents influence or pieces, leading to capturing the king as in

western chess. When equally matched, players usually win by only a few extra stones on

the board.

Weiqi is easy to learn and fun to play, but hard to play well. It requires good mental

discipline, a deep philosophical attitude, and a multi-campaign mentality. Unlike western

chess, the best known computer program still loses to the best Weiqi human player,despite the advances of computer programming. Western chess is basically a game of

attack in which you must take your fight to the enemy to win; you will not win justdefending. In contrast, with Weiqis objective of spreading influence, one generally onlycaptures opponents if it is for strategic locations and when in ones acquired sphere of

influence. It is never efficient to capture just for captures sake.

According to tradition, Weiqi was thought to have been invented by the first legendary

sage king of China, the great Yao Shun, to teach his son to be a future wise king. To extol

the harmony philosophy of Yao Shun, Confucius said in the ClassicZhongyong, Great

indeed is the wisdom of Shun! Shun likes to ask and to investigate the words of thosewho are close to him. He omits the bad and propagates the good. He holds fast the two

extremes and uses the in-between for the people. This is what makes him Shun! In

Confucius harmony philosophy, from the two extremes comes the in-between. Onlywherethere is a third that is the in-between of the two can the dispute be resolved and

harmony be achieved. When there is no third, no in-between, the two will compete and

fight with each other. This will lead to mutual destruction and not harmony.

In ancient China, Weiqi was given the second most important position as the must

learn discipline, along with Ku Zeng, poetry, and calligraphy, for accomplished

scholars. Both Confucius and Lao Tze considered playing Weiqi as an important


2/9

accomplishment for a Confucian scholar. In Asia there were also important talented

ladies recorded in history who excelled in playing Weiqi. Today it is played for fun and

big prize money. In modern Japan, Weiqi has attracted as many amateur female as wellas male players.

In modern days, among some learned circles in both East and West, Weiqi is consideredas must training of business acumen for prospective entrepreneurs, along with reading

Sun Tzus Art of War. It is also a recommended game at the U.S. Military Academy at

West Point for counterterroristinfluence training. For todays multilateral world, Weiqiis essential training for our youth to learn how to share in a multi-ethnic and multicultural

planet. Weiqi exercises both sides of our brains in spatial and analytical skills and

cultivates our use of nonconfrontational soft approaches. It will be a desirable skill that

will enable us to live in harmony with ourselves and with the world around us. It is adiplomats game to learn for the 21st century multilateral world.

In this workshop, we will do a lot of practice playing between beginner students guided

by experienced teacher players. By the end of this short workshop, you will have astrong feeling of accomplishment in playing and will come away with a good sense of

Weiqi harmonyculture. Ultimately, the play of Weiqi is a shared negotiation and notsimply outright conquest nor religious influence combined with military power, as in

Western chess.

photo from Wikipedia

Dr. Fung is an aerospace engineer by profession. His multidiscipline experience includes

energy and harmony research, U.S. China technology transfer, academic teaching offluid mechanics, international commerce, and creative thinking. As Director General of

the World Harmony Organization, he is a prolific writer. His articles on Harmony

Renaissance, Harmony Culture, Harmony Diplomacy, Harmony Governance, andHarmony Faith appear regularly worldwide on leading international media and websites.


3/9

BEGINNER WEIQI (GO) AND INTERACTIVE PLAYING

THE CLASS WILL BE CONDUCTED IN ENGLISH WITH BOTH ENGLISH AND CHINESE

TERMS. STUDENTS WILL BE GIVEN A LOT OF OPPORTUNITY TO PLAY WEIQI WITH

TEACHER GUIDANCE. THROUGHOUT THE COURSE, WEIQI PHILOSOPHY WILL BEDISCUSSED BY STUDENT PARTICIPATION USING KNOWLEDGE LEARNED FROM

THE CLASS AND OUTSIDE READING.

THE CLASSES WILL BE CONDUCTED WITH INTERACTIVE EXAMPLES AND

LECTURES ON HISTORY AND THE WEIQI HARMONY PHILOSOPHY. (FOR

EXAMPLES, SEE INTRODUCTION AND WEIQI QUOTABLE VIEWS HANDOUT.)

STUDENTS WILL BE GIVEN EXERCISES TO PRACTICE AFTER CLASSES.

1) WEIQI AND PHILOSOPHY INTRODUCTION; LEARN TO MAKE A WEIQIBOARD

2) THE RULES OF WEIQI AND DEMONSTRATION GAMES

3) ELEMENTARY TACTICS AND STRATEGY

4) GRAND STRATEGY AND PLAYING

5) EXAMPLE GAMES WITH COMMENTARY AND INTERACTIVE TEACHING

6) CLASS TOURNAMENT AND SPEECH CONTEST; PRIZE AWARDS FORTOURNAMENT, SPEECH, AND PARTICIPATION WINNERS.

THREE EQUAL HONOR CLASS PRIZES OF YOUNZI CHESS STONES SETS WITH

WOODEN BOWLS WILL BE AWARDED TO THREE TOP-PERFORMING STUDENTS.

YOUNZI STONES ARE CLASSIC CHINESE STONES FROM YUNNAN PROVINCE USED

IN CHINESE WEIQI TOURNAMENTS. PRIZES WILL BE DONATED BY CLASS

SPONSOR.

THE SPEECH COMPETITION TOPIC WILL BE WHAT I HAVE LEARNED FROM

PLAYING WEIQI, A WRITTEN SPEECH OF ABOUT 5 MINUTES. WINNER WILL BE

SELECTED BY STUDENT VOTING. THE SECOND EQUAL PRIZE FOR TOP CLASS

PARTICIPATION AND MOST HELPFUL STUDENT WILL ALSO BE SELECTED BY

STUDENT VOTING. THE TOURNAMENT WINNER WILL BE AWARDED THE

REMAINING WEIQI SET.

THE LAST CLASS WILL BE THE AWARD CEREMONY WHEN THE TOP THREE

SELECTED SPEECHES WILL BE DELIVERED. PARENTS OF THE CLASS STUDENTS

ARE INVITED TO ATTEND.

Francis C W Fung, Ph.D.

Director GeneralWorld Harmony OrganizationSan Francisco, CA

Edited by James C Townsend, Ph.D.

Director, World Harmony Organization

[email protected]
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]


4/9

What is GO?

Viewpoints

. . . [it is]something unearthly . . . If there are sentient beings on other planets, then they

play Go.

Emanuel Lasker, chess grandmaster

Go uses the most elemental materials and concepts -- line and circle, wood and stone,black and white -- combining them with simple rules to generate subtle strategies and

complex tactics that stagger the imagination. Iwamoto Kaoru, 9-dan professional Go player and former Honinbo title holder

There are on the Go board 360 intersections plus one. The number one is supreme and

gives rise to the other numbers because it occupies the ultimate position and governs thefour quarters. 360 represents the number of days in the [lunar] year. The division of the

Go board into four quarters symbolizes the four seasons. The 72 points on the

circumference represent the [five-day] weeks of the [Chinese lunar] calendar. Thebalance of Yin and Yang is the model for the equal division of the 360 stones into black

and white.

From The Classic of Go, by Chang Nui (Published between 1049 and 1054)

The board has to be square, for it signifies the Earth, and its right angles signify

uprightness. The pieces of the two sides are yellow and black; this difference signifies theYin and the Yang scattered in groups all over the board, they represent the heavenly

bodies. These significances being manifest, it is up to the players to make the moves, and

this is connected with kingship. Following what the rules permit, both opponents aresubject to them this is the rigor of the Tao.

Pan Ku, 1st century historian


5/9

Beyond being merely a game, to enthusiasts Go can take on other meanings: of a natureanalogous with life, an intense meditation, a mirror of ones personality, an exercise in

abstract reasoning, or, when played well, a beautiful art in which Black and White dance

across the board in delicate balance.

Terry Benson

Unlike chess and its different pieces and complicated rules, Go is played with black andwhite stones equal in value, seemingly making it compatible with the binary nature of

computers. Since the aim of a move is to control the most territory, the optimal move

yields the maximum amount of territory a simple counting procedure and a chorecomputers excel at. Yet in spite of the efforts of the worlds best programmers over the

last 30 years, the level of computer Go remains about that of a human who has studied

Go for a month.

Richard Bozulich

Studying go is a wonderful way to develop both the creative as well as the logicalabilities of children because to play it both sides of the brain are necessary.

Cho Chikun, among the worlds strongest players and one of the three greatprodigies in Go history

The difference between a stone played on one intersection rather than on an adjacent

neighbor is insignificant to the uninitiated. The master of Go, though, sees it as all thedifference between a flower and a cinderblock. Certain plays resonate with a balletic

grace, others clunk, hopelessly awkward, and to fail at making the distinction is a bit like

confusing the ping of a Limoges platter with the clink of a Burger King Smurfs tumbler.

From The Challenge of Go: Esoteric Granddaddy of Board Games, by Dave Lowry

That play of black upon white, white upon black, has the intent and takes the form of

creative art. It has in it a flow of the spirit and a harmony of music. Everything is lostwhen suddenly a false note is struck, or one party in a duet suddenly launches forth on an

eccentric flight of his own. A masterpiece of a game can be ruined by insensitivity to thefeelings of an adversary.

From The Master of Go, by Yasunari Kawabata, winner of the Nobel Prize for

Literature

Go is to Western chess what philosophy is to double entry accounting.

From Shibumi, bestseller by Trevanian

Those interested in impressing others with their intelligence play chess. Those who

would settle for being chic play backgammon. Those who wish to become individuals ofquality, take up Go.

Microcomputer Executive and an expert player, when asked to compare Go with

other games

Monks who have a talent for it play go with women and become their lovers.

Yamaoka Genrin, Edo-period essayist


6/9

There are Oriental folktales reminiscent of Rip

Van Winkle in which

people have been stopped

by an old man [one of the

Immortals], played agame of Go, and upon

getting up from the boardhave found a hundred

years have gone by. This

purely mental aspect ofthe game is in its

intellectual dynamic.

These Chinese had seen it

as encompassing theprinciples of nature and

the universe and of humanlife, as the diversion of theimmortals, a game of

abundant spiritual

powers.

From The Game of

Go, by Robert Buss

Youre striving for

harmony, and, if you try

to take too much, youllcome to grief.

Michael Redmond,

American Go player

when 23 years old

and already a 5-dan professional

About three hundred years ago an eminent Chinese monk came to Japan on a visit and

was shown the diagram of a game of Go which a master of that time had recently played.

Without knowing anything of the game save the sketchy description they gave him, themonk studied the moves as shown on the record, and after a few moments remarked with

much admiration and respect that the player must have been a man who had become

enlightened, which was indeed the case. It is interesting to note that this story is told on

the one hand by Go players to illustrate the quality of the game and on the other hand byBuddhists to show the acuity of the monk from China.

From Go and the Three Games, by William Pinckard

The board is a mirror of the mind of the players as the moments pass. When a master

studies the record of a game he can tell at what point greed overtook the pupil, when hebecame tired, when he fell into stupidity, and when the maid came by with tea.

Anonymous Go player


7/9

Go and the Three Gamesby William Pinckard

Games-playing is one of the oldest and most enduring human traits. Disparate pieces ofevidence such as dice discovered at Sumer, game-boards depicted on Egyptian frescoes,

Viking chess pieces, and ball parks constructed by ancient empires deep in the Andes link

up directly with contemporary phenomena such as Saturday night poker games in KansasCity and the annual go title matches in Tokyo.

Games are undeniably a concomitant of civilization and even in their most primitive

forms presuppose some degree of sophistication. Most of all, they require the ability tothink in abstractions and to manipulate ideas in logical terms, thereby giving form to

what is formless and creating small, recognizable patterns in the shadow of great

mysteries.

From ancient times in Japan the so-called Three Games were backgammon, chess andgo. Chess probably comes from India, backgammon from the Near or Middle East, and

go from pre-Han China. Backgammon is a gambling game which, using dice, gives luck

or chance the preponderant role. Chess in one of its earlier forms also used dice, but takes

its present shape from the structure of a royal society and from war maneuvers. Go is themost abstract and open of the three; and with its freedom from complicated rules, its

simplicity of form, its fluidity and spaciousness, it comes remarkably close to being an

ideal mirror for reflecting basic processes of mentation.

Go is played with black and white stones all of exactly the same value, thus somewhat

resembling the binary mathematics which is the basis of the computer. The stones areplayed onto the board and are left as they stand throughout the game, so that the game

itself takes shape as a visible record of the thinking that went into it. About three hundredyears ago an eminent Chinese monk came to Japan on a visit and was shown the diagram

of a game of go which a master of that time had recently played. Without knowing

anything of the game save the sketchy description they gave him at the time (this wasafter go had more or less died out in China), the monk studied the moves as shown on the

record and after a few moments remarked with much admiration and respect that the

player must have been a man who had become enlightened -- which was indeed the case.(It is interesting to note that this story is told on the one hand by go players to illustrate

the quality of the game and on the other hand by Buddhists to show the acuity of the

monk from China.)

The great 17th century Japanese playwright Chikamatsu, in a famous passage, comparesthe four quarters of the go board to the four seasons, the black and white stones to night

and day, the 361 intersections of the board to the days of the year, and the center point on

the board to the Pole Star. It would be easy to erect a tower of fanciful theory along theselines, but that would only obscure the obvious point. In this striking analogy Chikamatsu

is describing a feeling of hugeness and all-inclusiveness -- the board conceived as a


8/9

complete world system in potential form. The board and pieces can be thought of as

limitless: any number of lines and an endless supply of stones to play with, the game

itself being the life of the players. (In Chikamatsus play a young man becomes old andgrows a long beard while watching a single game.) Only because we are human and must

put practical limits to our activities, do we use just a small part of the infinite board. But

this field of nineteen by nineteen is large enough to contain everything we are able to putinto it. The number of possible games playable on this board has been reckoned to be

more than the number of molecules in the universe.

An anonymous go player has written: The board is a mirror of the mind of the player as

the moments pass. When a master studies the record of a game he can tell at what pointgreed overtook the pupil, when he became tired, when he fell into stupidity, and when the

maid came by with the tea.

Contrary to the opinion of many people, go has nothing to do with Buddhism. Because it

is a valid system in itself, it offers nothing contradictory to other systems, but in fact go is

an older inhabitant on this planet than is Buddhism. In China it became one of the FourAccomplishments, the others being poetry, painting and music. It reached Japan around

the 6th century and for a long time remained the exclusive property of a leisured nobleclass. Then during the 16th century all this changed. The many great families and clans

which had warred happily against each other for a thousand years were gradually brought

under the hegemony of the Tokugawa Shogunate. It was during the subsequent period ofthe Tokugawa era (roughly from 1600 to 1868) that go, along with haiku, kendo, tea

ceremony and so on, was most actively cultivated as a way of constructively channeling

the mental energies of the people during the long years of peace. One formal word for go

in Japanese is Kido. Ki is the old Chinese word for go, and -do is the Chinese word forTao, which means Way -- or, more specifically, a Way to enlightenment.

All games channel mental energies, whether they lead to enlightenment or the reverse,

but it is suggestive to consider the Three Games in their social context because then we

can see how each of them reflects certain basic characteristics of a general or regionaltype.

Chess, for example, the great historical game of the West, involves monarchs, armies,

slaughter, and the eventual destruction of one king by another. The game appears to beentirely directed along the lines of the great myths of the West from the Mahabharata to

the Song of Roland-- the overthrow of a hero and the crowning of a new hero. The

pieces, from king down to pawn (peon), give a picture of a hierarchical and pyramidal

society with powers strictly defined and limited.

Backgammon, the favorite game of the Near and Middle East, is preoccupied with the

question of Chance and Fate (Kismet). All play is governed by the roll of dice over which

the player has no control whatever. The players are matched against each other, but each

tries to capture a wave of luck and ride it to victory. The loser curses his misfortune andtries again, but the individual is helpless in the grip of superior forces.


9/9

Go, the game of ancient China and modern Japan (and now popular throughout the

world), is unique in that every piece is of equal value and can be played anywhere on the

board. The aim is not to destroy but to build territory. Single stones become groups, andgroups become organic structures which live or die. A stones power depends on its

location and the moment. Over the entire board there occur transformations of growth

and decay, movement and stasis, small defeats and temporary victories. The strongerplayer is the teacher, the weaker is the learner, and even today the polite way to ask for a

game is to say Please teach me.

Things are different now, but in earlier times, when go was so much admired by painters

and poets, generals and monks, the point of the game was not so much for one player toovercome another but for both to engage in a kind of cooperative dialogue (hand

conversation, they used to call it) with the aim of overcoming a common enemy. The

common enemy was, of course, as it always is, human weaknesses: greed, anger andstupidity.

Every year in March department stores all over Japan present elaborate displays inconnection with the Doll Festival. If one looks carefully at the miniature weapons,

musical instruments and furniture of a really complete display one will find a tinybackgammon board, a Japanese chess (shogi) board and a go board.

The Three Games is a useful classification because taken together they make up a

coherent world view. Most of philosophy boils down to speculation centered around the

three basic relationships of the human species. The first is man in his relationship to theremote gods and the mysterious forces of the universe. The second is man in the society

he builds up around him. The third is man in his own self. Or, to put it another way, man

the backgammon-player, man the chess-player, and man the go-player.

That we have these three shows that they answer basic needs in the human spirit. Peopleeverywhere are preoccupied with social structures, position and status; and everyone who

is capable of reflection must sometimes speculate on his private relationship to fortune

and fate.

But go is the one game which turns allpreoccupations and speculations back on their

source. It says, in effect, that everyone starts out

equal, that everyone begins with an empty boardand with no limitations, and that what happens

thereafter is not fate or wealth or social position

but only the quality of your own mind.

photo from Wikipedia

learn weiqi (go), the harmony culture game, for fun

Documents