my zen of chess goes like this:
The zen of chess
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To this enlightenment, I would add: "To free your game, take off some of your adversary's men, if possible for nothing."
onosson, you have a veritable command of zen. Bravo.
/facepalm
I don't want to be mean, but this thread can be summed up in one word:
pretentious
Oct 24, 2008
0
#7
ShpongledMonk wrote:
/facepalm
I don't want to be mean, but this thread can be summed up in one word:
pretentious
The previous comment can be summed up in one word. Unfortunately, je ne sais quoi what that word is. Pretentious? Moi?
To be in Chess Zen is shake up your head twice and face it fresh :)
ShpongledMonk wrote:
/facepalm
I don't want to be mean, but this thread can be summed up in one word:
pretentious
Translation: damn, onosson nailed it... "no king" -- sweet...
Haha. Simply adding no+hyphen in front of a word does not make it zen.
No one who has actually studied would ever say you can negate your way to enlightenment. Yes, zen does discuss the "no-mind" often, but that is because the master is speaking with someone whose "mind" is quite preoccupied.
I think it is a tendency of people attempt to dismiss the task of genuine understanding such a system (which takes time and effort) by seeking out the most basic summation on the market - a minimization of effor with the maximization of presentation, ie. I may then "tout" my advanced understanding in public and enjoy all the accolades one might earn if they were truly tested.
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Am I making waaaay too much out of what out to be a brief and humorous, innocent thread excursion on an internet forum? Ah well. No-forum.
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I've tried to apply Zen to chess before, as well as Sun Tzu. It has mixed results. Reflect on the following in relation to chess if you like:
"To shrink something, first expand it.
To weaken something, first strengthen it.
To eliminate something, first glorify it.
To obtain something, first give something."
- Lao Tzu, from the Dao De Jing
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Now, perhaps the pawn is a very Daoist piece inasmuch as it's weakness is it's strength, that's something.
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Oct 27, 2008
0
#12
You're right to laugh Rael - I certainly wasn't trying to be serious!
I don't know enough about Zen to try and claim to be able to comment on it beyond the utterly simplistic. So please, no accolades!
That being said, however, I have read enough on it to know that there is a great deal of wisdom in knowing that you can always deny the "importance" of whatever is preoccupying you at the present moment - hence, my "no-chess no-king". And, in denying it its importance you can look at it in a new light. I don't know if that's Zen, but it is true, at least in my experience. It won't teach you to master chess - but it *will* teach you to not let chess master YOU!
When you just lost your queen, and not only did it not surprise you in the least, but it felt really good--then you're experiencing the Zen of Chess.
Sometimes during a blitz game when I'm playing well I experience something like a flow state where it all feels so natural and easy and I sometimes demolish players that I would normally struggle against.
One of my hobbies is juggling and here zen practices are highly applicable for optimal performance. I'm not sure if it provides the same level of usefulness for chess.
do not seek to know the chess answers, but to understand the chess questions
Oct 28, 2008
0
#16
paul211 wrote:
What an imbroglio, can you state clearly what you want or are looking for?
As you are the first person to mention it in this conversation, it would be fairer to ask you what it is!
As a point of general interest, one mechanism I use for finding such things out is to Google for imbroglio: definition. In this case, it would tell me:
im·bro·glio
n. pl. im·bro·glios
1.
a. A difficult or intricate situation; an entanglement.
b. A confused or complicated disagreement.
2. A confused heap; a tangle.
[Italian, from Old Italian, from imbrogliare, to tangle, confuse : in-, in (from Latin; see in-2) +brogliare, to mix, stir (probably from Old French brooiller, brouiller; see broil2).]
Regarding the second part of your question: "can you state clearly what you want or are looking for?"
I would have to reply "Mu". (Read here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wú; for some enlightenment.)
It's an awesome word. I'd heard it in the past but all but forgotten about it. Thanks a lot Paul211.
Now my mind is churing away thinking of potential applications as far as using it for the title of a book of poetry or a novel... hmmm.
Imbroglio
Intriguing title for sure...
Oct 28, 2008
0
#18
i'm not a buddhist expert but i am certain that there is a specific teaching of "no-self" in which (i'm assuming) was meant by the "no-chess, no-king" comment.
Oh definitely. Don't get me wrong - I certainly wasn't saying that Onosson's comment wasn't apt - it was actually more to the zeal of like "oh you hit the nail on the head" comment to which I was referring.
His response about not letting things master great. It's a cool thread. I don't want to give the impression that I was disaproving of the essence - I was more ranting obliquely about the idea that one could demonstrate one's grasp of complex systems in so brief an example.
Like I said in my op, I know I might've seemed as if I were taking something light far too seriously - but I have that tendency when my areas of expertise are raised, and the fun of a thread like this is you have free reign to reflect about it, right?
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Wanna know what the real Zen of chess is? I'll tell you.
It's no-king, no-chess.
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/people who've studied Zen might get that joke.
the fact that you must make calculations in chess makes it impossible to apply zen to chess.
zen is meditation on koans (nonsense phrases) in order to obtain sudden enlightenment...
you can not apply daoist thinking to chess for to even say you are applying daoist thinking would be to not even understand the dao in the first place. ITS ON THE FIRST PAGE OF LAO TZU...
The fist post did make me laught because of the EN PASSANT joke (kill buddha out of compassion for others)
1) stay in the present 2) if you pass Buddha on the road- enpassant 3) if you see your position reflect in the mirror of a still lake- there is no mirror! 4) 3 bags of pawns! 5) Om!