I know it goes a bit away from the original post and nothing to do with go, but I want to ask the following:

I read about and tried a kind of zen meditation (counting breaths up to 10, etc). The difficulty is, in every article I read about zen meditation, they say 2 things:
1- do not control your breath, just be aware of it and count
2- breath deeply and slowly

There is a clear contradiction between the two. At first I thought it is probably just a detail and not so important, but when trying to exercise meditation, you notice that it is.

Can an experienced meditator explain me how it works?

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If you say no, Elwood and I will come here for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day of the week.

Psychotropics help a great deal >:-)

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http://tinyurl.com/japanesechess

I really hope this is a joke. Taking drugs and mindfulness meditation are two separate things. Meditation is about experiencing your mind as it is. Drugs are about altering the way your mind goes about its business. Don't get the two mixed up, or you might start confusing one activity for another. Quite a lot has been written about meditation and drugs. You can start here, but feel free to do your own research. Know that I am very biased towards the "drugs-have-no-place-in-meditation" opinion, and am not looking to change that opinion.

Entropi, your question is quite valid. There's plenty of contradictions to be found. That's just the nature of words. I take the two statements to mean something in between: don't force an unnatural pace of breathing upon yourself: like consciously holding your breath much longer than you would normally, or breathing in through one nostril and out through the other (how one would go about that without breaking the mudra you're maintaining with your hands is another matter altogether). I usually just count the breath that is already there. Again: you're not really trying to alter the breath, just experiencing it as it is. Somehow the breathing deeply and slowly happens on its own. If it doesn't, you can always try giving it a gentle nudge in that direction. Does that make sense?

That's the same philosophy I have towards exercise --> when I feel like exercising, I just lay down until the feeling goes away.

This book is dated, but not a bad place to start. http://www.amazon.com/Drugs-Mind-Robert ... B0007DK71M

There are a number of traditions of meditation and contemplation. (Zen means meditation, BTW.) They do alter your brain and your mind. There are also a number of traditions of sacramental and psychedelic drugs. There is no necessary conflict between the two.

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The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Meditation does not require you to breathe deeply and slowly. However, if your breathing is uneven and quick, you are probably agitated. Allowing your breathing to become deep and slow helps you to relax and concentrate. (Or not to concentrate. ) Many forms of meditation utilize breath control. This one does not. You don't have to count, either. Or focus on your breath, for that matter. All of those things are simply aids.



Ah!

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The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

It is already very difficult to be aware of the breath without manipulating it. Counting may help for that. But the problem is, if I know that the deeper breath is better, how can I not alter it. There is probably a trade off between the two extremes (not controlling at all vs. forcing fully deep breaths), but the question is how to find that balance.

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If you say no, Elwood and I will come here for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day of the week.

Yup!



Don't assume.

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Back to the original topic, am I the only one who, when I see my opponent play 3-4, gets this sick feeling in my stomach and the idea that my opponent will play some chinese variation?

How is this getting back to the original topic?

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Patience, grasshopper.

When my opponent plays 2 4-4 stones, I get the same thing with sanrensei. I just don't like games where I have to reduce too much, which is ironic since I like to play territorial games.

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About meditation:
Mindfulness meditation is what Gautam Siddharta taught. You don't count your breaths or breathe deeply or anything. You simply watch your breath going in and out, you can feel your stomach rising and falling and focus on that sensation, or you can focus on the feeling of air rushing in and out of your nostrils. In any case, your mind will wander, when it does, just acknowledge that your mind has wandered off and lost focus, and then come back to watching your breath. Don't berate yourself when your mind wanders, just come back to watching the breath when you notice. That's the most basic and essential form of meditation and I believe it has been touched upon in this thread before.

On discipline itself, I watched a documentary about Fujisawa Shuko on youtube somewhere, though I can't quite find a link to it right now. The documentary mentioned that Fujisawa lost alot of won games in his youth, by making mistakes later on in the game due to lapses of concentration or whatever it was. He believed that go was about character and that he lost those games because of his weak character. From then on, he got up every day at 5am to study go and improve his character and discipline. Another sentiment is also mentioned, that of only studying one thing. He said that this was a bad thing and that one should endeavour to study many different things to enrich oneself.