World Chess Championship: Anand - Carlsen: "Loss - a perspective"

Today, we shall discuss something significant, something urgent. The game perspective can wait until tomorrow. 

Somebody wanted Vishy to elaborate on what he meant by "doing your best" - an annoying question. How can one explain what is meant by 'doing the best'? Doing your best is letting go everything else; and if one explains to this question, then he does not know what he meant by saying 'doing the best'!

When an artist who is painting on his canvas, fails to paint a satisfying picture through his brush and colours, he would tear his canvas and throw it aside and start painting on a new one. But this time around, he would paint with the pure knowledge of what did not work and what needs to be done! There is absolutely no pain of the first attempt, rather it is non existent. Painting on a new canvas is a new experience.

This is precisely "doing the best" - you start as if it is the beginning and start with a clean slate. Past is past and nothing can be undone or redone about it.

With the above preamble, we are on the right ground for some deeper contemplation on the subject.

So, where and what is this pain; the pain of loss - as they call it? Is this pain of loss a physical entity? If yes, where is its abode?

More importantly, what is loss? and what is win?

"The root cause of widespread sorrow and misery, and that which prevents human beings from properly working, has its root in the fact that we are ignorant of the general nature of our own process of though. Or, to put it differently, it may be said that we do not see what is actually happening when we are engaged in the activity of thinking." - David Bohm

How do we think about the act of playing chess? Is the game played for winning, drawing, losing!?

If you wish to answer this question in either affirmative or negation, then sorry…! Nothing in this world of existence can be done with the end result in mind.

Think about life: if we apply the same logic that we saw above; living is affirmative and death is negation; which gives us the following two propositions:

1) living 'with the fear of death'

2) dying 'without the hope of living'

Is that all!?

There is a third perspective, which is seldom comprehended.

3) Being 'with the state of no mind'!: the most difficult and misunderstood perspective. 

In the first two options lies the 'perception of pain' - the pain of loss; the pain of death. It is reaction!

And the third perspective deals only with the "ing" - the living, the playing! This is action!

For action, there should be no awareness of the previous or the next! This "no awareness" does not negate the passage of the previous (the past) or the prospect of the next (the future), but by a "profound awareness of the present" - the being, lets the individual 'act' by forgetting both the past and the future and raise to the occasion!

The act of creation is always about dying every moment to be reborn afresh in the next. Here the dying is the 'let go' and in this dying lies the heart throb of creation. Birth is an aftermath of death and not vice versa. 

By anchoring your thoughts both on success and failure, you would only succeed in failing to succeed. 

Now for the pain of failure. When there is nothing called as failure and when failure and success by very nature are mere perceived non existent entities, where is pain. Resolved!?

You cannot feel the pain without your consent and no body else; not even the guy who asked 'naively' what Vishy meant by the statement "doing your best" can inflict pain! 

It is said that the nature did not believe in the human ability to act in the present, unceasingly, unerringly and therefore the vital activities such as, breathing, heartbeat, metabolism etc are not left to human control and command, unlike the other normal activities like, seeing, hearing, talking, thinking, sleeping, playing(!) etc. Imagine what will happen if you have to consciously do the act of breathing or making the heart beat to circulate blood or make the food that you ate to transform into energy!!

Playing a game is within the sphere of our control. To play to the best of one's ability means not thinking about the result, point, position, rewards etc. It is to be present on the board, vibrantly, fresh, blank mind with no trace of yesterday or tomorrow!

"The pen", said Kafka, "is only a seismographic pencil for the heart. It will register earthquakes, but can't predict them." 

Let the pieces move freely, with no compulsion or command from the mind; let the play exert pressure on the position and on the unsuspecting opponent!

The creation of art requires artists to walk on untrodden paths, art is born out of unknown, from wild. In the wild, the wind blows, the lion roars, the cuckoo sings, the snake hisses and the peacock dances.

"The flower invites the butterfly with no-mind;

The butterfly visits the flower with no-mind.

The flower opens, the butterfly comes;

The butterfly comes, the flower opens.

I don't know others,

Others don't know me.

By not knowing we follow nature's course." - Ryokan (Zen monk)

Two flowers withered before blossoming, before dusk. But the hope lies on the buds - 6 of them waiting..., waiting for the 'sun of soil' to rise!!