According to Wikipedia, Buddha once made a list of games he would not play:
- Games on boards with 8 or 10 rows (note that Chess as we know it was not invented at this time, though earlier Chess-like games such as Chaturaji may have existed)
- The same games played on imaginary boards
- Marking diagrams on the floor such that the player can only walk on certain places.
- Using nails to place or remove pieces from a heap with the loser being the one who causes the heap to wobble (such as pick-up sticks).
- Throwing dice
- Hitting a short stick with a long stick (there is still some debate about the translation of this line)
- Drawing a figure on the ground or wall after dipping a finger in lac, red dye, flour or water, and having the other players guess what the picture is going to be (a guessing game similar to Pictionary).
- Ball games.
- Playing with toy pipes made of leaves.
- Ploughing with toy plough.
- Somersaulting.
- Playing with toy windmills.
- Playing with toy measures.
- Playing with toy carts.
- Playing with toy bows.
- Guessing at letters traced with the finger in the air or on a friend’s back.
- Guessing a friend’s thoughts.
- Imitating deformities.
The list raises a number of questions: Why wouldn’t he play them? Without going into theology I know nothing about (and without offending anyone), my understanding is that Buddha could not have been a sore loser, so it must have to do with the more formal properties of the games themselves. Neither rules ( board games sized 8 or 10), fiction (toy windmills), nor ilinx escape criticism.
So this I’d like to know: which games would he play, and why?
It’s reasonable to imagine a neurological deformity (i.e. brain damage) which led to someone being unable or unwilling to play games. (Oliver Sacks is a good source of bizarre neurological conditions like this).
Would refusing to play games described in this list count as ‘imitating a deformity’?
Isn’t imitation a conscious decision? In that case, you would have to consciously imitate “these other people” by refusing to play games, not just refusing to play games like this other people?
I have actually met a few people who disliked all games, electronic or otherwise. They associated them with being forced to play when not wanting to.
I wonder if the modern equivalent of “Guessing a friend?s thoughts” is “20 Questions”, and if so what’s objectionable about it?
He wouldn’t play them because he thought they were basically a waste of time, of no benefit to someone who was working towards freedom from suffering via the eightfold path.
No more to it than that.
Curiously just earlier this week I came across a comic about a Buddhist MMO RPG, and was asked as a follow-up by a non-gamer if there were any Buddhist video games. It turns out there is at least one, Ethics Game, which both The Register and The Buddhist Channel have articles about.
Everything he lists seems to either requires imitation or is abstract. So even though Brain Training and Tetris fits the list, if he was around now I think he would also add Video Games as number 19.
It would be interesting to see what games he could have played during his life that don’t violate one of those descriptors.
I imagine that it has to do with a lot of these games are really forms of escapism. The exact thing that the Buddha was trying to avoid.
Also, there’s a good chance that all of those games stated above were all gambling games or games people would only play to gamble. It would be like saying “the Buddha wouldn’t play Blackjack, or Poker”. It’s common knowledge now that those games are really only played for gambling so we don’t need to state that.
The gambling argument doesn’t hold up perfectly though because the Buddha wasn’t moralistic. But, he was rational, and it’s easy to argue that gambling does take people farther away from spiritual enlightenment and actually increases our attachment to suffering since, in the Buddhist sense, gambling only brings suffering (intense elation is a form of suffering).
I’ve often wondered what value games bring to people in the spiritual or philosophical sense. A game like Bejeweled for instance, is essentially mindless. But that doesn’t make it without value. It has value in terms of relaxing, and does stimulate pattern matching in the brain.
Though I can’t speak for Buddha, I imagine the Boddhidarma (the person who brought Buddhism to eastern China and Japan, credited with being the grandfather of Zen) would’ve greatly enjoyed Bejeweled in precisly the same way that the Zen masters rake rocks, or poor water, as meditative exercises with the focus being on being present and 100 % focused on the task at hand and being in the moment.
My first thought was, “Can I design a single game which incorporates every one of these game elements?”
No offense to Buddha.
In fact, it’s a little weird to my eyes to see such a statement as “I would not do this” rather than “You should not do this” or “You should not permit anyone to do this”.
“He wouldn?t play them because he thought they were basically a waste of time, of no benefit to someone who was working towards freedom from suffering via the eightfold path.”
If that was the case, wouldn’t it be easier to state he would not play any game that is without purpose but spending time (for example not teaching the player).
You’re presuming that Buddha wrote the list. Perhaps it was compiled by observation by someone who didn’t presume to guess Buddha’s motives.
Confirmed. Buddha is not a Wikipedian.
I see there is some confusion in this board…
Well….Buddha was advising monks not to play games since games would bring turmoil to the mind than calmness. In some cases hatred too. These rules are not for lay people but for people who have decided to become monks and working towards a higher mental status (whether such status exist is another matter).
Now typically Buddha dont say certain things directly. He says I wouldn’t do such a thing in other words implying the monks not to do such a thing either. Hope I brought clarity to the issue
In the same sutta known as Brahmajala sutta, Buddha says he would not watch the following: Intersting
Things that Buddha wouldnt watch
And then there are certain respected samanas and brahmanas who, living on the food offered out of faith (in kamma and its results),
are given to watching (entertainments) that is a stumbling block to the attainment of morality. And what are such entertainments?
They are: dancing, singing., music, shows, recitations, hand-clapping, brass-instrument-playing, drum-playing, art exhibitions, playing with an Iron ball, bamboo raising games,
rituals of washing the bones of the dead, elephant-fights, horse-fights, buffalo-fights, bull-fights, goat-fights, sheep-fights, cock fights, quail-fights,
fighting with quarter-staffs, boxing, wrestling, military tattoos, military reviews, route marches and troop-movements.
Samana Gotama abstains from watching (entertainments) which is a stumbling block to the attainment of morality.
Bhikkhus! A worldling might praise the Tathagata in this manner.
In Buddhist tradition “Pramaad” means state of trance, or stupor or being not in your elements. In a spritual sense we all live our life in Pramaad, whiling away our time. Time is an entity which is most precious! Playing board games, or games with bets adds to wastefullness of already scarce commodity, time. No surprise that TV is called an idiot box, it just adds to being glued away wasting time. Buddha, an enlightened soul, not an egostic Saint didn’t say, that do not do this or that. He just said what he would not prefer to do!