I will talk about one genre of games I like that doesn't involve slaying monsters but rather puzzles and thinking. The first of these games I played with my family together including my cousins and they were text based adventures. You type in a command and see if the game even recognizes the command and then see what happens if it does recognize. For example "Go east" and the game will recognize that command but it might say back "you cannot go that way because it's blocked by overgrowth". If you say "open the drawer" it might say "you slide the drawer open and find a machete". Or if you say "contemplate the universe" it might say "I do not recognize that command" etc. I can't remember the brand of text adventures we used but we had great fun. I was under the age of 10. There was no going online to find the answers either. Me and my Dad to this day sometimes reminisce and talk about "the purple worm" which was a monster blocking our progress that we never figured out how to defeat. I read about it later and it was not beatable and was a decoy puzzle that was unsolvable and not necessary to solve to beat that game.
Some brands I remember (don't remember the ones I played with family): Moonmist (another text only), the Kings Quest series (now with dated graphics), Maniac Mansion, Myst, and Riven.
Jeffrey
@Kotishka said:
Also, a question arises, when a Bodhisattva reaches his ultimate state, how can he remain and practice without being deluded again when he experiences re-birth? If there is no self, what then becomes Enlightened and leaves the rest behind?
One could also say, if there is no self, what then transmigrates and is reborn in saṃsāra? Your version of the question is, if there is no self, what then becomes enlightened and leaves saṃsāra?
The only answer I have for you is an empty scholasticism. I don't know the secrets of dependent origination, anātman, and Nirvāṇa anymore than anyone else who listens to the monks teach and reads a lot. "What transmigrates," like "what feels," and "for whom are there saṃskāras" is a question that the Buddha often declines to answer. In the Avijjāpaccayasutta at SN12.35, the Buddha has a dialogue with a bhikṣu whose name has not been preserved in the current redactions of the Buddhist texts:
“Venerable sir, what now are volitional formations, and for whom are there these volitional formations?”
“Not a valid question,” the Blessed One replied. “Bhikkhu, whether one says, ‘What now are volitional formations, and for whom are there these volitional formations?’ or whether one says, ‘Volitional formations are one thing, the one for whom there are these volitional formations is another’—both these assertions are identical in meaning; they differ only in the phrasing. If there is the view, ‘The soul and the body are the same,’ there is no living of the holy life; and if there is the view, ‘The soul is one thing, the body is another,’ there is no living of the holy life.
(from the translation by Venerable Bodhi)
In the Mahāyāna, Nirvāṇa is said to be non-abiding. What "non-abiding" means here has to be unpacked however, because I'm going to be saying in a second that the Buddhas "abide" in Nirvāṇa, seemingly contradicting myself.
Please keep in mind that this is all my own opinion, and that I am not speaking with the doctrinal weight of an established scholastic opinion behind me.
In the teaching of the Mahāyāna, the Buddhas are not said to be destroyed by extinguishment, nor are they eternally existent in an all-encompassing realm of Nirvāṇa, as if gone to a mysterious abode. There are similes and metaphors that speak of "the city of Nirvāṇa," but these in my experience are not to be taken literally (i.e. as if there was a great Nirvāṇa-realm populated by the Buddhas that existed outside of time and space or something like that). Similarly, Nirvāṇa is extinguishment only because it is the extinguishment of the three fires of greed, ignorance, and hatred. It is for the sake of pointing out the extinction of these three things that it is called "extinguishment" and "extinction," nothing more nothing less.
In "Śrāvaka Buddhism" (i.e. "non-Mahāyāna Buddhism") the Buddha disappears into Parinirvāṇa, never to engage with the world ever again. Now, that's quite a sweeping statement, and when we read it, we should remember that Mahāyāna Buddhism has a history of sectarian polemics with non-Theravādin continental schools of Indian Buddhism. Either way, accurately or not, the general Mahāyāna tradition has a tendency to understand the Śrāvaka as believing that he will enter into a kind of death with Parinirvāṇa. The Mahāyāna rejects this framing of things. Whether this is a strawman is an entirely different conversation.
So what does it mean for Nirvāṇa to be "non-abiding?" Ironically, it means that Nirvāṇa is "always abiding" for the Buddhas. "Above, he holds on to the root of mysteries; [and] below, he reaches out to lift the weak and the forlorn" (Venerable Sēngzhào 肇論 Zhào's Essays T1858.158a4). It is a Mahāyāna teaching that the Buddhas always abide in Nirvāṇa, even when appearing to interact with and engage with the world. All of the mental activities that the Buddha manifests in order to teach the world are nothing more than the pure samādhis of the Āryans, but he makes a show of entering and exiting the dhyānas and the samāpattis for the sake of edifying living beings.
I have a strongly ambivalent take on games. They did change my life when I was young, but much later in life I realised that they were actually all illusory environments, things that were not real and that were taking my focus away from understanding what is real.
The thing is, every game is a limited, fake and crafted-by-humans illusion. They give you a slice of insight into the designer’s mind, but there is no guarantee you will actually learn something about the real world, or about your own mind, or about the nature of reality.
For me the pinnacle of games was Mass Effect, a strong sci-fi story combined with shooting and combat mechanics. It was enjoyable as an entertainment, and when you were finished with it you put it away, unlike the endless treadmill that is World of Warcraft.
But because so many games focus on conflict and combat, they take you away from being in the real world, where we solve problems without resorting to fighting. The first precept is not to kill; I literally could not count the number of computer-generated creatures and humans I have slain, you can’t say this is good for the mind.
Jeroen
I saw a quote on a twitch stream today.
"I am a gamer not because I don't have a life, but because I choose to have many."
@Bunks said:
Can I suggest you're perhaps over thinking this?
You may. I am.
I overthink because I suffer.
I suffer because I overthink.
As it pertains to relationships, this may be a knot a step or so ahead of where I perceive myself capable of untangling.
I overthink because I suffer.
I suffer because I overthink.
(In time) this too shall pass @FleaMarket ....
Shoshin1
In a nutshell answer to all the questions
I guess one would conduct oneself in a Sati, Metta and Karuna manner, that is, being mindful, using loving kindness and compassion to overcome difficulties and to connect with others and this from what I gather comes from ongoing practice...
Tis said that 'Love' conquers all ...
“The time of our delusion does not obstruct the time of our realization. Our practice is not in order to attain realization. Practice itself is the actualization of realization."
~Dogen~
Shoshin1
Can I suggest you're perhaps over thinking this?
Just try to be nice to people.
But if they're not nice in return then it probably depends on the relationship as to how you respond. I have a tweenage daughter who can be a right little s**t at times but she's my daughter so I stick it out and love her regardless. However, if it were a friend behaving in such a way I'd give them a few chances (apparently the Buddha suggested 7) then kick 'em to the curb......I've had to do this once or twice before.
But that's just me.
Bunks