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That’s good to hear. I always feel an affinity for people with a mental health background, because I know what that’s like, I spent some time in the psychiatric circuit. Very glad that she’s doing better, and that you guys are spending quality time together!
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
@Jeroen said:
But the Buddha said, all games can lead to heedless behaviour.
I think the sutra does support this statement, as far as it goes. The reason he gives for heedlessness causing a problem is that recluses are living on offered food have a duty to be heedful, but that doesn’t take away the issue of heedlessness from a simple mindfulness perspective.
I think you can also observe this with people and kids in public transport, restaurants, all kinds of public spaces. So many people are absorbed in their phones and not really paying attention to the here and now.
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
I’ve started learning Spanish, in an app which is rather heavily gamified. It is called Duolingo, and my father’s girlfriend uses it, also for Spanish, she is heavily into the league competitions.
Did you know that the games industry is currently three times the size of the music industry, and four times the size of the Hollywood movie industry?
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
“The mind is essentially a survival machine. Attack and defense against other minds, gathering, storing, and analyzing information - this is what it is good at, but it is not at all creative.”
— Eckhart Tolle
This quote really made clear to me what it was about games that attracted me so much, it is a perfect representation of what the mind does: attack and defence, strategising, min-maxing, opportunism. I still have to be careful not to promote the strategising function of the mind into overall control, that temptation still exists for me.
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
This also explains a bit more what makes victory so enticing in games, it is a property of the ego to want to be victorious, winning, celebrated. It is another reason why living in surrender is so difficult for the ego, and so important for the spiritual disciple.
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
From what I posted in the ‘Seeking joy’ thread…
“… I have spent too much time and energy fighting darkness…”
In pretty much every major game you end up fighting the forces of darkness. It’s silly. If you had the choice in real life would you not do something more constructive, more joyful than fighting? Is not building, prayer, dance a better way to spend time?
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
It hit me today while I was half-sleeping, that what this thread is driving at is a kind of mental pollution which is carried by the media and by games, and that what this points to is a lack of a healthy model of storytelling and relaxation.
In more primitive societies there is an oral tradition which often concerns itself with mythology, with journeys to the underworld and spirits, with the heroes journey, with gods and goddesses. These stories were told around a campfire, not through screens.
This more healthy mode of mythological storytelling is missing today, I feel. The closest we have come is movies like Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, Wonder Woman or The Lord of the Rings. Most superhero movies though undeniably popular don’t really fill this niche.
In more primitive societies there is an oral tradition which often concerns itself with mythology, with journeys to the underworld and spirits, with the heroes journey, with gods and goddesses. These stories were told around a campfire, not through screens.
In the primitive tribe I live in, we all have different stories. For example, as a bargain-basement sea critter, I am only partly reeled in. Most of me is straining at the unleashing.
Similarly, wider women and Percy the god-boy or lordy, lordy of the rings are just fake fantasy mud wrestlers.
The healthy story, you mention, is a saga of incredible depth and width. Starting before we are born again, ending long after we are ashes or in my case barbecue...
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
edited October 11
@Jeroen said:
From what I posted in the ‘Seeking joy’ thread…
“… I have spent too much time and energy fighting darkness…”
In pretty much every major game you end up fighting the forces of darkness. It’s silly. If you had the choice in real life would you not do something more constructive, more joyful than fighting? Is not building, prayer, dance a better way to spend time?
I have been examining this, and I found deep in myself a kind of fascination with a certain playful facet of the forces of darkness. Not the real face of it, which I find abhorrent (see also Gaza and Palestine) but the kind you find in computer games, the kind which you fight but are inevitably victorious against. A kind of stylised darkness… Certainly in Dungeons and Dragons there is a kind of motivation to make darkness ‘cool and attractive’, playing it against type.
The stylised darkness goes back to Disney and it’s treatment of the children’s world. Look at Maleficent or Jafar, the Grand Vizier in Aladdin. These smooth, urbane villains who seem to do well in the world, who are set up by the movie’s plot to either be the ‘big bad’ or some kind of whitewashed version thereof. These are not real villains, they are fairytale characters.
Part of this is the playful mechanisms of fighting in games. You just deduct a few “health points” for a successful hit, instead of seeing a wound, severed limbs, blood and bone. I think the joy would go out of it quickly if it was realistic. And death is not the last breath and the fading of life from the eyes, but rather a playful and artistic falling-to-the-ground.
In a way I find Hayao Miyazaki’s imagined worlds born of Japanese anime to be much more healthy. There, even the villains turn out to be ordinary people, and kindness triumphs over animosity. Look at the treatment of No-face in Spirited Away, going from monster to quest companion, or the way the Witch of the Wastes evolves in Howl’s Moving Castle. Miyazaki was a masterful story teller.
The Western media kinds of stories became my young adult mythology, from Star Wars on out. They were dreams that kind of outgrew their place in my mind, fuelling a sort of obsessive attention. It is a sign of an unhealthy internal mythology, compared to the early hunter-gatherer mind for example.
It is only after years of spiritual work that I bring them fully into consciousness, and I notice there was more truth in the times I was walking in the woods captivated with wonder as a wild deer or a fox would cross my path.
You're shifting to a higher vibrational state of being. In ascension communities these mental observations are said to be beneficial because you are getting rid of things that no longer serve your high purpose. Lots of things get stripped away on this process. The higher we vibrate to more aligned we become with our divine purpose. Like Buddha, Jesus etc; all demonstrated that life is sacred and the scared is well beyond a 3D paradigm. We are moving people towards a 5th dimension. It's will happen in our lifetime. It's already started to happen with millions of people. Those make that transition will have amazing abilities, much like the Buddha and other highly evolved people.
You are on the right path, you are finding your divine Enlightened purpose and you should keep pursuing it. Also congrats on deepening your spiritual awakening to the truth that Buddha spoke of!
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
@Buddha-Dude said:
You're shifting to a higher vibrational state of being.
Thanks, @Buddha-Dude … I don’t know much about the process you describe, I just know that old things are dropping away. What is left is simpler, more natural, closer to the human core.
Hired vibratoring is new age-age for ‘chakra opening’. In the smallest or tightest wheel and the ravadin, the mind/top chakra is opened. If a genuine opening it will lead to multiple realisations and without Sangha or guidance can lead to self over confidence in ones understanding. Like wot I haz…
For example: a focus on lower chakras (body) can lead to pride in yogic contortionism, heightened sex driven interest. A heart based opening can result in servile devotion to everything… and so on.
I think my mind/top is pretty open, the realisations are coming. It’s been more a question of prying it open with a crowbar… the heart is doing ok, I am starting to follow Ajahn Chah’s advice when he said “the heart is the only book worth reading”… the lower chakras I haven’t paid much attention to, it’s been ages since I last did a yoga session.
Osho was a distraction, I am discovering that most of the things I did in my life I did despite of Osho, not with his help. Glad to be rid of him and moving on to more pure teachings.
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
One interesting thing about board games: they are more fun when you don’t play to win. I’ve been playing Wordfeud with a lady friend online, it’s almost exactly like Scrabble, and I noticed that if I exerted myself I would just win all the time, so to keep things interesting I started setting up opportunities for her to use the Triple Word Score tiles. She won a lot of games after that.
Long post ahead but I wanted to join the fruitful self-inquiring going on on the forums lately and give some context since I did not post in this thread in a long time.
As I wrote previously, I've been playing games off and on, mostly off, during the past few years.
With some, I believe I have a healthy relationship, like with chess, which I don't play that much but do enjoy playing on occasion plus following a few youtube chess-related channels. It seems to have a neutral or slightly positive effect on me. If nothing else, I get to exercise reason, planning and patience.
With others, like with Civilization 3, I don't have a good relationship with, but it's still not a disaster. The effect of it is negative: I will play too long, screw up my next day, get somewhat obsessed. So I will play for a few days and then self-ban for a few months.
With still others, like with Ogame (a browser-based strategy game that goes on literally 24/7/365) I have a terrible relationship with. It completely takes on my life and becomes a substitute for living. So I've played only twice for three weeks and once for one week during the past 20 years and had withdrawal symptoms after self-banning every time. I must confess that when my mother was in hospital for an operation I was a bad supporter/visitor because half of my mind was on the game
So, self-banning has been my preferred solution so far. It would work for most of the time. I would frequently reinstall the games, and play again, and self-ban again. That's something at least, but obviously not good enough. Also, I see the bad habit of going back to bad habits.
But the trouble is that self-banning is still not freedom, even if it works, it's just the opposite of unchecked indulgence.
I am writing today because the other day I told myself I would do two things differently, as an experiment while playing Civ3, with the idea being to train moderation and seeing if that would help:
a) Actually give myself permission to play. Even so, my anxiety went through the roof at first, as it seemed I was dismantling a good boundary of "playing Civ3 is bad".
b) actually stick to playing for the allotted reasonable time and not longer.
My reaction during this experiment was totally unexpected to me: "I'm actually not that interested in the game!".
Honestly, I don't know what to make of this.
Is it the resistance to something that actually somehow paradoxically makes it more desirable to the mind? Is true freedom the freedom to play or the freedom not to play, while willingly and gladly choosing full heartedly the wholesome/beneficial solution? Does self-banning somehow lead to a cycle of going back to it?
Anyway, a spiritual teacher I know would often speak of triangulation. How progress is not in the opposites but in the apex of the triangle between and above the opposites. With games, I've known indulging too much and self-banning. This is the first time I'm thinking there might be a higher/better/more mature solution. But I don't know what it is.
Maybe it's just finding something better to do for fun?
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
edited November 29
Really interesting @marcitko. I think it is really good that you are looking critically at your game playing behaviour, it seems to be a problematic area for you especially relating to strategy games. The fact that it’s taking focus away from important family events such as your mother’s hospitalisation is a pretty clear sign that you’re vulnerable here.
My own experience with self-banning was with World of Warcraft. I basically banned myself from the raiding game, it was too organised and intense, but I kept playing as a ‘casual’ just doing quests and the occasional dungeon. It’s more a computer role playing game, not strategy, and I would find myself finishing the content of the casual game about six months after the release of an expansion. Then I would quit again, and wait for the next expansion. But it meant losing all of my friends in-game, and in the end just playing solo in a multiplayer world got tiresome.
So for me it was a long process letting go of World of Warcraft, in the vanilla game I raided until I burned out on it. Then came the Burning Crusade expansion, the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, and the Cataclysm expansion. After that I basically stopped, that was about 6 years after the release of the initial game.
I don’t know if your experience in any way parallels my own, but it feels to me like you’re still in the throws of game addiction, especially when I see how you relate to Ogame.
What for me was important to see was that the game wasn’t bringing anything positive to my life. It took me a long time to realise it but WoW served no purpose for me as an ‘casual’ player other than a never ending treadmill of designed tasks and stories. At that point I got serious about dropping it.
Then there was a period that I played Mass Effect on the Xbox 360. It was a single player trilogy of games with strong cinematic elements, so I could treat it more like a story or a book. I finished a single play through within a few months of intensive gaming, but I didn’t like the way it took over my life, I would game way too many hours. When I completed it I didn’t replace it with anything.
Not long after that I ended up dropping games altogether. Now when I get tempted by something like maybe buying a Nintendo Switch and playing Tears of the Kingdom, I watch a Let’s Play video series on YouTube to check out the game instead. I basically watch someone else play for a while, it is cheaper and less time consuming and after a while reminds me of why I don’t play anymore.
I wonder how many members here are online gamers...
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
@Shoshin1 said:
I wonder how many members here are online gamers...
It’s a pretty common hobby. If you play a few days a week for a few hours and you have no issues letting it stand, then I don’t think it’s a problem. But for quite a few people they game 4 hours a day every night after work, and then it becomes an issue.
I go on the computer.
I push buttons and move a mouse to cause changes on a screen.
Here I choose a smaller more controllable world than a wider less controllable reality.
Isn't a gamer just anyone in any moment who chooses a dream over being awake?
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
@how said:
Isn't a gamer just anyone in any moment who chooses a dream over being awake?
A very astute observation. A game though is a designed experience, with planned challenges and high points, intended to be as engrossing and captivating as possible.
@how said:
Isn't a gamer just anyone in any moment who chooses a dream over being awake?
A very astute observation. A game though is a designed experience, with planned challenges and high points, intended to be as engrossing and captivating as possible.
@Jeroen
Isn't what you call an astute observation, simply that which a "gamer" is unwilling to face.
What an ego/identity, or the selfish self fears to sacrifice, the practitioner transcending such fears manifests as freedom's graces.
When someone under a gamer's yoke, endlessly complains about the costs of their bondage, tell them that such slavery depends only on them turning down freedom's options, one nanosecond at a time. Can we practice in any other time than within the one fleeting nanosecond that we can live in? That which we are unwilling to face requires no more than a nanoseconds worth of bravery for a nanoseconds worth of life.
This does not entail a mind stirring its own mental mud puddle with its attachments in the hopes of finding clarity.
This entails a mind, dropping its own stir-stick to allow the mud puddle to settle, simply revealing that which is clear water and that which is mud.
Augmented reality is coming. Will it be addictive like ticktock, Instagram and blowing up imaginary robots etc? Sure.
However there is another game called RL (Real Life). E.g.
Pick a role or ID.
Now find a way of "playing"
Having fun yet?
No?
Restart Game? Yes/No?
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
@how said:
This entails a mind, dropping its own stir-stick to allow the mud puddle to settle, simply revealing that which is clear water and that which is mud.
I found the process of dropping games to be not so simple. The mind gets caught up in desires and enthusiasms, and each time you see a new great game you get caught up again in the images and desires that the marketing materials portray.
Rather than just being the aspects of this world, it expands the samsaric experience to other worlds — anything that you can imagine. Want to be a knight? A princess? A bold space explorer? It’s all possible. Realising that all these things lead you back to similar problems and tasks takes time and experience.
The meditators approach is profoundly different. It is like a gamer has wandered in the opposite direction from meditation, creating ever more samsara in the mind, until you get sick of it.
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
A little piece of Eckhart Tolle on addiction:
If you have a compulsive behavior pattern such as smoking, overeating, drinking, TV watching, Internet addiction, or whatever it may be, this is what you can do: When you notice the compulsive need arising in you, stop and take three conscious breaths. This generates awareness. Then for a few minutes be aware of the compulsive urge itself as an energy field inside you. Consciously feel that need to physically or mentally ingest or consume a certain substance or the desire to act out some form of compulsive behavior. Then take a few more conscious breaths. After that you may find that the compulsive urge has disappeared for the time being. Or you may find that it still overpowers you, and you cannot help but indulge or act it out again. Don't make it into a problem. Make the addiction part of your awareness practice in the way described above. As awareness grows, addictive patterns will weaken and eventually dissolve. Remember, however, to catch any thoughts that justify the addictive behavior, sometimes with clever arguments, as they arise in you mind. Ask yourself, Who is talking here? And you will realize the addiction is talking.
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
edited December 2
@marcitko said:
With still others, like with Ogame (a browser-based strategy game that goes on literally 24/7/365) I have a terrible relationship with. It completely takes on my life and becomes a substitute for living.
You seem to have a tendency towards strategy games, which I also had earlier in my life. I used to play Warcraft 3, Civilisation 2, and Rome: Total War. It was about being busy with strategic decisions, but also about possession of territory and winning. Ultimately winning for me is about the feeling of victory, but also about being good enough to beat the AI.
It’s a way of reinforcing the ego, it seemed to me. When you haven’t had a lot of success in your life, it can be a way towards feeling better about yourself, knowing that you are smart enough to determine a strategy, make your own way through the game, and win.
Really the question you want to ask yourself when a game is threatening to take over your life is what am I getting from playing the game, what imagined goal is triggering my desires and keeping me spellbound?
The fact that it is triggering this impulse in you means that on some important level your life is not fulfilling for you. The game is giving you something that your normal life lacks. The good news is, it will probably resolve itself with time and spiritual sadhana. But enough introspection may move the process along.
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
See if this resonates with you, @marcitko, in the context of strategy games:
“As we have seen, having – the concept of ownership – is a fiction created by the ego to give itself solidity and permanency and make itself stand out, make itself special. Since you cannot find yourself through having, however, there is another more powerful drive underneath it that pertains to the structure of the ego: the need for more, which we could also call “wanting.” No ego can last for long without the need for more. Therefore, wanting keeps the ego alive much more than having. The ego wants to want more than it wants to have. And so the shallow satisfaction of having is always replaced by more wanting. This is the psychological need for more, that is to say, more things to identify with. It is an addictive need, not an authentic one.”
from A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle
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personDon't believe everything you thinkThe liminal spaceVeteran
@Jeroen said:
See if this resonates with you, @marcitko, in the context of strategy games:
“As we have seen, having – the concept of ownership – is a fiction created by the ego to give itself solidity and permanency and make itself stand out, make itself special. Since you cannot find yourself through having, however, there is another more powerful drive underneath it that pertains to the structure of the ego: the need for more, which we could also call “wanting.” No ego can last for long without the need for more. Therefore, wanting keeps the ego alive much more than having. The ego wants to want more than it wants to have. And so the shallow satisfaction of having is always replaced by more wanting. This is the psychological need for more, that is to say, more things to identify with. It is an addictive need, not an authentic one.”
from A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle
Keep in mind that this isn't a rule, its the finger pointing at the moon. The goal isn't to follow this precept, its to gain an experiential understanding of the suffering involved in wanting.
This is difficult while living in the world so rules aren't bad, just a reminder to keep up a daily sitting practice.
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
@person said:
The goal is … to gain an experiential understanding of the suffering involved in wanting.
I would even make it personal. The goal is to gain insight in why you want to “have” troops and cities on the Civ 6 map, or why you “want” more territory or to defeat your enemies. These things are about how your internals work, and by understanding yourself you can release these pressures.
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personDon't believe everything you thinkThe liminal spaceVeteran
@person said:
The goal is … to gain an experiential understanding of the suffering involved in wanting.
I would even make it personal. The goal is to gain insight in why you want to “have” troops and cities on the Civ 6 map, or why you “want” more territory or to defeat your enemies. These things are about how your internals work, and by understanding yourself you can release these pressures.
I don't know that its necessary. They may be different paths to the same goal though.
Knowing why you want to have things doesn't automatically lead to letting go. Say through introspection I come to learn I want territory because it makes me feel powerful. Then what? I'd only want to let that go if there was some rule that said that was bad. This sort of approach can help move us along the path.
What I'm advocating for is an approach that I think is simpler, in that through a meditative approach you learn to see for yourself what sorts of behaviors and attitudes lead to peace and happiness and which ones lead to suffering.
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
@person said:
The goal is … to gain an experiential understanding of the suffering involved in wanting.
I would even make it personal. The goal is to gain insight in why you want to “have” troops and cities on the Civ 6 map, or why you “want” more territory or to defeat your enemies. These things are about how your internals work, and by understanding yourself you can release these pressures.
I don't know that its necessary. They may be different paths to the same goal though.
Perhaps I didn’t explain well enough…
Knowing why you want to have things doesn't automatically lead to letting go. Say through introspection I come to learn I want territory because it makes me feel powerful. Then what? I'd only want to let that go if there was some rule that said that was bad. This sort of approach can help move us along the path.
With insight, I mean looking inside to see what happens at the moment of “wanting” territory. There is a movement of the mind which exposes blockages and old imprints, and these are usually released by recognising them and making them conscious. You should find that the desire diminishes in strength, going from a full-fledged urge to a distant impulse.
What I'm advocating for is an approach that I think is simpler, in that through a meditative approach you learn to see for yourself what sorts of behaviors and attitudes lead to peace and happiness and which ones lead to suffering.
Is that useful without an end effect? The technique I describe, if you apply it consistently and carry it through to it’s natural conclusion, will lead to peace and happiness within, in reality and not just in knowledge.
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personDon't believe everything you thinkThe liminal spaceVeteran
@person said:
The goal is … to gain an experiential understanding of the suffering involved in wanting.
I would even make it personal. The goal is to gain insight in why you want to “have” troops and cities on the Civ 6 map, or why you “want” more territory or to defeat your enemies. These things are about how your internals work, and by understanding yourself you can release these pressures.
I don't know that its necessary. They may be different paths to the same goal though.
Perhaps I didn’t explain well enough…
Knowing why you want to have things doesn't automatically lead to letting go. Say through introspection I come to learn I want territory because it makes me feel powerful. Then what? I'd only want to let that go if there was some rule that said that was bad. This sort of approach can help move us along the path.
With insight, I mean looking inside to see what happens at the moment of “wanting” territory. There is a movement of the mind which exposes blockages and old imprints, and these are usually released by recognising them and making them conscious. You should find that the desire diminishes in strength, going from a full-fledged urge to a distant impulse.
That explanation resonates with me more. Its like to the extent we can see the workings and patterns of our minds the greater ability we have to subvert them and choose a different course.
I think the new course away from our habituated patterns is dependent upon following the rules set up by others. Unless it comes from a personal touching of the way actions lead to suffering or peace.
What I'm advocating for is an approach that I think is simpler, in that through a meditative approach you learn to see for yourself what sorts of behaviors and attitudes lead to peace and happiness and which ones lead to suffering.
Is that useful without an end effect? The technique I describe, if you apply it consistently and carry it through to it’s natural conclusion, will lead to peace and happiness within, in reality and not just in knowledge.
I guess I'm taking for granted that knowing that a behavior leads to or away from suffering will cause someone to engage or restrain from that behavior. Perhaps this is just my predilection though.
Thanks to everyone for the replies and tips. There's been some turbulence round here, will reply when it settles down a bit and I can respond a bit more clearly.
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
@person said:
I guess I'm taking for granted that knowing that a behavior leads to or away from suffering will cause someone to engage or restrain from that behavior. Perhaps this is just my predilection though.
That is true as long as the behaviour is physical. If it is mental you have to consider — are you in complete control of your mind? Do all the thoughts that arise follow your will? I believe a lot of our thoughts are due to semi-conscious desires and fears, and not really subject to our will except in the case of brute-force repression.
It is often said that the mind is like an iceberg: the majority of it is underwater, below the level of conscious awareness. So getting to know yourself is a case of observing your thoughts, seeing what things deviate from the pattern, and where these things originate. That way you can make desires and fears conscious, and allow some of them to dissolve through insight.
I think in the case of games this is especially relevant, because games are an externalisation of dreams and desires from the conscious and semi-conscious mind.
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personDon't believe everything you thinkThe liminal spaceVeteran
@person said:
I guess I'm taking for granted that knowing that a behavior leads to or away from suffering will cause someone to engage or restrain from that behavior. Perhaps this is just my predilection though.
That is true as long as the behaviour is physical. If it is mental you have to consider — are you in complete control of your mind? Do all the thoughts that arise follow your will? I believe a lot of our thoughts are due to semi-conscious desires and fears, and not really subject to our will except in the case of brute-force repression.
It is often said that the mind is like an iceberg: the majority of it is underwater, below the level of conscious awareness. So getting to know yourself is a case of observing your thoughts, seeing what things deviate from the pattern, and where these things originate. That way you can make desires and fears conscious, and allow some of them to dissolve through insight.
I think in the case of games this is especially relevant, because games are an externalisation of dreams and desires from the conscious and semi-conscious mind.
This is sort of my point about meditation. That it allows you to dip below the conscious mind and get familiar with the emotional/energetic patterns that drive conscious thoughts.
Comments
That’s good to hear. I always feel an affinity for people with a mental health background, because I know what that’s like, I spent some time in the psychiatric circuit. Very glad that she’s doing better, and that you guys are spending quality time together!
I think the sutra does support this statement, as far as it goes. The reason he gives for heedlessness causing a problem is that recluses are living on offered food have a duty to be heedful, but that doesn’t take away the issue of heedlessness from a simple mindfulness perspective.
I think you can also observe this with people and kids in public transport, restaurants, all kinds of public spaces. So many people are absorbed in their phones and not really paying attention to the here and now.
I’ve started learning Spanish, in an app which is rather heavily gamified. It is called Duolingo, and my father’s girlfriend uses it, also for Spanish, she is heavily into the league competitions.
Did you know that the games industry is currently three times the size of the music industry, and four times the size of the Hollywood movie industry?
“The mind is essentially a survival machine. Attack and defense against other minds, gathering, storing, and analyzing information - this is what it is good at, but it is not at all creative.”
— Eckhart Tolle
This quote really made clear to me what it was about games that attracted me so much, it is a perfect representation of what the mind does: attack and defence, strategising, min-maxing, opportunism. I still have to be careful not to promote the strategising function of the mind into overall control, that temptation still exists for me.
This also explains a bit more what makes victory so enticing in games, it is a property of the ego to want to be victorious, winning, celebrated. It is another reason why living in surrender is so difficult for the ego, and so important for the spiritual disciple.
From what I posted in the ‘Seeking joy’ thread…
In pretty much every major game you end up fighting the forces of darkness. It’s silly. If you had the choice in real life would you not do something more constructive, more joyful than fighting? Is not building, prayer, dance a better way to spend time?
It hit me today while I was half-sleeping, that what this thread is driving at is a kind of mental pollution which is carried by the media and by games, and that what this points to is a lack of a healthy model of storytelling and relaxation.
In more primitive societies there is an oral tradition which often concerns itself with mythology, with journeys to the underworld and spirits, with the heroes journey, with gods and goddesses. These stories were told around a campfire, not through screens.
This more healthy mode of mythological storytelling is missing today, I feel. The closest we have come is movies like Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, Wonder Woman or The Lord of the Rings. Most superhero movies though undeniably popular don’t really fill this niche.
In the primitive tribe I live in, we all have different stories. For example, as a bargain-basement sea critter, I am only partly reeled in. Most of me is straining at the unleashing.
Similarly, wider women and Percy the god-boy or lordy, lordy of the rings are just fake fantasy mud wrestlers.
The healthy story, you mention, is a saga of incredible depth and width. Starting before we are born again, ending long after we are ashes or in my case barbecue...
Any questions?
https://mettaray.com/questions/
I have been examining this, and I found deep in myself a kind of fascination with a certain playful facet of the forces of darkness. Not the real face of it, which I find abhorrent (see also Gaza and Palestine) but the kind you find in computer games, the kind which you fight but are inevitably victorious against. A kind of stylised darkness… Certainly in Dungeons and Dragons there is a kind of motivation to make darkness ‘cool and attractive’, playing it against type.
The stylised darkness goes back to Disney and it’s treatment of the children’s world. Look at Maleficent or Jafar, the Grand Vizier in Aladdin. These smooth, urbane villains who seem to do well in the world, who are set up by the movie’s plot to either be the ‘big bad’ or some kind of whitewashed version thereof. These are not real villains, they are fairytale characters.
Part of this is the playful mechanisms of fighting in games. You just deduct a few “health points” for a successful hit, instead of seeing a wound, severed limbs, blood and bone. I think the joy would go out of it quickly if it was realistic. And death is not the last breath and the fading of life from the eyes, but rather a playful and artistic falling-to-the-ground.
In a way I find Hayao Miyazaki’s imagined worlds born of Japanese anime to be much more healthy. There, even the villains turn out to be ordinary people, and kindness triumphs over animosity. Look at the treatment of No-face in Spirited Away, going from monster to quest companion, or the way the Witch of the Wastes evolves in Howl’s Moving Castle. Miyazaki was a masterful story teller.
The Western media kinds of stories became my young adult mythology, from Star Wars on out. They were dreams that kind of outgrew their place in my mind, fuelling a sort of obsessive attention. It is a sign of an unhealthy internal mythology, compared to the early hunter-gatherer mind for example.
It is only after years of spiritual work that I bring them fully into consciousness, and I notice there was more truth in the times I was walking in the woods captivated with wonder as a wild deer or a fox would cross my path.
You're shifting to a higher vibrational state of being. In ascension communities these mental observations are said to be beneficial because you are getting rid of things that no longer serve your high purpose. Lots of things get stripped away on this process. The higher we vibrate to more aligned we become with our divine purpose. Like Buddha, Jesus etc; all demonstrated that life is sacred and the scared is well beyond a 3D paradigm. We are moving people towards a 5th dimension. It's will happen in our lifetime. It's already started to happen with millions of people. Those make that transition will have amazing abilities, much like the Buddha and other highly evolved people.
You are on the right path, you are finding your divine Enlightened purpose and you should keep pursuing it. Also congrats on deepening your spiritual awakening to the truth that Buddha spoke of!
Thanks, @Buddha-Dude … I don’t know much about the process you describe, I just know that old things are dropping away. What is left is simpler, more natural, closer to the human core.
Have no fear I speak Buddha-pseud:
Hired vibratoring is new age-age for ‘chakra opening’. In the smallest or tightest wheel and the ravadin, the mind/top chakra is opened. If a genuine opening it will lead to multiple realisations and without Sangha or guidance can lead to self over confidence in ones understanding. Like wot I haz…
For example: a focus on lower chakras (body) can lead to pride in yogic contortionism, heightened sex driven interest. A heart based opening can result in servile devotion to everything… and so on.
What is important is not samadhi or supposed wisdom/enlightenment but genuine, continual path walking…
…or you can just go shopping…
https://www.meditation-newcastle.org/about/our-shop
Thank you @lobster , that makes a kind of sense.
I think my mind/top is pretty open, the realisations are coming. It’s been more a question of prying it open with a crowbar… the heart is doing ok, I am starting to follow Ajahn Chah’s advice when he said “the heart is the only book worth reading”… the lower chakras I haven’t paid much attention to, it’s been ages since I last did a yoga session.
Osho was a distraction, I am discovering that most of the things I did in my life I did despite of Osho, not with his help. Glad to be rid of him and moving on to more pure teachings.
One interesting thing about board games: they are more fun when you don’t play to win. I’ve been playing Wordfeud with a lady friend online, it’s almost exactly like Scrabble, and I noticed that if I exerted myself I would just win all the time, so to keep things interesting I started setting up opportunities for her to use the Triple Word Score tiles. She won a lot of games after that.
Long post ahead but I wanted to join the fruitful self-inquiring going on on the forums lately and give some context since I did not post in this thread in a long time.
As I wrote previously, I've been playing games off and on, mostly off, during the past few years.
With some, I believe I have a healthy relationship, like with chess, which I don't play that much but do enjoy playing on occasion plus following a few youtube chess-related channels. It seems to have a neutral or slightly positive effect on me. If nothing else, I get to exercise reason, planning and patience.
With others, like with Civilization 3, I don't have a good relationship with, but it's still not a disaster. The effect of it is negative: I will play too long, screw up my next day, get somewhat obsessed. So I will play for a few days and then self-ban for a few months.
With still others, like with Ogame (a browser-based strategy game that goes on literally 24/7/365) I have a terrible relationship with. It completely takes on my life and becomes a substitute for living. So I've played only twice for three weeks and once for one week during the past 20 years and had withdrawal symptoms after self-banning every time. I must confess that when my mother was in hospital for an operation I was a bad supporter/visitor because half of my mind was on the game
So, self-banning has been my preferred solution so far. It would work for most of the time. I would frequently reinstall the games, and play again, and self-ban again. That's something at least, but obviously not good enough. Also, I see the bad habit of going back to bad habits.
But the trouble is that self-banning is still not freedom, even if it works, it's just the opposite of unchecked indulgence.
I am writing today because the other day I told myself I would do two things differently, as an experiment while playing Civ3, with the idea being to train moderation and seeing if that would help:
a) Actually give myself permission to play. Even so, my anxiety went through the roof at first, as it seemed I was dismantling a good boundary of "playing Civ3 is bad".
b) actually stick to playing for the allotted reasonable time and not longer.
My reaction during this experiment was totally unexpected to me: "I'm actually not that interested in the game!".
Honestly, I don't know what to make of this.
Is it the resistance to something that actually somehow paradoxically makes it more desirable to the mind? Is true freedom the freedom to play or the freedom not to play, while willingly and gladly choosing full heartedly the wholesome/beneficial solution? Does self-banning somehow lead to a cycle of going back to it?
Anyway, a spiritual teacher I know would often speak of triangulation. How progress is not in the opposites but in the apex of the triangle between and above the opposites. With games, I've known indulging too much and self-banning. This is the first time I'm thinking there might be a higher/better/more mature solution. But I don't know what it is.
Maybe it's just finding something better to do for fun?
Really interesting @marcitko. I think it is really good that you are looking critically at your game playing behaviour, it seems to be a problematic area for you especially relating to strategy games. The fact that it’s taking focus away from important family events such as your mother’s hospitalisation is a pretty clear sign that you’re vulnerable here.
My own experience with self-banning was with World of Warcraft. I basically banned myself from the raiding game, it was too organised and intense, but I kept playing as a ‘casual’ just doing quests and the occasional dungeon. It’s more a computer role playing game, not strategy, and I would find myself finishing the content of the casual game about six months after the release of an expansion. Then I would quit again, and wait for the next expansion. But it meant losing all of my friends in-game, and in the end just playing solo in a multiplayer world got tiresome.
So for me it was a long process letting go of World of Warcraft, in the vanilla game I raided until I burned out on it. Then came the Burning Crusade expansion, the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, and the Cataclysm expansion. After that I basically stopped, that was about 6 years after the release of the initial game.
I don’t know if your experience in any way parallels my own, but it feels to me like you’re still in the throws of game addiction, especially when I see how you relate to Ogame.
What for me was important to see was that the game wasn’t bringing anything positive to my life. It took me a long time to realise it but WoW served no purpose for me as an ‘casual’ player other than a never ending treadmill of designed tasks and stories. At that point I got serious about dropping it.
Then there was a period that I played Mass Effect on the Xbox 360. It was a single player trilogy of games with strong cinematic elements, so I could treat it more like a story or a book. I finished a single play through within a few months of intensive gaming, but I didn’t like the way it took over my life, I would game way too many hours. When I completed it I didn’t replace it with anything.
Not long after that I ended up dropping games altogether. Now when I get tempted by something like maybe buying a Nintendo Switch and playing Tears of the Kingdom, I watch a Let’s Play video series on YouTube to check out the game instead. I basically watch someone else play for a while, it is cheaper and less time consuming and after a while reminds me of why I don’t play anymore.
I wonder how many members here are online gamers...
It’s a pretty common hobby. If you play a few days a week for a few hours and you have no issues letting it stand, then I don’t think it’s a problem. But for quite a few people they game 4 hours a day every night after work, and then it becomes an issue.
I go on the computer.
I push buttons and move a mouse to cause changes on a screen.
Here I choose a smaller more controllable world than a wider less controllable reality.
Isn't a gamer just anyone in any moment who chooses a dream over being awake?
A very astute observation. A game though is a designed experience, with planned challenges and high points, intended to be as engrossing and captivating as possible.
Yep, that sounds like Samsara
@Jeroen
Isn't what you call an astute observation, simply that which a "gamer" is unwilling to face.
What an ego/identity, or the selfish self fears to sacrifice, the practitioner transcending such fears manifests as freedom's graces.
When someone under a gamer's yoke, endlessly complains about the costs of their bondage, tell them that such slavery depends only on them turning down freedom's options, one nanosecond at a time. Can we practice in any other time than within the one fleeting nanosecond that we can live in? That which we are unwilling to face requires no more than a nanoseconds worth of bravery for a nanoseconds worth of life.
This does not entail a mind stirring its own mental mud puddle with its attachments in the hopes of finding clarity.
This entails a mind, dropping its own stir-stick to allow the mud puddle to settle, simply revealing that which is clear water and that which is mud.
Game On!
Augmented reality is coming. Will it be addictive like ticktock, Instagram and blowing up imaginary robots etc? Sure.
However there is another game called RL (Real Life). E.g.
No?
Restart Game? Yes/No?
I found the process of dropping games to be not so simple. The mind gets caught up in desires and enthusiasms, and each time you see a new great game you get caught up again in the images and desires that the marketing materials portray.
Rather than just being the aspects of this world, it expands the samsaric experience to other worlds — anything that you can imagine. Want to be a knight? A princess? A bold space explorer? It’s all possible. Realising that all these things lead you back to similar problems and tasks takes time and experience.
The meditators approach is profoundly different. It is like a gamer has wandered in the opposite direction from meditation, creating ever more samsara in the mind, until you get sick of it.
A little piece of Eckhart Tolle on addiction:
You seem to have a tendency towards strategy games, which I also had earlier in my life. I used to play Warcraft 3, Civilisation 2, and Rome: Total War. It was about being busy with strategic decisions, but also about possession of territory and winning. Ultimately winning for me is about the feeling of victory, but also about being good enough to beat the AI.
It’s a way of reinforcing the ego, it seemed to me. When you haven’t had a lot of success in your life, it can be a way towards feeling better about yourself, knowing that you are smart enough to determine a strategy, make your own way through the game, and win.
Really the question you want to ask yourself when a game is threatening to take over your life is what am I getting from playing the game, what imagined goal is triggering my desires and keeping me spellbound?
The fact that it is triggering this impulse in you means that on some important level your life is not fulfilling for you. The game is giving you something that your normal life lacks. The good news is, it will probably resolve itself with time and spiritual sadhana. But enough introspection may move the process along.
See if this resonates with you, @marcitko, in the context of strategy games:
Keep in mind that this isn't a rule, its the finger pointing at the moon. The goal isn't to follow this precept, its to gain an experiential understanding of the suffering involved in wanting.
This is difficult while living in the world so rules aren't bad, just a reminder to keep up a daily sitting practice.
I would even make it personal. The goal is to gain insight in why you want to “have” troops and cities on the Civ 6 map, or why you “want” more territory or to defeat your enemies. These things are about how your internals work, and by understanding yourself you can release these pressures.
I don't know that its necessary. They may be different paths to the same goal though.
Knowing why you want to have things doesn't automatically lead to letting go. Say through introspection I come to learn I want territory because it makes me feel powerful. Then what? I'd only want to let that go if there was some rule that said that was bad. This sort of approach can help move us along the path.
What I'm advocating for is an approach that I think is simpler, in that through a meditative approach you learn to see for yourself what sorts of behaviors and attitudes lead to peace and happiness and which ones lead to suffering.
Perhaps I didn’t explain well enough…
With insight, I mean looking inside to see what happens at the moment of “wanting” territory. There is a movement of the mind which exposes blockages and old imprints, and these are usually released by recognising them and making them conscious. You should find that the desire diminishes in strength, going from a full-fledged urge to a distant impulse.
Is that useful without an end effect? The technique I describe, if you apply it consistently and carry it through to it’s natural conclusion, will lead to peace and happiness within, in reality and not just in knowledge.
That explanation resonates with me more. Its like to the extent we can see the workings and patterns of our minds the greater ability we have to subvert them and choose a different course.
I think the new course away from our habituated patterns is dependent upon following the rules set up by others. Unless it comes from a personal touching of the way actions lead to suffering or peace.
I guess I'm taking for granted that knowing that a behavior leads to or away from suffering will cause someone to engage or restrain from that behavior. Perhaps this is just my predilection though.
Thanks to everyone for the replies and tips. There's been some turbulence round here, will reply when it settles down a bit and I can respond a bit more clearly.
That is true as long as the behaviour is physical. If it is mental you have to consider — are you in complete control of your mind? Do all the thoughts that arise follow your will? I believe a lot of our thoughts are due to semi-conscious desires and fears, and not really subject to our will except in the case of brute-force repression.
It is often said that the mind is like an iceberg: the majority of it is underwater, below the level of conscious awareness. So getting to know yourself is a case of observing your thoughts, seeing what things deviate from the pattern, and where these things originate. That way you can make desires and fears conscious, and allow some of them to dissolve through insight.
I think in the case of games this is especially relevant, because games are an externalisation of dreams and desires from the conscious and semi-conscious mind.
This is sort of my point about meditation. That it allows you to dip below the conscious mind and get familiar with the emotional/energetic patterns that drive conscious thoughts.