** Check out the video tutorial below **
The Master is walking along the tranquil gardens of their temple, watching the little stream sing as it crashes over stones on its way, feeling the wind stir their robes as they make their way to the Zendo, where their Students are waiting.
The Master walks into the meditation hall, circles around the Students, gathered in a semicircle, then kneels before them. "Does..." the Master starts, and the Students barely react, "...a dog have the Buddha nature?" A few smiles, and the Master chuckles, then turns serious. "Today," they continue, "you may reach Enlightenment. You will understand the nature of the Buddha, and you will leave this place. Do you believe you are ready?"
-----
Some Koans have the Buddha-nature, some do not. Can you figure out which, and why? In this tabletop abstract induction game, you and up to four other friends will gather and try to discover the Master's secret rule, and achieve Enlightenment.
How to play:
1. The player who starts the game is the Master, and the others are the Students.
2. The Master creates a rule for Koans to follow (a Koan is nothing more than a group of cubes,
spheres, and pyramids of various sizes on a wooden tray).
3. The Master then produces two Koans:
• One that obeys the rule (and is said to have the Buddha-nature).
• One that doesn't.
The game then proceeds in turns for the Students.
4. At the start of each turn, the Student must build a new Koan.
5. Then the Student says either "Master" or "Mondo."
• If the Student said "Master," the Master will mark their Koan accordingly (with a white pebble
if the Koan has the Buddha-nature, and a black one if it doesn't).
• If the Student said "Mondo," each Student (including themself) has to try to guess whether
that Koan has the Buddha-nature. Then the Master answers, and gives a Guessing Stone to
those who guessed correctly.
6. Then, if the Student has at least one Guessing Stone, they may spend it to try to guess the
Master's rule. Three things may happen in this case:
• The guess is correct, the game ends and the Student wins!
• The guess is contradicted by a Koan that's already on the table, in which case the Master
points that out and returns that Student's Stone.
• The guess is incorrect, in which case the Master builds a new Koan to serve as a
counterexample to it. This can be either a Koan that obeys the real rule and not the Student's,
or one that obeys the Student's and not the real rule.
7. If the Student has any more Guessing Stones, they may spend as many as they like making
other guesses.
For more information, visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zendo_%28game%29 and http://www.koryheath.com/zendo/. A video tutorial on how to play the game on Second Life is provided below.
-----
Included:
• A cardboard Zendo box to play.
• An instructions notecard.
The owner of the game must have rez rights. The game will rez HUDs that will serve as temporary attachments for the players, and each turn new wooden trays and objects will be rezzed, so the LI of a game in progress can get quite high (though the Master has the ability to derez Koans if the game starts becoming too heavy).
-----
This and Xendo are the exact same game with the exact same rules. The only difference is the flavour and the meshes.
View Video »
