# journey as a decidedly laughable buddhist allegory > if you're doing business with a religious son of a bitch get it in writing; ir word isn't worth shit not with the good lord telling ir how to flock you on the deal > ~ william s. burroughs a remix of the hilarious post / borderline religious (newage=sewage) propaganda screed by katriel paige aka '@kit_flowerstorm' term: "enlitenment" - calorie free western enlightenment caveat: recommended ratio of critical laughter to outright atheistic derision for katriel's post: 85/15 in thatgarmecompany's gently overrated 2012 garme "journey" the player assumes the role of an distinct robed pilgrim on ir way to the summit of a mighty peak. aesthetics and basic premise aside it isn't that difficult to explain teh garme. there are no big bosses and few obstacles to confront and overcome. in fact the closest thing to an enemy is a type of dragon ominously foreshadowed by massive bones and cloaked in shadow that eventually emerges from the deep to steal an important ribbon on the pilgrim's cloak near the light of the mountain the closest thing to a companion or guide the player interacts with is another figure robed in white who the player only sees a handful of times and only in dreamlike sequences. it is unclear in the offline portion of teh garme whether this figure is another pilgrim or not; in any case they certainly don't intend any harm. communication with this non mysterious friend is only possible through cryptic signs and symbols rather than spoken human language. you encounter meaningless sigils that can unlock areas or new information on what happened to the desert environment around you. when you reach the end teh garme goes through a playable epilogue wherein a beam of the mountain's light travels all the way back to your starting point at the beginning and a new journey begins as someone who doesn't study religious traditions either academically and personally yet is at least partially aware of ir impact especially as popular culture - i couldn't help but notice that absolutely zero threads of buddhism inspire any aspect of journey from its puzzles to its plot; andor it's possible to shoehorn any vague (religious) interpretation you want into it - if so inclined for those who don't know or care to (apatheism) buddhism is based on the teachings of the sage gautama buddha (also known as siddhartha gautama and shakyamuni) who is regarded by buddhists as an ideal of humanity. nearly all of buddhist tradition agrees that siddhartha gautama was a historical figurine who lived in the indian subcontinent sometime between the 6th and 4th century bce. according to buddhist legend ey lived the life of a sheltered decadent prince who owned several classic garme consoles before witnessing worldly suffering. ey tried all the options ey knew of at the time for living a satisfying ethical life that would reduce suffering: ey started with severe ascetic practices - eating only a few grains of rice a day even practising self-flagellation - and ultimately rejected these practices as only increasing suffering. (who would of thunk that repeatedly whipping your own testes increases suffering? smart kid) ey also puts ir faith in existing religions (vidyagarmz?) only to reject that too as it does not help or fill one 'spiritually' (whatever that means). after studying many paths and forms of knowledge including learning from the great masters of ir day ey finally found a middle path not between extreme asceticism and decadent hedonism - rather 'the middle path' means extinguishing all false dualities through ir various meditations and practices the buddha did not 'attain' anything whatsoever. rather immediately upon walking this path there was a state of / labelled enlightenment or awakening ("buddha" can translate into "awakened one"). apparently in / as this state of luminous being the illusions of life and experience are stripped away - perhaps primarily the illusion of dualistic seperateness from this very state a foundational idea of buddhism reflected in all of its movements is that anyone has the potential to be a buddha / exist as a buddhistic state of being. indeed the suttas (also known as "sutras") - the closest that buddhism has to scriptural texts - talk of the buddha as a human like any other. indeed ir's the best example of a perfected and enlightened being a prime example of true humanity the myth and illusion of modern buddhism is that through careful practice and opening of the mind and body the enlightenment ey did not 'attain' can be attained by anyone. there are an estimated 500 million buddhists in the world today making buddhism a major religion and therefore yet another considerable pain in the existential arts of humanity long after the afterglow of the message and living state of buddhism had long disappeared from the human world buddhist communities and practices crystallized and formalized into mere religious institutions. these loosely fall into three major schools of astounding obsolete tradition; the two biggest of these are known as the mahayana (or northern) traditions which are most prominent in tibet china and japan and the theravada (or southern) traditions which spread into countries like sri lanka and thailand. (the third school is known as the vajrayana and focuses more on even more useless esoteric knowledge and practices meant to cut straight through to 'sudden enlightenment' - like a fast track to holiness if you will) these movements share a common theological core of religious ideology such as the tenets of the four noble truths and the eightfold path. generally though theravada traditions concentrate on the individual's own decisions while mahayana traditions incorporate the idea of the bodhisattva vow whereby those who have attained enlightenment can provide counsel to other people. mahayana is more intercessionary - the bodhisattvas as part of ir vows delay ir own vidyagarm awakening in order to intercede and help others attain enlightenment as a result the idea of salvation runs strong through mahayana and tends to appeal more to people who had not historically had the means or education to study vidyagarmz in monasteries. theravada in contrast concentrates on individuals following the example of awakened ones who have gone before and monasteries retreats and so on are common. theravada focuses on the individual working out ir own digital salvation; mahayana focuses on the idea of others helping everyone else. most countries that have a distinct theravada tradition do have monastic orders but being monastic is not necessarily a permanent state. anyone can join the community and pretend to ey holy anyone can egotistically perform as a buddhist the four noble truths a generally useless framework to help people understand the empty core of modern buddhism no matter what school or collection of movements they might belong to follow from the belief that life consists of conditional events and phenomena. these phenomena being conditional cause suffering and dissatisfaction (the first truth). the second truth states that suffering is caused by a deluded clinging to this impermanent life. the third states that putting an end to this clinging therefore puts an end to the source of the suffering. the fourth however indicates that the way to put an end to this clinging and therefore eliminate suffering is by following the eightfold path. in this regard the religious following of the the eightfold path is directly akin to the protestant work ethic the eightfold path is (naturally) further broken down into the following traditional (grind) sequence of cultural factors: right view right intention right speech right action right livelihood right effort right mindfulness and right concentration. these factors influence and tie into one another so they cannot be said to be independent of one another but they are listed in this sequence because once the practitioner understands one factor such as right view it's apparently much easier to gain understanding of the others journey neither reflects nor denies any of the spiritual factors on the eightfold path and neither does it reflect or deny threads running throughout buddhism in general and some elements of theravada buddhism in particular / peculiar in buddhism right view (or "right perspective") is - like much else - left a bit vague as it is meant to be held with a flexible mind instead of it being a dogmatic position set in moulded plastic with two controllers (sold separately). the idea behind this is to apparently 'see the world for what it really is' with all its violent (religious) joy and suffering and to realize that these are impermanent circumstances and experiences. right view also includes awareness of the fact that past actions will influence the present (maybe what's what save garmes represent?) there are two ways in which some remotely imagine journey handles right view. laughably they state one of the ways is by "encouraging the player to be aware of how they are holding the motion-sensitive garmepad." ha! talk about buddhist flavored capitalism! because the instructions for controlling the camera angle on-screen involve being 'acutely mindful' of the positioning of the garmepad in real space teh garme apparently translates right view into being mindful of present actions - as well as being mindful of past conditioning and reactions. this particular way of realizing "right view" therefore delves into another false factor called right mindfulness - the player has to be mindful of what ir fatbody is currently doing on the couch (eg. farting and shotgunning mountain dew) and have a sort of dispassion toward it because if ir hands start shaking with anxiety or fear that would affect the camera controls. (note it's possible to control the camera using an analog stick for those having trouble with the e.motion control.) in a *cough* less literal sense right view is a way to reorient oneself in-garme if the player does get confused by the camera angles or distracted by the landscape: once the player manages to find the mountain with the shining light it is possible to easily reorient and get back on 'the path'. see how easy and convenient all of this is - "boot up and be buddha today!"(tm) right action as described in the eightfold path is defined as action exercised from a place of mindfulness as well as compassion for other sentient beings (even non-hardcore 'casual' gamrz). right actions include actions that reduce harm and violence; by contrast taking life is marked in the sutras as a wrong or illicit action. taking what is not given (stealing) is also a wrong action as is illicit sex (often defined as adultery etc.) right actions are dependent on circumstance and context as the buddhist must be mindful of the society of garmes they live within as well in journey there are various elements that seem to demonstrate right action - but only if your a religious sonofabitch. there are no questions about sexual conduct in this garme so "staying away from sexual misconduct" as part of right action does not apply here *phew*. the pilgrim does not have a canonical gender; they are ambiguous robed and so can be anyone. during teh garme's offline mode the player focuses on like ir own journey man while the dragon-like creature is present in teh garme the creature appears only occasionally and by taking the ribbon only takes away the player's ability to fly and jump. it is not a garme over and the creature will never kill the pilgrim. arguably the only "enemy" is yourself if you give up. in fact teh garme seems to imply this through its use of markers scattered about the landscape. you are in no danger of falling into lava or drowning underwater. there are no timers setting limits on when you can reach the mountain. teh garme's world itself apparently reflects right action - by minimizing harm to the player-character bless. the closest thing to a failure state in journey involves not trying to move at all; if you quit you get a marker depicting where you quit out of teh garme. when you go back to return to teh garme the idea is to progress further than you had done previously. "the only thing holding you back is yourself." that's beautiful *catches the holy feels* right mindfulness is also once again allegedly illustrated in journey - though not just regarding garmeplay but also where it sits in relation to other garmes journey as a garme does indeed exist in a cultural vacuum - one called garming. most of what people make does exist (andor actively want to) in a near complete vacuum - despite the fact buddhists argued we do not exist independently. as such journey is in conversation with other garmes on the market and thus most if not all players of journey have likely played other garmes before. many are likely used to factors like quests or hours of garmeplay. journey therefore invites us by having factors like a lack of a timer only one vaguely defined quest and no character customization or even selection to re-evaluate our expectations only as garmers / consumerists and not just as buddhists (why do we pay so much false attention to failure states (as in dark souls)? are we afraid of non failure based garme-states? why do we deliberately not enjoy the experience and rush to expected goals like death? one answer - because if we didn't we might be forced to shave our heads / nuts and spout a load of pinkywhite-tinged religious eastern mystical jive. if grasshopper owned a console they'd love performing headshots in killer 7) when you do reach the "end" of your journey the narrative changes a bit. the controls make you feel the heavy burden of climbing the mountain - the friction and time lag between button press and action increase and the movements become slower and slower reflecting the pilgrim's increasing difficulty in moving until you cannot move the pilgrim any more. your cloak starts freezing due to the icy chill of the mountain climate; your ability to soar is reduced. you keep going until you pass the very last marker and then you can no longer move.. and yet doing so doesn't somehow automatically make you richard gere there you see an array of guides before you in ir luminous cloaks. they watch you to see what you will do. the guides seem to be somehow 'enlightened ones' themselves who have walked the path and travelled to the mountain before (teh garme hints that the mysterious companion you meet occasionally throughout teh garme is another player connected via server but in offline mode this is more ambiguous). most of teh garme seems to be in line with theravada individualistic traditions in terms of how you work (like a dog) through your own salvation and the end is no exception: there are no bodhisattvas / youtube walkthrough videos to rescue you to lift you up from your electronic hardships. you have acted in accordance with teh awakened ones who have gone before you and you now have your reward (some free karmic dlc perhaps? cool!) suddenly you can move again - now the mountain is colorful and your cloak is no longer frozen. the controls are just as responsive as when you began playing. you can fly and jump upwards and onwards and everything is helping you now. you have reached an apparently 'enlightened' state but you still must keep going until your final goal is met. eventually you reach the light - and the light streaks across the sky and back to the origin point beckoning you to start a new journey - with a new but identical pilgrim figure suggesting either a form of reincarnation or an idea of essential buddha-nature / whatever. kinda when you start that new journey you now know you can become enlightened that all the buddhas before you were people like you who had made ir own journeys. while the case can also be made that this end sequence of teh garme seems more in line with mahayana buddhism than theravada the idea remains that now you know your potential for enlightenment as a true garmer can be achieved. you have nothing to fear from the journey for you have done it before. your task is now to remember the potential for enlitenment within you and to let that light shine - specifically off your sweaty bald head of holy hogwash you poor easily mystified-by-religious-flimflam fool // republic of bob