“First, I lost my father to dysentery. Then… my Mother. Next, both my brother and sister succumbed to dysentery. Finally, I felt the disease working its way through my digestive tract, and I knew I had dysentery as well. We never completed our journey.” No, this isn’t an excerpt from a Civil War journal. This is a conversation you’ve had with your friends over brunch, reminiscing about the time you spent in your middle school computer lab playing the original “Oregon Trail“. The Oregon Trail was a rite of passage for millennials. It was the first time many of them had to deal with loss, as you inevitably saw your party die off on your CRT computer monitor, most often due to the game’s over zealous plagues of dysentery. However, without you realizing it, this traumatic gaming experience was also your introduction to the Buddhist concept of “The Middle Way”.
What is the Middle Way?
People also refer to the Middle Way as the “Middle Path.” It is the idea that enlightenment cannot be achieved through either extreme hedonism and indulgence of sensual pleasures or severe asceticism where one denies oneself their basic needs and engages in self inflicted pain. The Buddha experienced both. He was born a prince that had his every need and desire taken care of by others. He left his life as a prince to find a solution to aging, sickness, and death. Knowing that even his elevated role in society and hedonistic life couldn’t protect him from these universal experiences of suffering. Before achieving enlightenment, he practiced strict asceticism; however, his weakened body and extreme physical suffering eventually hindered his spiritual concentration.
The essence of the Middle Way is balance. A lute string is a common analogy. If the lute string is too tight it will snap. If it is too loose it won’t make a sound. You must find a tuning in the middle to find the right harmony. The Middle Way has a long history. The Buddha mentioned it in his first sermon: the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta. Through this discourse, the Buddha eventually comes to define the Middle Way as the Nobel Eightfold path, which is the practical guide to end suffering. The goal of the Eightfold path is to to end suffering (dukkha), eliminate clinging, and achieve enlightenment (Nirvana).
To put it in terms of The Oregon Trail. The Middle Way and the Eightfold Path end your suffering (usually from dysentery), eliminate your clinging to a ‘perfect score,’ and guide you safely to the West Coast. You can beat the game by following the advice of The Buddha and modeling your strategy after the Middle Way. Without realizing it, the Oregon Trail taught many of us the value of not erring on the side of extremes and instead finding equanimity in challenging times. The video game becomes a powerful analogy for samsara.
Right Effort and the “Pace” of The Oregon Trail as the Middle Way
The Oregon Trail offers players three different “pace” options for crossing the United States: steady, strenuous and grueling. The metaphor here is clear. A steady pace resembles a life of hedonism, as you stroll across the plains without caring about the coming winters that could strand your party and prevent you from reaching the West Coast before bad weather sets in.
Grueling is the life of asceticism. Pushing your party members to the brink of exhaustion. This pace causes fatigue, which exposes them to disease, lowers morale, and puts your oxen at risk of injury or death. You reach your destination faster, but are more likely to end up alone or sprawled out on the side of the trail in Āyu-khaya, the Buddhist term for exhaustion of life.
Despite it’s name implying additional effort, strenuous is the in-between option that represents the Middle Way. Not too fast and demanding, not too slow and casual. You’ll get to the West Coast without exhausting your party or injuring your oxen in the process.
“Strenuous” pace is a sly analogy for Right Effort, a step on the Noble Eightfold Path. As mentioned earlier, The Middle Way is the Nobel Eightfold Path. Buddhists group the Eightfold Path into three general categories: Wisdom (Pañña), Ethical Conduct (Sīla), and Mental Discipline (Samādhi). Right Effort falls under Samādhi. It’s companions within that category are Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration. These three steps are seen, collectively, as the “battery pack” of practice. Just as your gameboy needs a battery to play Pokemon, your spirit needs a battery pack to reach Nirvana. They allow you fortify your mind and direct your energy to following the other five steps on the path.
Though you didn’t know it, you were practicing the Middle way and Right Effort when you selected this pace option in the game. You were consistently making progress to your goal. Yet you avoided pushing yourself so hard that you injured your oxen or increased your risk of contracting one of the many diseases that could afflict you on the trail.
There was balance. Your party felt tired at the end of the day, but you conserved enough energy to continue your journey without increasing your risk of sickness or death. Right Effort has been called a tool to avoid “Spiritual Burnout”. It can help you reach enlightenment by not burning too bright, and therefore burning out, and not putting in too little effort and becoming complacent. Here, in the Oregon Trail, its a tool to avoid physical burnout. Yet the analogy is strong. Put in the “right effort”, not too much not too little, and you’ll achieve your goal.
Right Understanding in the Face of “Dysentery”
The Noble Eightfold Path doesn’t just prepare you for a skillful life, it also prepares you for a skillful death. The goal of the Middle Way and Eightfold path is to end the cycle of suffering also known as “samsara”. With death being a gateway between two lives. Watching your party members succumb to dysentery or one of the other diseases programmed into the game was a right of passage for millennials. It was the first time many of us were exposed to death. Right in the confines of our elementary school computer lab. Unbeknownst to us at the time, we were experiencing our first exposure to ‘Right Understanding,’ a key step on the Noble Eightfold Path.
The death of your characters exposes the player to Impermanence or Anicca. In Buddhism, there is a belief that all conditioned things like physical bodies, thoughts, and worldly phenomena are in a constant state of flux, change, and decay. Everything is constantly changing moment by moment. Nothing is truly fixed or constant. Nothing lasts forever.
The Buddha taught that suffering arises not from moment-to-moment change, but from our attachment to the idea that things should stay the way they are. Suffering or “dukkha” comes from not the change itself, but our inability to accept change. Clinging to physical bodies, thoughts and worldly phenomena are what cause us to suffer, not the fact that those things will not last forever. Right Understanding teaches us to prepare for those events, and acknowledge the cause and effect or “Karma” that leads to them.
The Middle Path and, more specifically, Right Understanding, show us that while death may be inevitable due to the true nature of reality, that they are not a cause for suffering. Throughout the game our players die. But our wagon train moves on. A single character perishing isn’t the end of the game. The game only ends when all of our characters die off. The death of our characters isn’t a “glitch” but an inevitable outcome.
If we start the game assuming a character won’t get sick or die, an axle won’t break, or an ox won’t get injured, we set ourselves up to be unprepared. Acknowledging that our party and wagon will decay forces us to acknowledge cause and effect. We stock up on medicine and extra axles and wheels, and we schedule rest days to prevent our oxen from becoming overworked or injured.
The Middle Path and Right Understanding teach you to fix the wheel, rest the oxen, and keep moving without being shattered by the inherent uncertainty of digital life. The cause and effect is clear. If your wheel breaks and you don’t have an replacement you’re stranded. If you characters get sick and you don’t have medicine they’ll likely die. Your lack of preparation can be the cause of death, which is the effect. You need to learn to see the causes that could have detrimental effects. And you need to have Right Understanding to let go of the idea you’ll make it cross country without any changes to your original wagon or party.
Bonus Round: Right Concentration While Crossing the Columbia River
One of The Buddha’s most famous fables is the “Parable of the Raft” from the Alagaddupama Sutta. In The Oregon Trail, players must cross several rivers throughout their journey, from the Kansas River at the start to a tense ride down the Columbia River at the end, where students white-knuckle their mouse to reach their final destination. In The Oregon Trail the Parable of the Raft takes on a literal and metaphorical sense.
The Buddha famously compared his teachings to a raft in the parable. You use the raft to cross the river, but once you reach the other side, you leave the raft behind. You let it go. This is another example of Right Understanding. When you cross the river, you don’t let go of the raft as the Buddha instructs in his parable. You see the raft transform. It goes from a vehicle, to a boat, back to a vehicle. You don’t mourn the loss of your wagon, unless of course it gets destroyed in transit which would end your game. Instead, you accept the change, and continue to use the wagon as needed. Never becoming attached to its current form.
A “Middle Path” player recognizes that the wagon and supplies are just tools. Such as the wagon for example, to get the “Self”, or characters, to the destination. If you become too attached to your supplies, you might risk your family just to save a few dollars. The goal is the arrival, not the hoarding of the tools. You need Right Understanding to see the truth.
Right Concentration is also on full display during the crossing of the Columbia river. Right Concentration is the cultivation of a calm, one-pointed mind focused on a single object. Typically developed through meditation to achieve deep tranquility and insight even during mentally or emotionally distressing times. During this intense mini-game you must let go of thoughts about inventory, pacing and game mechanics. Once you reach the other side of the river, the game is over. You and your party have made it to the end of the game safely. You no longer need to trek across the prairie, manage inventory, or plan for the trip. All that matters in that moment is crossing the river.
You’re fully dialed in. Dodging rocks and obstacles knowing that one wrong flick of the wrist could doom your entire party and journey thus far. You enter a state of pure Samu. Your concentration pure. This state is the end goal of meditation. You enter a state of open awareness of everything happening in the present moment and only the present moment. This is a state Zen masters take years or decades to achieve. Yet you find it in moments in a video game in your local elementary school computer lab. It’s your first taste of pure, skillful concentration.
End of the Trail and Enlightenment
When you reach the end of the trail, you achieve a sort of enlightenment. You’ve escaped both the arduous Oregon Trail and, for your digital characters, they’ve escaped Samsara. The game is over and your characters cease to exist. By leveraging the Middle Way, Right Effort, Right Understanding, and Right Concentration, you end both the game and your character’s constant rebirth. No longer do you have to meticulously plan to reach the end of the game. And no longer do your digital sprites need to be subjected to the trail over and over again as you and your classmates wait for someone to finally complete the journey. The game is put away for the class and your characters can finally rest… until next year when a new group of students pick up the mouse and keyboard and start the process all over again.
