Programmer-monks.

I was talking about how far technology has come recently, especially through the 80s. Arcade machines came up, and how the intense rush to get the high score and live in infamy was something unique, something that home consoles didn't provide, at least not to the same extent.

In those days, arcades were the hub of a lot of teenage activity, not to mention a real money-maker for the owners. Kids would compete not only with each other, but with the scores of those vague initials of no-show champions. Regardless of how many quarters it took to get the high score, it was a noble endeavor. A champion would emerge from any group huddled around a machine, and one cocky kid would accept any and all newcomers to take their part in joining an ever-increasing group of kids who lost.

One power surge, one outage, or worse-yet, one flip of a switch, and all of the machines would be off. Most machines in those days lacked the ability to save the scores without power. (This was something that The Legend of Zelda on the NES/Famicom was famous for: a small backup battery in the cartridge that allowed 'saving' of progress.) I've even heard of arcades that would purposely turn off the power at night, though it's completely understandable.

Elsewhere in the world, we have the Tibetan monks. We can imagine a snow-covered temple, monks inside studying scriptures and art, meditating, chanting and yes, even praying. One of their pursuits was designing mandalas (sanskrit मण्डल, meaning circular, round, ball, ring, orb, and also multitude, group, band, collection, whole body). Along with drawn and painted mandalas, they also did massive sand mandalas, though these were more famous after the Tibetan Buddhists came to other countries and areas.

The beauty behind the sand mandalas was the same as the beauty behind the handful of arcades who shut their machines down at night: the expression of impermanence. Sand mandalas, once made, were meditated on and often photographed by passersby, and then brushed away. Not so different from gamers working hard and getting a high score, only to have them lost to decaying ones and zeros on the circuit boards of a powered-off machine. The beautiful reminder that, while the good things in life end, the bad things do, too. It's an echo Solomon's silver ring, "This, too, shall pass."

Impermanence is an important lesson in life. I bet many of you don't know that it takes only five hundred years for reinforced concrete to give way to nature. A thousand years will render concrete into the soil, nothing remaining of the memory of human presence. And yes, while the pyramids of old still stand, we must remember that four-and-a-half thousand years is not much in the great scheme of things, including the history of humanity as a whole (unless, I suppose, you are a Creationist of the Abrahamic religions).

Think about that, the next time you go for a high score in whatever game you're playing, or if you try to have 100% completion files for all of your games. Feel free to delete the file once you finish. In doing so, not only are you freeing your memory card, but you're calling out an acknowledgement that most Buddhists share. You're breathing life into an ancient memory, though in a more technological, and not untrue way.