How GTA Vice City leads to enlightenment

When I played GTA Vice City, at first I was just driving around in a stolen car, looking at the world and thinking what else is possible here. I tried to complete a few missions, but when they got harder and I got stuck, I found cheat codes and drove around in a stolen tank, shooting military helicopters for a while. It becomes boring pretty quickly to be too powerful and not find the game challenging anymore, so I turned all the cheat codes off and continued doing missions. Missions were hard, but it felt good to complete a difficult task, learn more about the story and discover new places and characters.

"Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water."

– says a famous Zen quote.

If you focus on spirituality and self-development and are persistent on it, you will eventually reach a universal understanding about reality and your own place in the world. Throughout the centuries it was monks and hermits who usually achieved this stage, but an interesting thing happens when someone discovers their meaning of life: they keep on living exactly the same life as they did before. Discovery of the meaning is not the end. You could meditate for the rest of your life, feel good and never take part in any activities, but potential experience would be kind of wasted.

Your life is a series of missions and a continuous struggle with their challenges. If you put some effort, you can read the code of the game and find out how the game works. You can also find ways to cheat, but the game was bought for the challenges and stories it contains, not for reaching 100% completion and unlocking every item instantly. We create constraints for ourselves to enjoy games and so we do with the entire life.

I can’t know what really happens when we die, but we are either nothing for eternity, or everything for eternity. Either way, let’s play while we are here.