Noble Eightfold Path? A game to remember.

My son is a student of the Sunday Dhamma School at the Sungai Long Buddhist Society. He told me today that he could not remember the Noble Eightfold Path, which is a simple practical guideline of moral paths one has to take to be free of dissatisfactions in life and be enlightened.

I taught him to recall them by the acronym "SALEM MUT" to represent perfect:

Speech
Action
Livelihood
Efforts
Mindfulness

Meditation
Understanding
Thoughts

When he still could not recall some of the points, I decided to use a Socratic method to help him recall better by asking him some simple questions about "The Tumble Down" game, which he has played before.



Q) What must you do before you play this game?
A) You must know the rules.

Q) It's called "The Tumble Down" game. That means that you win when you are first to tumble down the stacks, right?
A) No (He laughed). You must understand the game. (Recalls Perfect Understanding)

Q) Can you simply stack up the bricks?
A) No, I must stack them up neatly. (Recalls Perfect Efforts)

Q) Can you play the game while doing something else?
A) No I must concentrate on the game and aim to win. (Recalls Perfect Meditation)

Q) What is your most treasured toy?
A) Playstation.

Q) Imagine that the brick you are going to move is your Playstation would you handle it with more care?
A) Yes. (Recalls Perfect Mindfulness)

Let us change the name of this game to the "Enlightening Game" and imagine that each brick represents people you care and love and each colour represents the issues and problems you face in your life.

Q) Now imagine that each time you move a colour and re-stack it, you are working on solving the problem. The gap where the brick was represents your morality based on the way you have solved your problems. What kind of "branding" of yourself do you want to leave behind? Do you want people to remember you as someone who cannot be trusted or who is rude and a bully?
A) I want to leave a good impression. (Recall Perfect Thoughts, Perfect Speech and Perfect Actions)

Q) Now imagine that you have a problem making a living how would you solve your problem? Remember the impression you said you want to leave behind and that in the "Enlightenment Game", the bricks represents people you care and love. When you make a mistake and stumble you bring them down with you.
A) I will not do anything immoral. (Recall Perfect Livelihood).

What else can you teach with "The Tumble Down" game? How about teamwork?.