Zendo

Zendo is a game where only one player knows the rules, and everyone else has to figure them out.

The game components are a deck of cards and a set of small plastic pyramids, in five colours and three sizes. Each size also has a point value.

One player in each round is the Master – they secretly choose a rule from the top card in the deck (or one of the top few cards, if you like a little more flexibility). Having done so, they set up the pyramids in two layouts (or koans as the game calls them) – one of which obeys the rule, and the other doesn’t. The rules may involve colours, sizes, points, orientation, touching of pieces, pointing, even whether or not a piece touches the table (pyramids can be stacked or balanced).

Play then moves clockwise around the table and each of the other players – the students – on their turn build a new koan with the pyramids. They then have two choices: they can ask the Master ( by saying “Master?”) if their koan obeys the hidden rule (- it “has the Buddha nature”) and he or she will tell them if it does or doesn’t.

OR they can call “Mondo” and all players get to guess whether the freshly-built koan has the Buddha nature or not. These guesses are revealed simultaneously, and anyone who guesses right gets a ‘guessing stone’. The guessing stones can be used to guess the rule at the end of your turn – but beware! You have to get the rule spot-on; so for instance if the rule is “At least one green pyramid must be laid flat” then guessing “Only one green pyramid must be flat” isn’t strictly speaking, accurate. Which might seem rather petty on first reading, but if the Master can demonstrate the guess is wrong – either by building a koan that obeys the guessed rule and NOT the actual rule (or vice versa) then play continues until the guess nails it.

A full game consists of one round per player – you can play quite casually or have a scoring system where correct guesses are rewarded. We’ve kind of guessed at game length as it can vary wildly!