Ogyen Trinley Dorje, a senior Buddhist leader recently gave his views on politics, hip-hop and of course, video games.
Perhaps surprisingly, the religious leader expressed a positive attitude towards video games.
“Well, I view video games as something of an emotional therapy, a mundane level of emotional therapy for me. We all have emotions whether we’re Buddhist practitioners or not, all of us have emotions, happy emotions, sad emotions, displeased emotions and we need to figure out a way to deal with them when they arise.”
“So, for me sometimes it can be a relief, a kind of decompression to just play some video games. If I’m having some negative thoughts or negative feelings, video games are one way in which I can release that energy in the context of the illusion of the game. I feel better afterwards.”
“The aggression that comes out in the video game satiates whatever desire I might have to express that feeling. For me, that’s very skilful because when I do that I don’t have to go and hit anyone over the head.”
Now you know what to say the next time your girl friend/boy friend/parents tell you to stop wasting your time playing games.
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