Zendo is an inductive reasoning/guessing game similar to Eleusis, Mao and Mastermind.

Zendo is played with stackable plastic pyramids; see The Zendo Rules for more information.

This is not (yet) an attempt to translate the rules, but merely to translate the more commonly used terms in the game so it can be played fairly easily by people speaking Lojban.

Emphasis is on correctness rather than emulating the pseudo-buddhistic poetics of the original.

All unusual words should be in jbovlaste; bug me if they're not.

Feel free to replace words with links to their jbovlaste pages.

Terminology

A fair bit of this was pulled from The Zendo Terminology Page.

koan

le/lo mupli

master, the form of address

la/doi ctuca

master, the request

doi ctuca ko pajni tu'a le mi mupli

mondo

doi ctuca ko pajni lo nu jivna (more formally: lo nu mi jivna lo drata tadni)

guessing stone

pa rupnu (be fi la ctuca)

rule (as in the rule the master has in mind)

le javni

A koan has the buddha nature if it contains ...

da poi mupli cu mapti le javni gi'o gunma ...

A pyramid

mumbli, sort of. In fact, a Zendo pyramid is something like "bliku lo slasi vo plita kubli be li re bei li ci .e pa kevna kubli be li re bei li vo"

Why not just "bliku"? There's only one kind of block under discussion anyway.

Also, I think that should be "...vo plita kubli be li re bei li ci vu'o .e pa kevna kubli be li re bei li vo". Otherwise the .e joins to li ci. --clsn

A pyramid, easy version

lo/le dacti

flat

vreta

upright

sanli

wierd

no'e sanli

small

cmalu

medium

no'e barda/no'e cmalu

large

barda

the piece has a pip count of X

le dacti se barna cu kanli li X

Rule Examples

No implication that rules below are good is intended.

Contains only red pieces

gunma po'o lo xunre dacti

Contains at least one red piece

gunma su'o xunre dacti

Contains exactly one red piece

gunma pa xunre dacti

Contains at least one stack

gunma su'o derxi

Equivalently, contains at least one piece which is on top of another piece

gunma su'o dacti poi cpana su'o dacti

Equivalently, contains at least one piece which is beneath another piece

gunma su'o dacti poi se cpana su'o dacti

Contains exactly one stack with at least one red piece in it

gunma pa derxi poi gunma su'o xunre dacti

Contains only pieces of one colour

gunma po'o lo dacti poi simxu mintu lo ka skari

Contains only pieces of one colour, another way

gunma po'o lo dacti poi se skari pa da

Contains only red or blue pieces

gunma po'o su'o xunre dacti .a su'o blanu dacti

Contains only red or blue pieces, another way

gunma no dacti poi na se skari lo xunre .a lo blanu

Contains only two colours of pieces

gunma po'o re se skari be lo dacti

Contains only two colours of pieces, another way

gunma po'o lo dacti poi se skari re da