Balance is the most important element in Ananda, the balance between body and soul, meditation and work, but above all between building up and acquiring new building elements.

In Ananda, players build a temple using domino-style tiles and allow their monks to meditate there. The larger the colored area that is built, the more karma points the player can collect. Specifically, at the start of their turn, the player must move their monk to a new colored area on the board. Then, they play as many tiles as they wish from their hand, provided at least one of the tiles is adjacent to their monk, all placed tiles expand the colored area, and each tile covers exactly two tiles that are on the same level. (The tiles do not need to be on the same level to belong to the same colored area.)

After placing the tiles, count the number of squares that make up the colored area to determine the value of your area. Then, you may discard meditation cards of that color from your hand that total that number or less. Next, draw closed tiles from the supply equal to the difference between the value of your area and the value of your meditation, with your shelf holding a maximum of eight tiles. Finally, if you have more tiles on your shelf than cards in your hand, draw cards from your personal deck to match those numbers.

Once all tiles are placed, the player who has collected the most karma points with the meditation cards they have played wins.