Winners and Losers
The following is a Dharma talk I gave at the Temple on January 13, 2008. Here we are again in the midst of a political campaign for President of the United States. Currently the Olympics are in their final week. While it is try that in the Olympics there are frequently stories of great accomplishments that do not yield a medal, the main focus is on winning just as it is in politics. I thought it might be a good time to remind ourselves that Buddhism isn’t really about winning or loosing, and fundamentally neither is life or happiness.
At the present time we are inundated by news coverage of the newly begun primary season for the election of the next president of the United States. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending upon your personal preferences, we will be faced with this coverage for the next ten and one half months until the process concludes in November.
One thing constantly mentioned in all of this coverage is talk of winners and losers. It is of course natural that in a competition between several people there would be a winner and the rest considered losers. Yet all too often in life, these adjectives are used to describe situations in which they should not be applied. Or we sometimes view life behind lenses of either winning or losing.
As Buddhists we teach that fundamentally in life there is no winning or losing. We are not in a competition with others nor with ourselves. When we fail to accomplish a goal or some aspiration we are not losers. That is we are not losers or defeated unless we allow ourselves to be so. But it is a choice, and one that only we can choose.
Fifty years ago Willie O’Ree became the first black man to play for a profession hockey team. It had been his life long dream to play professional hockey. Growing up in Canada he lived and breathed hockey. As if the challenge of being the first black man in professional hockey wasn’t enough, he was also blind in one eye. Before his professional career began he was injured when a hockey puck hit him in the eye. According to him it never occurred to him to not play. This is victory. To not be defeated by obstacles in ones life is not a matter of winning or losing it is whether or not you allow yourself to be defeated. And even if you don’t achieve your ultimate goal, if you never give up you will achieve something worthwhile non-the-less.
Every effort to achieve a goal we set is valuable and should not be discounted. Even if in the end we do not meet our goal or achieve our expectation, we still have the result of our effort.
“Buddhism primarily concerns itself with victory or defeat, while secular authority is based on the principle of reward and punishment. For this reason, a Buddha is looked up to as the Hero of the World” (Nichiren Shonin)
“You, the Hero of the World, are unequalled. Adorned with the marks of one hundred merits, You have obtained unsurpassed wisdom. Expound the Dharma and save us and other living beings of the world!” (Lotus Sutra, Chapter VI)
Why is the Buddha called “hero of the world”? If we look at some of the definitions of a hero we find that a hero is someone who commits and act of remarkable bravery or shown great courage, or strength of character. The Buddha defeated the evil forces of Mara and began to teach the dharma in order to save all living beings. The Buddha achieved victory over his own self and his own self-doubt.
The Buddha was not in a competition with any one else. He was not competing with the other ascetics; if he had been he would never have abandoned those practices and followed the middle way. The Buddha was not concerned with winning a competition, which would have only exhibited selfish qualities, thinking of his own status. Instead, with no regard for the appearance of things he abandoned ascetic practice and attained enlightenment.
But even beyond that he didn’t keep that to himself, instead he sought to share his victory with others.
In our own lives all too often we are mislead with notions of winning and losing. We miss the larger important concept of victory and defeat. We compare ourselves with other things or people judging our success by standards that do not truly reflect our own accomplishments.
I encourage each of us to re-examine our lives and our thinking. Let us ask ourselves if we are valuing our lives from the perspective of victory or winning. Do we truly value all of our experiences and efforts from the perspective that no effort in Buddhism is wasted? If we are only concerned with winning and losing then I think we may tend to discount our efforts when they seem to fall short. On the other hand if we are concerned with victory or defeat then we can shift our thinking to look at all of our efforts as contributing in some way to our personal growth.
Becoming enlightened is not about winning some competition against something or someone else. It is about overcoming our own suffering and leading by example. Becoming enlightened is about becoming victorious over illusion, victorious over suffering, victorious over self-doubt, becoming victorious in life.
