04-23-2010, 12:00 AM
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Everybody wants to be free of suffering and be happy.
When we consider ourselves to be separate from others, automatically what accompanies that is a fear of being less than, and hence a craving to be better than, other people.
So this sets up a feeling, doesn't it, because we see other people as separate and discrete from us; a feeling of competition? We want what s/he's got. What happens when we feel competition? It brings up a sense of struggle between us.
When we are just accepting others, there is no thought about it, we are just enjoying ourselves together. But when something happens, and one of us get blamed for something someone else did, or they get credit for something you did, then suddenly there is this feeling of injustice that needs to be set right. We call this competition.
So it starts in our families and we feel it there, and then it goes outwards. We may spend the rest of our lives trying to right that wrong that we felt as a young family member; on the sports field, in business, in our marriage and friendship relationships. Of course we have this continuing struggle in life all the time.
The important point here is that this sense of separateness and the compelling urge to compete go together. When we begin to notice this, and how it makes us unhappy and causes struggle between us and within us, then we may begin to long for an end to it.
We know that we feel better when we are just loving each other, just enjoying ourselves together. But how to avoid this deep seated urge to compete? As I say, we notice that when we are acting, thinking, believing a certain way, we suffer. So we at some point we must simply pull back on thinking in that way. It is not just that we think some other way. We really don't need to think about it in any way, not even "positively". We just enjoy ourselves. Just be here and be present without thought. "How to" is a big question and is really the essence of our warrior training here.
Everybody wants to be free of suffering and be happy.
When we consider ourselves to be separate from others, automatically what accompanies that is a fear of being less than, and hence a craving to be better than, other people.
So this sets up a feeling, doesn't it, because we see other people as separate and discrete from us; a feeling of competition? We want what s/he's got. What happens when we feel competition? It brings up a sense of struggle between us.
When we are just accepting others, there is no thought about it, we are just enjoying ourselves together. But when something happens, and one of us get blamed for something someone else did, or they get credit for something you did, then suddenly there is this feeling of injustice that needs to be set right. We call this competition.
So it starts in our families and we feel it there, and then it goes outwards. We may spend the rest of our lives trying to right that wrong that we felt as a young family member; on the sports field, in business, in our marriage and friendship relationships. Of course we have this continuing struggle in life all the time.
The important point here is that this sense of separateness and the compelling urge to compete go together. When we begin to notice this, and how it makes us unhappy and causes struggle between us and within us, then we may begin to long for an end to it.
We know that we feel better when we are just loving each other, just enjoying ourselves together. But how to avoid this deep seated urge to compete? As I say, we notice that when we are acting, thinking, believing a certain way, we suffer. So we at some point we must simply pull back on thinking in that way. It is not just that we think some other way. We really don't need to think about it in any way, not even "positively". We just enjoy ourselves. Just be here and be present without thought. "How to" is a big question and is really the essence of our warrior training here.