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Competion in education
Hi
I have always wondered what buddhism thinks of competition. The reason that people compete, is to become best or at least better than the other people, I suppose. So it's actually a kind of jealousy behind every competion. But without competion, there would be no progress in the world, if it's education, sports, music etc. Of course you can learn something, because you feel passion for it, but in education f.ex. you have to get good grades, and very often it's at the cost of others. I want to be a good buddhist, but also a good student ( i am actually a top student, but feel that I perhaps should have helped others than studying for my own progress.
So what do buddhism think of competition especially, does it encourage it or should you try to think of others?
I have always wondered what buddhism thinks of competition. The reason that people compete, is to become best or at least better than the other people, I suppose. So it's actually a kind of jealousy behind every competion. But without competion, there would be no progress in the world, if it's education, sports, music etc. Of course you can learn something, because you feel passion for it, but in education f.ex. you have to get good grades, and very often it's at the cost of others. I want to be a good buddhist, but also a good student ( i am actually a top student, but feel that I perhaps should have helped others than studying for my own progress.
So what do buddhism think of competition especially, does it encourage it or should you try to think of others?
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Comments
The second is that competition leads toward advancement. It has been shown many times socially and experimentally that two serial and synchronous forces operate with more result than two opposing or parallel forces. There have been advancements because of war, for instance, but if you look at the resources that were utilized for the whole war, the aggregate cost of those advancements is tremendous.
Buddhism speaks of compassion, and recognizing the interconnectedness of everything. Competition here is like two hands fighting to get to the water bottle first. We are of the same, suffer the same and end up the same. In the middle, we can either bruise each other or embrace each other.
With warmth,
Matt
That being said, I wish there was less emphasis on competition for exactly the reasons Matt so eloquently explained. I don't use it very often, mostly like playing Jeopardy-type games to review for a test or something. More often I like activities that encourage collaboration, such as group posters or jigsaw reading.
Also, in my experience the best way to learn something is to teach it to others! It's not too late!
Competition is a tricky subject for Dharmic philosophy, or at least my version of it LOL, for a number of reasons I’m sure. At first, I considered the consequences of it as possessing something negative for dharmic thought. I have somewhat of an aversion to it all the more as I look at the national landscape and see how competition is being touted as the highest virtue of any legitimate economy. Seeing that schools compete with schools, student with student and worker with worker has certain negative effects for a society that strives for equality, peace, and pursuit of happiness. But the question is whether or not it is good or bad intrinsically?
I think the ultimate reality is as Matt has put it…two hands of the same person competing for the bottle…beautiful! However, I think competition is neither “good” nor “bad” intrinsically. The problem is seeing that competition, like language, concepts, and culture possess a ‘functional’ value. It is seeing that there’s a way of talking and acting (conventional truth) and there’s ultimate truths-- the way things are. This enlightenment, I think, helps us put competition in a proper context: when competition pushes us to improve ourselves, leads to innovation, helps us prepare for a job position so that we can get better pay to feed ourselves and our families and so on are ways that competition may benefit us all in the long run. It can even help us become more compassionate. For instance, a personal or social competitor can helps us to deal with those egoic impulses to hate, be filled with judgment etc..and thus can lead us to face our emotional selves and force us to work on developing compassion. Out of context, which is where most of us are-unfortunately, then we need to understand that competition is nothing without cooperation. We want to better ourselves and our world through competition. However, when we kill, exploit others, judge others unfairly, or use our political and economic power to crush others for our own ends, then competition has become a poison that obfuscates our understanding and denigrates the value of us all! Like any function or tool we utilize, competition should serve us and not just benefit a few! The trick is knowing when competition has ceased serving a beneficial purpose and is now something that has become more harmful than helpful!
Thanks all for the discussion,
Eric D.