On the assumption that competition is superior to independent growth and interrelated support

Mahatma Gandhi, Jesus Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Master Patanjali, Master Shantideva, Nelson Mandela, Geshe Michael Roach, Parker Palmer, David Life, Sharon Gannon. These great masters, ancient and modern, share the conviction that active compassion and well-tuned non-violence are the means to success in life. Yet even with such esteemed voices guiding us on that path we still find lure in the the violent opposite. We still believe the illusion that compassion and non-violence equal passivity and weakness. Sometimes we think, "If we are compassionate we will just lose our competitive edge" Or, "If we are non-violent, others will run roughshod over us and we be destroyed." These fear-based beliefs are not from the great minds, they are from undeveloped minds. Can we endure the prevalent habitual reactions of retribution, consumption, fear, and selfishness long enough to entertain the possibility that training for compassion and non-violence may be more critical for our survival and happiness than training for battle or victory over our human enemies? Maybe we can instead focus our native instincts to strive for victory over the enemies of ignorance habit, selfishness, fear, and greed. We must slay these enemies, the only real ones, the inner enemies of our own untamed mind. What kind of world could we find then?

It is apparently a common misperception that compassion is a passive quality. I don't fully understand why this is the case. It may be that the prevailing attitude in our society is that action must be an aggressive act. If so, we need to address that prejudice. (Is establishing peace less active than fighting?) Compassion is a generous, courageous effort. It is a noble action. It requires practice, training, and development, like any discipline, to become strong. If there is a general misperception of compassion as passive, then where is this idea originating? Is it possible that some of our schools are training grounds for competitiveness to the extent that training for compassion is eclipsed? I don't know, but this question has implications, I believe, beyond school admissions, sports, and commerce. The balance (or imbalance) between competition and compassion influences our attitudes toward others, perceptions about oneself, and about the purpose of being.

What consequences do we bring about if "How can I beat you?" instead of "How can we be unified and happy?" is the dominant interrogative in our minds? The object of competition is to surpass or defeat others. There is no place in pure competition for helping others along the way; helping others would undermine one's own competitiveness. The competitive mindset may be useful in the context of traditional competitive systems (sports, grant proposals, school admissions, international trade, threats of war), but grown out of proportion it can become a formula for mistrust and isolation. An over-competitive person runs the risk of insatiably looking for another enemy to defeat, from whom to extract something, against whom to compare oneself as victor in fleeting unilateral glory. It is not a new idea that in it's most extreme forms, competitiveness can be correlated with environmental ravaging, war mongering, and genocide.

This raises another question. Should competitiveness be taught more or less in schools? It depends on the specific case, of course, but I think consideration of the question could yield interesting discussion and uncover previously hidden deficiencies in training for compassion.

I will never be able to comprehend why people so devoutly believe that competition is the best way to generate new ideas, because I know from experience what happens in competition. In competition you do not reach for a new idea, because a new idea is risky. You don't know how to use it. You don't know where it's going to take you. You don't know what flank it may leave open. In competition, you reach for an old idea that you know how to wield as a weapon....

Parker Palmer
The Grace of Great Things
Recovering the Sacred in Knowing, Teaching, and Learning
from the Spirituality in Education Conference, The Naropa Institute, May 30th to June 3rd, 1997

Compassion embodies advancement in an ultimate sense rather than just in comparison to one's opponent. Competition has its place in driving self-advancement via comparison, but compassion has a different job to fulfill, advancing both self and other regardless of relative position. Compassion remains undiminished by comparison and provides impetus for advancement without the throttling effect of relative valuation. Because of the profound implications for individual, societal, and world conditions, compassion seems to me the more evolutionary, logical, and progressive choice. Therefore, training for compassion should have at least as central a role in education as competition enjoys today.

The alternative to competitiveness is not stagnation or passivity, but active, compassionate, mutually beneficial growth. Compassion holds as its objective not the annihilation of others for the tenuous and temporary exaltation of oneself, but rather the uplifting of oneself in union with others as though they were of one's own family (which ultimately they are). Compassion invites one to fully develop one's own uninhibited potential, uncompromised awareness, and fearless evolution and to share these developments with others, however different, to reach otherwise impossible states of synergy, peace, and caring.

Karl Straub, Nov. 15, 2003
New York

I invite you to join me in the foundation of the 1st American K-12 school with a yogic philosophical core and a mission to develop compassion, non-violence, and academic excellence in our young people. The Ahimsa School.

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