By Yang Miang

When I was young, I felt that competition was the fairest way to earn recognition, create opportunities and attain greatness. I worked hard to get good grades and did well in my extra-curricular activities. As I embarked on my career, my colleagues and I are subjected to annual performance appraisals, which will determine who gets a fatter bonus or the precious promotion. Thus, I worked hard, believing that my diligence will pay off eventually. I accepted such comparison and competition as facts of modern society.

I was an athlete back then in secondary school. During those annual school track and field meets, I often achieved the top three positions for events like 100m and 200m sprints. Despite that, I did not remember feeling satisfied or happy. That was because, to me, being second or third equates to losing. Even if I came in first, which was not very frequent, there was the constant fear of losing the next time. I brought this attitude with me when I started working. I was very competitive and I worked too hard. As a result, I suffered from insomnia and irritable bowel syndrome , and frequently, displayed bad temper towards my colleagues and family.  

I used to believe that cut-throat competition between people and organisations pushes us towards better performance and innovation. I was told at a recent conference that if we don’t continue to invent new things to disrupt other people’s jobs, ours will be disrupted. Does this perpetual sense of insecurity and animosity lead to better lives, I now wonder? At this point of my life, I cannot see the logic anymore. I believe the pace of change and competition is leading us to a lower quality of life. This megatrend is, perhaps, unstoppable. 

So, what can we do to survive then? What should we teach our children to enable them to survive this escalating pace of increasingly intense competition and degenerating quality of life? Many emphasised the importance of creativity, ability to learn, and technology to survive the new world order. 

I don’t think they are wrong, but I think they missed an important ingredient.

My personal take is that the true answer lies in spirituality. I think there is nothing inherently wrong with competition, but if people over-focus on material gains and personal ambitions, then competition, as a social mechanism, will cause more harm than good. 

Spirituality is about connecting with our inner selves, to understand our thoughts clearly. If we can understand our own minds, we can then act wisely with full awareness of the consequences of our actions. 

I believe spirituality is the fundamental survival skill for the future. The escalating pace of work, compounding level of stress, and ever-increasing demands of society will continue. If we do not have the ability to look inwards, and derive our own inner peace, then we can be easily consumed by the tsunami of stress and competition; leaving us feeling dissatisfied and inadequate. We must teach our children the importance of finding and anchoring to our inner compass and learn how to let go of our attachments to the desire to win, and the want to boost our ego. If we have the ability to let go and achieve inner peace wherever we are, I’m sure we will do well in life regardless of the competitive environment.

When we become so driven by competition, and determined to achieve our academic or career goals, we frequently lose sight of what is important. Many become tempted to sacrifice their family, health, and even moral values to achieve “greatness”. This “greatness” is often our ego, our desire to be remembered, leaving behind our legacy, which may not benefit humanity in the long run.

In contrast, many Buddhist masters have achieved amazing feats without competition with others. For example, Venerable Master Xuanzang travelled across the Gobi Desert, ice cold mountains and dangerous foreign lands to obtain Buddhist scriptures for China. He spent more than 15 years out of China at a time when the Chinese emperor forbade foreign travel. When he finally went back to China, he was greatly honoured for his amazing achievements, but he refused all offers of high civil appointments. Instead, he organised a massive operation to interpret more than 600 Indian scriptures he brought back. He then spent the rest of his life overseeing the painstaking process of meticulous translation, all these lasting about 20 years. I believe spirituality is the reason for Venerable Master Xuanzang’s achievements.

Spirituality allows us to see the inter-dependence among all beings, and encourage compassion. Like all Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and Buddhist Masters, compassion energises us with a sense of mission to make the world a better place. We don’t have to cross the Gobi Desert to help others. All we have to do is to look beyond competition and material gains, and extend our helping hands to those who need it. Just do that little bit more for people around us, not for winning, but because we are all sentient beings living together in this Saha world, i.e. world of enduring suffering. Compassion can then lead to true greatness. A selfless form of greatness that truly deserves praise and admiration.

By Lingzhi

Living in an urbanized modern city, I am surrounded by concrete buildings. Although Singapore has nice parks and gardens, I have never been one of those who will make an effort to visit the many beautiful parks around the country. On a recent trip to Australia, I had a chance to be closer to nature and visited a fruit picking farm.☺ Being an urban dweller, I was definitely excited as it was my first experience picking organically grown strawberries right out from the field!

While picking the strawberries to fill up the box I was given, I observed that the strawberries were different though they were being grown in the same bed of soil. There was a lot of variation in size, colour and condition of the fruit.  Also, the fruit that did not grow well went back into the soil to act as natural fertilizers. 

Of course, my natural tendency was to pick those that were big and red. As the box was being filled up, there were still empty spaces – I proceeded to pick some smaller and red strawberries to fill up the gaps. During this process, I thought to myself, is this process of selection and filling up gaps similar to how human beings live their lives? 

For instance, in the workplace, only the most suitable candidate will be hired for a position. Given the same conditions, people who can produce the best results would be considered more favourable than those who are average performers. This is like the big and red strawberries which I had chosen to be placed in the box. The people who are still needed hired to keep things in place are akin to the smaller but red strawberries which I needed to fill up the box. Those who are unable to perform up to expectations,  are like the strawberries that did not manage to grow well.

This experience has allowed me to reflect on how the universe does not reject any one of us, but instead accepts all of us, flaws and bad habits included. In life, we are quick to judge and differentiate, and choose to see and interact with what we like or favour while disregarding people, things or situations which are unpleasant or distressful to us. Our lack of equanimity also results in us being envious of those who are much better than us. 

Without good awareness of our ego and a lack of equanimity, we will, unknowingly plant negative karmic seeds. Our speech, thoughts and actions when interacting with different people will be different as we already have our own predetermined perception. Our actions will thus be judged as unfair or biased. For instance, I may be more impatient and unwilling to help while speaking to someone whom I am envious of, as I feel upset that he or she is performing better than me. Envy is a poisonous emotion that will cultivate a selfish and negative mindset and which is detrimental to myself in the long run. On the contrary, I should see how I can learn from those who are better than me and improve from there!

Everything happens for a reason. This strawberry picking experience took place over a few short hours but it has taught me the importance of learning how the universe is ever so willing to accept every one of us who are unique individuals. I definitely have a long way to go before I am able to treat everyone equally without any prejudgement. This process requires deep self awareness and humility but I am confident that as long as I persevere , it will definitely lead to me being a wiser and more accommodating person.

To conclude, I would like to share a quote from Venerable Master Shen-Kai:

“We are all interdependent. Therefore, we need to understand the principle of cause, condition and effect. Do not criticise others as right or wrong but accommodate them regardless. When we understand this, our presence will be welcomed and our endeavours will be unhindered.”

“人，是互相依存的，要懂得因缘法，不要说他人对与不对，他对与不对都要包容。懂得这个道理，走到哪里，人人都欢迎，办事也方便。”