1. YOU CANNOT WIN IF YOU PLAY TO WIN

One of the things in life that is delightful is seeing young animals engaged in play. What are they actually doing? They are preparing themselves for the task of survival in which life appears to be a great competition for food, space (territory) and procreation. We observe this and call it play competition.

We are not really different than other animals, for we too as children play and that play, if we are to consider it natural, is competition. It is also clear that when animals and children play it appears as if the objective is to play well with the subtle after-effect of winning.

Yet here we say that you cannot win if you play to win.

Now how is that possible?

Well, first of all there is a great difference between the human animal, this marvelous bio-computer, and other animals; we know that we are playing and we know that we are competing. That is where the problem lies. We have too great an investment in the apparent I that is impulsed to "play to win" and survive.

On one hand we can talk about the anxiety caused by the fear of losing, which is itself interesting.

There is a simple game played in Pubs called darts and experts can hit the center bull's eye with great precision. The ordinary good player in a pub can do so with great frquency. 

Now imagine that we give him a task. We take a bill, say fifty dollars, and fold it until it is the size of the center target, then we pin it to the dart board and tell that player that if he can hit it with one dart then it is his, but if he misses then he must pay up fifty dollars. Invariably pride cries out and he will take up the challenge. Now a strange thing happens. He will most of the time miss the target.

He is anxious, you see, not to lose. Now there is no other animal that has a fear of losing.

If we look at this more closely we see that the problem is a little deeper than that. It is that the human player consciously believes in his own existence as separate from all other animate and inanimate things.

He believes that he exists and that is the great problem. He generates a "me" and "mine".

Think about that for a moment.

 If there is no me, then who is there to win or lose? If there is no me, who is there to play and compete?

Now we are not declaring here that you operate better in the world if you PRETEND that you do not exist. We are saying that you, as a separate and distinct person, do not exist. That existence is an illusion. It is a fantastic and useful illusion of the bio-computer, but the mental concept of "me" and "mine" is false.

Now it is one thing to know consciously that your existence is an illusion and another thing that the whole system both cognitively and at levels below that cognition act with that certainty.

When the whole system knows than YOU do not play to win, what happens is that the natural and correct system plays unconsciously to win "WHEN IT IS APPROPRIATE AND CORRECT TO DO SO" and it is not impeded by a craving or desire to win or a fear of losing.

Let me tell you of a wonderful game that is Chinese. It is called GO. Although many play that game to win, the perfect natural player plays with one fantastic idea in his mind. He plays wishing that the other aparently competing player will do the very best possible. In that way it will draw out from him the very best that his mind and body has to offer. That is playing not to win but to play well. That is the lesson that must be learned in life at more than a mundane conscious level.

IT IS NOT IF YOU WIN OR LOSE, IT IS HOW YOU PLAY THE GAME.