Competition and Cooperation

The religions and spiritual traditions that I am familiar with all promote cooperation and eschew competition. Cooperative activities, harmonious activities and thoughts are "spiritual" or "good" whereas competitive activities are "bad". New Age traditions are the leaders in the promotion of this zeitgeist. "Flower power" is a phrase that epitomizes this. Today's "cancel culture" is the inevitable result of this philosophy taken to the extreme.

I don't believe that I life filled exclusively with cooperation and harmony, devoid of competition and conflict, is a life worth living. Jesus pissed people off. He "came not to bring peace on earth, but a sword. He came to set a man against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law."

He would have been cancelled in today's snowflake America. Come to think of it, he was definitively canceled in the Jewish culture of his time.

To me, a spiritual life is a life that is lived in the spirit. To live in the spirit in any given moment means that I rest in the tranquil field that is the basis of all existence, regardless of the ephemeral content of my mind, emotions or body. Zen was developed by Samurai warriors.