Bob Schwartz

When someone out of envy does me wrong
By insulting me and the like,
May I accept defeat
And offer the victory to them.
–Eight Verses for Training the Mind, Langri Thangpa (1054–1123)

When I first saw this excellent ad, before it closed with a message about Jesus, I was sure it was a Buddhist ad campaign, even though I didn’t think that was a thing (it’s not).

The verse above is from Eight Verses for Training the Mind, a classic text of Tibetan Buddhism. The central aim of mind training (lojong) is to rid ourselves of self-importance. From that, all of our best will unfold.

Whether we are aware of it, all of our religious traditions promote this. For theistic traditions, it is that we are less important than God. For non-theistic traditions, it is that we are less important than other people.

If God gets you there, good. If the teachings of Jesus get you there, good. If the teachings of the Buddha get you there, good. If non-religious philosophy gets you there, good.

You may note that some who comment on this believe that God or Jesus or whoever want us to be warriors, so losing is not an option, in fact is blasphemy. How is that going?

By the way, Buddha gets us too.