Competition Versus Cooperation

The willpower of power is the willpower of conflict, the alternating dualism of "yes ...no, yes ...no", which are the two aspects of desire. But the willpower of wisdom has nothing to do with such competitiveness; in fact it behaves in quite the opposite way. It manners are perfect; it is never rude, because it feels no revulsion. It never says "No" and is never offensive. The willpower of wisdom is the willpower of a single motive of acceptance - yes, yes, yes.
E. Graham Howe

I was once in charge of an offsite, a team spirit building exercise, and I decided that we would go and play mini-golf according to the Ryder Cup rules. The Ryder Cup is a golf tournament that is played between the best European and American golfers. And even though golf is a highly individual sport as we all know, when you put the players into teams with alternating shots or by choosing the best shot of each player, suddenly a team spirit develops and for the players who gel with each other, the team effort can be much more than the sum of the individual players.

The Tao master knows something about cooperation. The Tao teaches you how to cooperate with life and with other people. Sure, competitive folks will show up along the Way as well, they too will be incorporated in the magnificent play of the Tao. You let them do whatever they need to do but you never fear their force because in life cooperation gets you a lot further than individual competitive efforts. My favorite example in this direction was the Ryder Cup during a time when Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson were Number 1 and Number 2 in the golf rankings and both were beaten handily as a team by the much more cooperative European players.