https://oshofriends.com/dictionary/70205Victory
In Japan, when wrestlers fight, this is a ritual -- that first they will bow down to each other; it is very symbolic.
The zen explanation is that whether you are defeated or you become victorious does not matter, and you both need each other, you both depend on each other. If you are defeated and the other has become victorious, the other has to bow down to you because without you he could not have been victorious. His victory depends on your defeat so he is dependent on you -- he has to be thankful. He cannot take it that this is his victory, he cannot be victorious alone; without you he will be nowhere, so he has to thank you and feel grateful. So even victory does not create an ego-trip. And if you are defeated and you know this is just a game, nothing serious to be worried about -- no problem arises.
In Mexico they have been studying some school children. The ancient tradition in Mexico is that the father has to give rewards, toys, things, to every child irrespective of their success or failure in life. One child has come first in the class, he gets a reward, and the one who has failed also gets one. And there is no difference -- it is irrelevant. That's tremendous insight: it doesn't matter whether you fail or you succeed -- all is a game; you are rewarded all the same.
And the psychologists who have been studying this have come to feel that the mexican children are more at ease with life -- unworried, non-tense, more relaxed. The civilised child becomes very very tense from the very beginning five years old, six years old -- and he carries the whole burden of the earth. He is so tense and so worried and afraid about whether he is going to make it or not.
You have destroyed his childhood and you are creating the poison of ambition. You are making things very serious: if he comes first it is something great, if he comes second he has not been up to the mark, and he will carry that wound always. If a child has not been able to always come first he will carry the inferiority complex, and when the child comes home as a failure nobody even looks at him, everybody's eyes are condemning. We make things unnecessarily serious.
Life should be taken as an acting, so acting is good because in acting you learn how life should be taken.
-Osho, "Far Beyond the Stars, #17"
