Why is it important to have harmony?

[KhedrubGyatso]

During the course of one’s study and practice , after a while it might be useful to stop a moment and reflect on whether our views on anything have changed .
For example:
Why I must not get angry ?
The usual way of thinking could be :
I don’t look good.  I might get slapped back. I get upset. I upset others.
The Buddhist way of thinking :
According to karma. I will keep meeting angry people the rest of my life n future lives. I will be reborn ugly and unpopular. I may get what I want temporarily in this life by shouting down at others,  but I lose ultimately as I go down the lower realms. I may  control others through anger but I cannot win their love.

I have also been reflecting on the following :
Why is it important to have harmony in a religious organization ?
Can anyone share based on Buddhistic thinking?

[bambi]

I don' think that we should have harmony only in Buddhist centers. We should have harmony with ourselves to begin with then with people around us. Many people who comes to the center are already with problems of their own or else they wouldn't be in a center to get help. There will always be different karma for everyone. We cannot change other people's karma but that doesn't mean we throw our anger and disharmony at them then it is us that is creating the karma.

I found this interesting write up from Lama Yeshe that I believe will help you. Hope it helps.

http://www.lamayeshe.com/index.php?sect=article&id=257&chid=517 - Working in a Dharma Center

http://www.lamayeshe.com/index.php?sect=article&id=261 - Conflicts between students

When somebody harms you, forgive him or her. Immediately the other person receives so much peace and happiness and you also receive much peace and happiness. Most people get angry and want to get back at the person, and they do the opposite and give harm back to the person. As a result, the person’s family members and friends will harm you. You will be harmed by that person 500 times, not necessarily when you are in a human body. From that negative karma, from harming that person, you experience getting harmed or killed by that person 500 times. It makes you suffer on and on without end. There is the one complete negative karma that has four aspects:

1) The base, 2) thought, 3) action, and 4) goal.

When all of these are complete, you can receive four suffering results:

1) The ripening aspect result— rebirth in the lower realms for many billions of years.

There are three suffering results in the human realm:

1) The result similar to the cause—being killed by others.

2) The possessed result, concerned with the place. Whatever view you hold is bad, the appearances you see are bad, and you live in a very dusty place. Medicines and food become harmful to you and can cause harm, sickness, and death

3) Creating the result similar to the cause—you kill again because of the past imprint of killing, and you engage again and again in that negative karma.

You can see how one negative karma today results in so much suffering. It can make you faint. If you think about it, you have created so much negative karma today with your body, speech, and mind, this week, month, and year. From birth and from beginningless rebirths, you have created karma which has not been purified, not finished by experiencing it. If you really think well, you can’t stand having one negative karma near you. You can see how forgiveness is incredible. It stops you from harming others and others from harming you with their body, speech, and mind. Also, so many people, friends, family, and so forth, who are all connected to you, don’t engage in negative karmas because of you.

The next point is, if you do some harm, make some mistake, immediately apologize so it doesn’t make the person angry with you, make him or her angry or suffer. If you say sorry immediately, the person doesn’t become angry, and it brings a release. If you can practice like this, it’s unbelievable.

Do not get angry. Have peace in your heart. If you practice like this, with patience, you give happiness to all sentient beings, not only your family, but people at work too, not only in this country or this world, but after this life, to all sentient beings. In this world, there are many people who killed many millions of people, like Mao Tse Tung, Hitler, and many others.

[ratanasutra]

Thanks Bambi for the two articles. I do agree with you that we should have harmony with everyone, starting from ourselves, our family, classes, working place, organization and country.

Harmony is very importance, especially in a religious organization. From the harmony it brings happy, peaceful, and make the organization grow and expand for example if the people in a religious organization don’t have harmony, each member will do and act like what they want, criticize each other so there will always be problems, no result or success in anything.

Even in this world if everyone one practice harmony, our world will be more peaceful, no war and it will be a loving world where everyone are happy.

Here are the 6 attitudes from Buddha to create the harmony in society.
1.   Body : have a good manner by having the virtuous actions ie act with compassion, support each other, respectful, not harm others
2.   Speech : Talking without divisive speech, gossip, harsh words, lying, argument which make others suffer.
3.   Mind : living peaceful with each other by compassion, thoughtful, no jealousy, no hatred, no malice, no revenge and forgive
4.   Share the benefits with everybody : not selfish and sharing
5.   Keep a good discipline : follow the rules and regulations
6.   Agree, accept and follow the majority opinion, improve the attitude to think about other, listen other opinions.

[Poonlarp]

Thanks people for sharing these, yes like what Bambi says, not only Buddhist organization need harmonious, we all need to be harmony with the people around us.

Specifically mentioned by Khedrub for Buddhist center, I think because Buddhist center is a place helping to grow harmonious among people, so it's important for a Buddhist center to have inner harmonious first.

Like rowing a boat, if the people on the boat are paddling to different direction due to not agree to each other, the boat will just spinning around and not moving any where. When everyone agrees to each other, tolerate to each other, the direction is clearer, and then they can paddle to the same direction, the speed of the boat will be faster moving to the destination.

The inharmonious in Buddhist center not only will cause it not growing, it drives people away and slowly it will become smaller and smaller. It doesn't serve the purpose of being a Buddhist organization at all.

[Tenzin K]

Harmony (avirodha or sahita) is the smooth, pleasant and non-contentious functioning together of two or more things. The Buddha often spoke of the need and also the desirability of harmony within and between groups of people. Some of the things contributing to what he called ‘the progress of a society’ (aparih?niy? dhamma) are the ability ‘to meet together in harmony, adjourn in harmony and conduct business in harmony’. The former murderer A?gulim?la was echoing the Buddha’s sentiments when he said: ‘Let my enemies hear from time to time the Dhamma of those who speak of patience and in praise of harmony, and let them live in accordance with it’.

The Buddha once asked several of his monk disciples how they were able to live together ‘in harmony, mutual appreciation and agreeability, like milk and water mixed, regarding each other with the eyes of love’. One of them, Anuruddha, replied, ‘I always consider what a blessing it is, what a real blessing, that I am living with such companions in the spiritual life. I think, speak and act with love towards them, both in public and in private. I always consider that I should put aside my own wishes and acquiesce to what they want and then I do that. Thus we are many in body but one in mind.’

[Big Uncle]

During the course of one’s study and practice , after a while it might be useful to stop a moment and reflect on whether our views on anything have changed .
For example:
Why I must not get angry ?
The usual way of thinking could be :
I don’t look good.  I might get slapped back. I get upset. I upset others.
The Buddhist way of thinking :
According to karma. I will keep meeting angry people the rest of my life n future lives. I will be reborn ugly and unpopular. I may get what I want temporarily in this life by shouting down at others,  but I lose ultimately as I go down the lower realms. I may  control others through anger but I cannot win their love.

I have also been reflecting on the following :
Why is it important to have harmony in a religious organization ?
Can anyone share based on Buddhistic thinking?

Well, I would like to address the Buddhist way of thinking about anger first. I believe I have read that anger is one the most destructive delusions we have. It can ruin huge stores of merit in an instant and it has the extreme danger of making us lose control of our minds by making us think extremely negative thoughts and acting on them without thinking of the logical consequences.

People who are extremely angersome are seen to almost have 2 minds. They may be logical and almost bashful when calm but when provoked, all hell broke loose and all proper demeanor goes out the window. Like all delusions if kept unchecked, it becomes a bigger and bigger problem as time passes. The scary part is that every moment we abide with an angry mind, we create a cause to be born in hell. So, if we are very angersome, we creating many possible chances that we will take rebirth in hell when we die.

In any organisation (religious or secular), stability and growth is determined by only one factor, how well each member work together. If there's a communication breakdown or people are not aligned to the cause of the organization, the organization would fail to deliver results. In this case, the spiritual organization would fail to deliver spirituality to people. Hence, without harmony, the spirituality of the organization would falter.

[biggyboy]

In any religious organization, it is usually a gathering of all kinds of people, possibly not always looking for the same thing.

Different people come to a religious organization looking for different things, some are looking for religious guidance, some out of curiosity, and some come after certain understanding and wanting to know more,  some for peace of mind, some looking for a ‘divine’ help and some hoping that it will improve their present condition in life. Based on these one can see the diversity in the people that come and with it the differences in opinions, beliefs and commitments.

Therefore for any religious organization to flourish and grow there must be harmony amongst ourselves and members with similar aspirations and motivation towards a common goal and mission.  Discord and dissent will cause disharmony and lead to much unhappiness and ultimately the collapse of an organization.

Ironically, in today's world, many are unable to live in harmony with other people.  Harmony is not just about people, we tend to forget about animals and vegetation too! The awareness of protecting life and our living environment has been highlighted very much in recent time though it has been brought up long time ago.  I have chanced upon this site and would like to share with everyone that we tend to discuss about just human mankind but we have forgotten the other aspect of living beings and nature  that are also equally important for us to live in harmony with.
 
http://niceartlife.com/?p=4166

In fact, Buddhism represents the way of compassion. The Buddha manifested a complete compassion and is respectfully seen as the compassionate protector of all beings. He taught that for those who wish to follow his path should practice loving-kindness, not to harm the life of all beings – not only to protect mankind, but also to protect animals and vegetation. With his perfect wisdom, the Buddha saw all beings in the universe were equal in nature, and in this world, lives of all human and animals were inter-related, mutually developing, and inseparable.

However, men have seen themselves as the smartest and most developed species of all beings. They have misused and abused their power and selfishly destroyed species of animals, forests, mountains, natural resources, and finally reaping the results of destroyed living environment of their own. All those damages and destruction to the ecology system up to an alarming level are originated from the unwholesome and greedy mind of mankind. While the animals are seen as low-level beings, however fearsome as tigers and wolves may be, they never destroy nature as badly as we humans do. Only humans cause the most devastating destruction on our dear planet Earth, our own habitat.

The external environment is seriously polluted because the internal environment in the human mind is seriously damaged. The bottomless greed has pushed mankind to satisfy excessive and unnecessary demands, and take them into endless competitions, leading to self-destruction and environmental damage. Contrasting to the unwholesome and greedy mind is the spirit of simple living and contentment by those who practice the Buddha’s teaching.

[Klein]

To have harmony, one needs to have control of oneself. When we practice the 8 verses of  Thought Transformation as written by Geshe Langri Tangpa, we notice that there will be harmony. These 8 verses are a summary of all of Buddha's teachings. As my lama says, if we can master the follow 8 verses, we will be very attained.

8 Verses of Thought Transformation

With the thought of attaining enlightenment
For the welfare of all beings,
Who are more precious than a wish-fulfilling jewel,
I will constantly practice holding them dear.

Whenever I am with others
I will practice seeing myself as the lowest of all,
And from the very depth of my heart
I will respectfully hold others as supreme.

In all actions I will examine my mind
And the moment a disturbing attitude arises,
Endangering myself and others,
I will firmly confront and avert it.

Whenever I meet a person of bad nature
Who is overwhelmed by negative energy and intense suffering,
I will hold such a rare one dear,
As if I had found a precious treasure.

When others, out of jealousy,
Mistreat me with abuse, slander and so on,
I will practice accepting defeat
And offering the victory to them.

When someone I have benefited
And in whom I have placed great trust
Hurts me very badly,
I will practice seeing that person as my supreme teacher.

In short, I will offer directly and indirectly
Every benefit and happiness to all beings, my mothers.
I will practice in secret taking upon myself
All their harmful actions and sufferings.

Without these practices being defiled by the stains of the eight worldly concerns,
By perceiving all phenomena as illusory,
I will practice without grasping to release all beings
From the bondage of the disturbing unsubdued mind and karma.

[dondrup]

I have also been reflecting on the following :
Why is it important to have harmony in a religious organization ?
Can anyone share based on Buddhistic thinking?

A Buddhist organization is setup to benefit others.  The success or failure of the Buddhist organization is dependent upon the collective effort of the members of the community in that organization. Where there is a common vision and unity of the members of the community, things can manifest easily and projects can carried out quickly and smoothly.

Where there is disharmony, there is a division in a community.  In Buddhism creating a schism in a sangha community is heavy negative karma which is one of the ?ve sins of immediate retribution.

Disharmony arises because individuals put their self-interest higher than the common goals of the entire organization.  When there is disharmony, the organization cannot function efficiently and meet its goals.  It may even cause the closure of the organization.

[Dondrup Shugden]

When everyone in any community chose to have harmony, the creation in the space will be achieving the goals and results set.  In the practice of harmony every one participating will be helped to rid of anger, impatience, intolerance and schism through speech or what we call careless whispering.  It will also create good values like love, kindness and acceptance.

It is even more so in a Buddhist organisation as people come to such organisations for refuge from pain and sufferings and it is imperative that such a conducive environment is in these spaces which behold the Buddhist Dharma.

My Lama has always taught us to have harmony in our organisation so that we can grow and the Dharma to spread in 10 directions to serve others.

[cookie]

When we talk about harmony we think of words like " pleasing effects, tranquility, peace, working well together in a group etc ". Such positive effects in one self and others as well. In pursuit of compassion, equanimity, boddicitta , there must be elements of harmony within ourselves as well as with those around us. Hence it is absolutely important to inculcate harmony in our lives. It helps us to attain the ultimate goals.

[MoMo]

Why do we always encountered teachings in the dharma continuously emphasized on the importance of harmony . The very first reason that I could think of is the repercussion of disharmony that could lead to schism amongst Sangha  is one will go to hell without  respite . In the “ Liberation in the Palm of your Hand” it mentioned that a Sangha that was harmony was luminous and the Tathagata was not much concern . When we are truly being  in harmony , which also means we are practising  abandoning the eight worldly concern which is the core practice of Buddhist’s teachings.

[kris]

Yes, it has been said by many research that harmony is the number 1 key ingredient for a successful company, successful family etc. When there is no internal conflict, the people can have a peace of mind to tackle whatever other issues presented.

Also, being harmony is about not complaining others, but picking up what is left off by others, and do it happily. I think that is very important..

[grandmapele]

Thank you ratnashugden and bambi for the sharing and being very clear on the attributes and benefits of having harmony around us and within us. Being at peace from harmony allows us the focus to concentrate on our practice as well especially for beginners who are more easily disturbed and distracted.

[Shugdener]

It is not just important to have harmony within a temple or Buddhist community but also to have harmony with the people around us such as neighbors, friends, and family.

Harmony is important because as Buddhists who believe in karma, what goes around will eventually come around. If we are kind and spread good and  positive attitude, people will treat us in the same way. If we are rude and spread a negative attitude around, the same will come back to us.

We should also practice to not hang on to small issues and use it as a grudge against another person. If that person has offended us, we should not retaliate as this creates more disharmony.