Harmonious Society Through Tolerance and Understanding

VEN.SECK JIT HENG
PRESIDENT
MALAYSIAN BUDDHIST ASSOCIATION

A harmonious society comes from peaceful human hearts. Otherwise, harmony cannot be achieve. Deep down, humanity are self-centered, or even self-righteous, that is why humanity are often plight with negativity such as greed, hatred, distrust.

A quote from “Vimalakīrti-Nirdeśa-Sūtra” mentioned: “If you wish to attain Pure Land, you must first attain a peaceful heart.” This affirm that humanity must purify their own hearts, then a harmonious society shall follow naturally. With a peaceful mind, each and every actions taken shall be just. When humanity are confident and recognise the importance of moral values and justice, high morality and justice will become social norms, any individuals will realise and be ashamed of their wrongdoings and repent for it. The Sūtra also stated that: “when all beings are peaceful, so is the Pure Land.”

”One should treat others as one would like to be treated”, therefore, instead of demanding others to tolerate and forgive us, we should begin from ourselves. Specifically, this is known as equal benevolence to all. Only when benevolence is given to all in equal, a long lasting harmonious society could be maintain. As such, all depends on our hearts. This is why humanity must gain wisdoms and forgo biases in order to achieve serenity in our hearts, and thus harmonise our society.

In fact, benevolence is similar to mother earth, the former embraces every person and matters with understanding, forgiveness and tolerance, while the latter encompass millions of lives disregarding whether they are good or evil in nature. When humanity are willing to understand, forgive and tolerate each other, true harmony shall be achieve.

Corrupted human hearts will lead to disharmonious society; while peaceful human hearts shall contribute to a serenade society. I pray that humanity come to understand how influential their hearts could be and always strive to keep their hearts pure and peaceful in order to improve our society into a better environment.