The Importance of Building Good Relationships and Trust in Today’s Society Episode 1 2018/12/8 The Chapel at St. Ursula’s College, Toowoomba, Australia No：21-792-0001_en
Respected Mayor of the Toowoomba Regional Council, Cr Paul Antonio; the Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Toowoomba, Most Reverend Robert McGuckin; the Anglican Bishop for the Western Region, the Right Reverend Cameron Venables; faith representatives, friends from overseas, ladies and gentlemen, my warmest greetings to you！
Thanks to the organizers, the Toowoomba Interfaith Working Group (TIWG) and the Pure Land Learning College Association, who hold International Interfaith Peace Conference in Toowoomba. It’s great to see religious representatives and guests from Australia and around the world come together to exchange ideas on interfaith harmony and social solidarity. I’m very honoured to be invited to share my thoughts on ‘The Importance of Building Good Relationships and Trust in Contemporary Society’.
A society is an organic symbiosis in which people connect with one another. Everyone is a cell in the symbiosis that is interconnected and interdependent. With this interconnected relationship, everyone in the society forms a complex and inseparable relationship network. Like the system in an individual living being, the closer the cooperative relationships that the cells form, the healthier and more vigorous the living being will be. A plant is healthy and lush because every cell in its roots, stems, branches, and leaves work selflessly and tirelessly for the survival and development of the whole. In the final analysis, the power that connects these countless cells is a ‘one body’ relationship.
This kind of relationship is formed naturally not involuntarily. If cells or organs of a living being are unwilling to take care of each other, unwilling to work for or have conflicts with each other, the life force of this living being will end quickly. This kind of abnormal internal relationship completely violates the way of life of nature. From this, we can conclude that if people drift apart and become indifferent, even to the point of becoming suspicious and competitive, the social symbiosis will easily lose vitality and become sick.
In fact, the inner meaning of life and the ‘oneness’ between life can be easily observed in the interaction between a mother and her child. The mother-child relationship shows the most powerful connection between people. In this relationship, there is no indifference, suspicion or selfishness. It only consists of an unconditional, selfless love and unconditional trust. We can see that, if a mother doesn’t have altruistic love for her child or if a child doesn’t have unreserved trust in the mother, human life would not continue for long. We can assume that, for the continuity and development of life, there is no other biological power that is stronger than that of mother-child relationship. The essence of this unparalleled power is love and trust. Unconditional love and absolute trust.
From this kind of the most primitive and precious natural forces that sustain our lives, we can see that the essential power for maintaining the long-term survival of society should be ‘love’ and ‘trust’.. When love and trust become increasingly weak in a society, the connections between people will become increasingly fragile. If love and trust hardly exist, the connections between people would completely collapse and would not withstand the smallest challenge.
The mother-child relationship is the most harmonious model of human relationships. This relationship model is familiar to us. The closer we look at it, the more moved we feel. ‘Oneness’ is the pinnacle of a harmonious relationship. We are fortunate enough to observe this connection between mother and child. Since this pure love and trust can bring about the most harmonious human relationship, we should build interpersonal relationships as well as peace in the world and a harmonious society on the basis of love and trust. Let love, tolerance, and trust become pillars of all interpersonal relationships. We will thus have hope and will find a way to develop harmony for society.
Harmonious intra-organizational relationships are very important to a society. The distinguished British historian and philosopher, Dr Toynbee once reminded us that a loss of harmony in a society will inevitably lead to that society losing its ability to survive. Dr Toynbee found that, throughout history, on the eve of the collapse of every civilization, all levels of society within the civilization will be in a state of division. Dr Toynbee told us that the root cause of the decline of a civilization and the ultimate standard for its decline is actually the loss of harmony within this society.
From Dr Toynbee’s words, we can realise that ‘harmony’ is indeed very important. In contrast, ‘competition and conflict’ is truly frightening. Competition is a sign of fighting to get ahead; conflict precedes destruction. Understanding this, we must remain vigilant. We just talked about a mother’s love for her child and a child’s unconditional trust in the mother. Actually, trust originates from a love that does not differentiate and the ‘oneness’ relationship between a mother and her child. Therefore, we can say that love is the strongest connection between people. Love guides us back to the original oneness relationship of life and to the purest trust between people.
Unconditional love will lead to various positive social interactions, which in turn form solid and harmonious social networks. The scriptures and history of the world’s major religions provide us greater confidence and deeper reflection.
In the Holy Bible, God said to his children, ‘As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you’. From this text, we can see that, God uses the same unconditional love towards his children as a mother for her child, to connect with and help his child. The power of unconditional love provides such a connection between God and his children that it transcends time and space, enduring till today.
The Prophet Muhammed’s words and the history of Islam give us confidence as well. In the history of Islam, when the Prophet Muhammed fled from Mecca to Medina, he had succeeded in spreading Islam and won many followers on the Arabian Peninsula. The Prophet didn’t have any political or military power to force the people in Arabian Peninsula to accept the Islam belief. He connected with the hearts of people through Islamic education. This strongly bolstered the stability and harmony of the region as well as bringing people together in shared faith and values.
The reason why the Prophet can do this is because he loves the people on behalf of Allah. In the Holy Quran, Allah told the Prophet Muhammad: ‘We have sent you for no other reason but to be a mercy for mankind’. Allah said in The Holy Quran: ‘There has certainly come to you a Messenger from among yourselves. Grievous to him is what you suffer; [he is] concerned over you and to the believers is kind and merciful.’ From this text, we can see that the Prophet’s love for people was sincere and merciful. Through this sincere and merciful heart, the Prophet was able to move and bring people together.
When we examine the history of Christianity, in particular the time after the New Testament was written, we will be moved by the social and spiritual solidarity, which was manifested from the great love. We saw in The New Testament that Jesus represented God to love the world and bring people together. The apostles further loved people on behalf of Jesus. With his great love, Jesus was a role model to show us how to regard each other. Therefore, Jesus was able to influence and unify the society. In The Holy Bible, Jesus said: ‘This is my commandment, that you love one another even as I have loved you’. The apostles spread out Jesus’s great love to people and also practised the great love of Jesus. This led to a Christian world that in the following centuries spanned Europe, Asia and Africa. A world in which beliefs and values are integrated, one in which people’s minds are spiritually connected.
In the Bible, Paul the Apostle narrated the secret behind this success. He said: ‘Nor did we seek glory from people, whether from you or from others, though we could have made demands as apostles of Christ. But we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children’. Saint Paul’s words showed us the intentions of the apostles, how they could unify people and bring harmony and stability to the society. The apostles are the role model to us, showing us how to help people form solid and harmonious relationships within communities and society. The model of love is very important. The apostles practiced Jesus’ great love. As the apostles practised the Jesus’ great love, when they told people to be compassionate and to love one another, their teachings manifested a power leading to strong social solidarity. These teachings were not only influential in ancient time, but have continued up to the present time.
In the Buddhist sutras as well, the Buddha showed us the intentions of Buddhas and bodhisattvas in helping all beings. In the Infinite Life Sutra, the intentions of the sages was epitomized in one sentence: ‘They regarded all beings as they would themselves’. These intentions are: ‘Great compassion is the root’. Having compassion for all beings, we will be able to obtain people’s trust, form harmonious relationships with others, and even build a harmonious and happy society. A harmonious society created from this mind is the Pure Land spoken of by Buddhists and heaven and the heavenly garden spoken of in religions. God, Allah, and the Buddha are role models for compassion and mercy, showing us the causality for going to heaven. We need to learn from them, learn how to love people and help them love and trust one another. Creating a heaven on earth.
As I mentioned earlier, the love and trust between a mother and her child is the best model for human relationships. However, with our acquired bad habits, we gradually drifted away from this unconditional love as we grew up. In light of this, how can we form harmonious relationships with others and thus contribute to the overall stability of society? We believe that people will eventually return to the wisdom taught in major religious scriptures.
When it comes to forming good relationships with others, I often share the public relations principles found in Buddhist sutras: the ‘four all-embracing methods’. It is a practical method for forming good interpersonal relationships, and consists of giving, kind words, beneficial acts, and cooperation. For many years, we have used this method to cooperate with other religions and ethnic groups. The results are significant.
The first principle is giving, which means being generous and helping others unconditionally. The second principle is ‘kind words’, which means saying caring words and making people feel warm and supported. The third principle is ‘beneficial acts’, which means doing things for others’ benefits instead of our personal gains. It’s very important that whatever we do, we always put others’ interests as the top priority. The last principle is ‘cooperation’, which means happily participating in events organised by others. For example, we can participate in and support charitable activities, moral education, and religious education, etc. organised by other religious communities. The key point of this method is to have sincerity in caring for and loving others. If we practise these principles with sincerity, we will achieve deeper, broader and more significant result.
Between people, ethnic groups and religious groups, it is important to meet often to form good relationships. In contrast, if people build barriers and don’t want to communicate with each other, it will lead to misunderstanding and suspicion. This would give opportunists a chance to incite quarrels among or within communities, leading to social unrest. We’re pleased that Toowoomba is becoming a role model for intercultural and interfaith harmony. This model has touched many peace-loving people, including ambassadors of UNESCO.
Over the years, we have been learning religious sacred texts proactively and experiencing the Dharma joy from studying these texts. Finally, I would like to sincerely quote from Christian and Islamic sacred texts. These two excerpts have served as my guidelines for lifelong learning. The texts are God’s sacred messengers’ blessings and guidance to humanity. The first excerpt is: ‘All of you should be of one mind. Sympathize with each other. Love each other as brothers and sisters. Be tenderhearted, and keep a humble attitude.’ The second excerpt is: ‘You see the believers as regards their being merciful among themselves and showing love among themselves and being kind, resembling one body, so that, if any part of the body is not well then the whole body shares the sleeplessness (insomnia) and fever with it.’ These two excerpts are from St. Peter’s words in The Holy Bible and the Prophet Muhammed's teaching in the Sahih al-Bukhari. By sharing these texts, I hope we can encourage each other to proactively put these sacred teachings into practice and thus build trusting and solid relationships with members within communities and even with all people around the world to help each other and create a harmonious and beautiful world.
In conclusion, I would like to send my sincerest wish for a successful conference! May happiness and well-being be with every guest! May religions learn from each other, resolve conflicts, deepen their friendships and bring peace to the world. May Australia and every country in the world be stable and prosperous. May the world be peaceful and happy. May universal harmony be with the world! Thank you very much！