The Four Harmonious Brothers

The Four Harmonious Brothers

Date of Advice:
May 2018
Date Posted:
April 2020

Advice about construction of a statue of the four harmonious friends, dictated to Ven. Ailsa Cameron in Bendigo, Australia. The four animals, an elephant, a monkey, a rabbit and a bird, lived in the forest and spread harmony to the other animals, creating peace and prosperity in the whole kingdom.

The Four Friends, by Lama Zopa Rinpoche.

For the four harmonious brothers that you are going to build, the elephant should offer a few apples with a durian in the center, on the end of its upraised trunk.

The monkey should be taking an apple from the elephant with one hand and giving an apple to the rabbit with the other upraised hand.

The rabbit should be taking the apple from the monkey with one hand and giving smaller fruit, maybe grapes, to the bird with its other upraised hand.

The bird is holding grapes in its mouth.

In this way the animals are helping each other through giving and it shows harmony.

There should be a big sign with the benefits of having the four harmonious brothers. At the end of the benefits, it should say: "When there’s a lot of disharmony in a Dharma center, an office, a company or a family, then you should put pictures of the four harmonious brothers around. This helps to bring harmony and success."

The four brothers have to be happy, pleased, not sad animals. The bird should not be a chicken but a bird that flies. And it seems the animals don’t have to be in a particular order.