The Need for Organizations

The Need for Organizations

Date Posted:
May 2008

Rinpoche made the following comments on the need for organizations.

There is a need for organizations in order to be able to help others, to be able to help more sentient beings. As an individual we can't do much. We need to be organized. The hippie attitude, from the 1960s or 1970s—to live in the mountains or on a farm and be free to do what you want—would, of course, reject organizations, rules, and formal discipline. Of course, rules that don't benefit the mind and which harm others are good to be rejected. It is wise to reject organizations that are harmful to the minds of oneself and others. But the statement that individual people can create their own religion needs to be analyzed. If the religion has no meaning or is harmful, then it is wise to reject it.

The purpose of Dharma center organizations is for you and your friends to learn more, to deepen your understanding, to help each other, to inspire each other, and, most importantly, to develop realizations of the path to enlightenment. Then you can overcome the sufferings of samsara by ceasing the cause: delusion, by practicing together the Buddha's teachings, especially the three principle aspects of the path to enlightenment: renunciation, bodhicitta, and correct view.

You can achieve enlightenment by ceasing the subtle defilements when you practice the Mahayana path. By practicing the Mahayana path you achieve both freedom from samsara and full enlightenment. If you are looking for the best, longest-lasting, highest quality happiness, then look for enlightenment—especially to benefit others.

Another thing—and this is extremely important—as a group, you can educate other beings. You can teach them Dharma, introduce the path, and also introduce them to the idea that there is more than happiness just in this life. There is happiness in future lives, in all coming future lives, as well as the ultimate happiness—freedom from samsara and fullest enlightenment.

So, to help many people you need organizations. As a group, it's easy to help many others in many ways. Even for teaching Dharma, you need organizations. You need a place, facilities, and funds for many things, including teachers, to be able to help others. You need a director, a cook, a bookkeeper, an accountant—so many things to be able to do it efficiently. As you want to do more to benefit others more extensively, there is social service. Of course, the best social service is giving Dharma, which removes the root of others' sufferings.

So, that's the purpose, that is why we need organizations.