We must even overcome harmony?
The division of our world into utopian and dystopian have their origin not so much in the human heart as they do in the human brain with the asymmetry between the left hemisphere and the right hemisphere.
By the way, this division is not always diametric; rather the division arises because there is little or no harmony (a kind of corrective oscillation between two differing sides is lacking).
In this regard, it is entirely possible to live a life of harmony in which a kind of corrective oscillation is going on between, let us say, the husband and the wife or the teacher and the student. But I dare say this is seldom achieved as one might wish. It seems that one is always viewing the matter from their own position: either accept my position or we remain opposed. Thus comes the sudden or gradual rise of disharmony. It rests on side-taking rather than transcendence.
In the matter of Zen, we must even overcome harmony since it can be easily transformed into disharmony. When we look at suffering or in Sanskrit, duḥkha, it is a kind of disharmony. This disharmony is the inevitable outcome of a life lived in maladaptive oscillations with others and one’s own being. We may escape others but we cannot escape our consciousness even in death. The inherent disparity within consciousness (vijñāna), itself, continues unbroken which makes individuation/nāmarūpa, inevitable. Only achieving nirvana is the answer which at the very least shows us the limits of even harmony.
