You Don’t ‘Do’ Dharma

I think we can say that dharma is not something that you ‘do’ as such. Rather, it’s something that due to various causes and conditions happens or arises in our mind.

It’s like how we experience a sudden change of mood and become sad. This change of mood, this ‘being sad’, is not something that we ‘do’, is it? It’s just something that happens, for reasons often unknown to us we feel a bit down. It is not something that we ‘do’, but something that happens in our mind. We are not ‘doing’ it.

Or we might be in a particularly joyful mood. This ‘being joyful’ is also not something that we ‘do’, is it? If so, then we would all try to ‘do’ it everyday. But it’s not like that. Who doesn’t like being joyful? But you can’t ‘do’ it, you can’t do ‘being joyful’. Again, it’s something that happens or arises in our minds, for reasons that we may not even be aware of.

And dharma is exactly the same. It is something that arises in our mind. If and when that happens, then there will be a definite and obvious change in us.

Advice given to a stubborn workaholic student on the 15th September 2019 in Nepal