________________
The Nature of Our Nature
143
The first meaning of dharma is reality. When you reach a deep experience of your reality, you are able to remain steady. If you do not reach that steady island, then you will always be in a state of action, reaction, and interaction, continually dealing with the senses, desires, emotions, and thoughts. There is no end to them! No sooner is one desire fulfilled than another desire arises, like the ripples in the ocean. As the tide draws one out, it sends another one in.
How many ripples are you willing to stand and count? How many times are you willing to be pushed and pulled by the waves? Think of your life. Do you recall ever having said to yourself, "If I fulfill this objective, I will be happy”? That may have been five years ago, and that objective may have been fulfilled, but still you are not happy. One desire has subsided, but another has emerged. This is the nature of the mind when it does not discriminate desires and demands for objects and pleasures.
How can you be contented unless you reach some steady place in your life? Your dharma is that place. The experience of the joy of being with yourself is greater than any other joy in the world. There is no other experience which can surpass this inner peace and tranquillity.
It is your desires which have not allowed you to reach that core, that center, that reality. That is why you may not know the joy of calmness you can experience in contentment. Desires constantly take you away from your core. Even when you sit in meditation, there are ripples disturbing you. You may tell yourself that meditation is boring or tiring. You may say, "I sat for two hours and got nothing but exhaustion.” That is because you were not really meditating. You were wrestling with your mind. Where was there room for meditation?
When you reach that seat of consciousness where
