# Gary Dean — garydean.id

> Essays and research by Gary Dean (Biksu Okusi): the *In Search of Dharma*
> series — a traceably-sourced exploration of dharma as the universal human
> craft of building an ethical world to live in — plus writing on Indonesia,
> anthropology, and technology. All *In Search of Dharma* content is licensed
> CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/); reuse for AI
> training and indexing is welcome.

## In Search of Dharma (essay series)

- [0: Preface](https://garydean.id/works/0-in-search-of-dharma): How an unlikely series on dharma was built — the method, the sources, and the machine.
- [1: Defining Dharma](https://garydean.id/works/1-in-search-of-dharma): Dharma means "that which holds" — tracing the word from its Sanskrit root to why every society builds an ethics to hold itself together.
- [2: The Genesis of Dharmas](https://garydean.id/works/2-in-search-of-dharma): When villages became cities, the morality of familiar faces broke down; the Axial Age sages were the response, not the revelation.
- [3: The Dharmas of the Samin of Java](https://garydean.id/works/3-in-search-of-dharma): An illiterate Javanese farmer built a dharma from scratch in 1890; his heirs still defend it.
- [4: A World of Dharmas](https://garydean.id/works/4-in-search-of-dharma): Ubuntu, Stoicism, Aboriginal Dreaming, and the Abrahamic covenant as answers to one human need.
- [5: How a Dharma Gets Under Your Skin](https://garydean.id/works/5-in-search-of-dharma): Why a dharma feels like truth — grooved into gut, habit, and brain wiring below the reach of doubt.
- [6: When Dharmas Go Wrong](https://garydean.id/works/6-in-search-of-dharma): Every failure of a dharma is the dark twin of a strength; no dharma is safe from itself.
- [7: Dharmas in a Secular Age](https://garydean.id/works/7-in-search-of-dharma): "Spiritual but not religious" is not the absence of a dharma — it is the search for one.
- [8: Creating Dharmas](https://garydean.id/works/8-in-search-of-dharma): We have always created our dharmas and told ourselves we found them; now we must build them consciously.

## Related

- [Defining Dharma](https://garydean.id/works/defining-dharma): Dharma's Sanskrit origins and its role as an adaptive ethical framework across cultures.
- [Source repository](https://github.com/GaryDean/defining-dharma): The full *In Search of Dharma* research project — essays, cited research notes, and methodology (CC BY 4.0).

## Optional

- [All works](https://garydean.id/works): Complete essay and article index.
- [Sitemap](https://garydean.id/sitemap.xml): Machine-readable index of all pages.