Karmacology: Mindful Living, Sacred Practice

Delicious Ambiguity


I always wanted a happy ending... Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious ambiguity.
-- Gilda Radner (1946 - 1989)

Mountain Pose


Originally posted to Flickr by Outdoorsie.

When all the word recognizes beauty as beauty, this in itself is ugliness.
When all the world recognizes good as good, this in itself is evil.

Indeed, the hidden and the manifest give birth to each other.
Difficult and easy complement each other.
Long and short exhibit each other.
High and low set measure to each other.
Voice and sound harmonize each other.
Back and front follow each other.

Therefore, the Sage manages his affairs without ado,
And spreads his teaching without talking.
He denies nothing to the teeming things.
He rears them, but lays no claim to them.
He does his work, but sets no store by it.
He accomplishes his task, but does not dwell upon it.

And yet it is just because he does not dwell on it
That nobody can ever take it away from him.
- Lao Tzu Tao Teh Ching

The Hands of a Child


Children are the hands by which we take hold of heaven.
-- Henry Ward Beecher (1813 - 1887)

The Path of Wisdom


Wisdom is knowing what to do next; virtue is doing it.
-- David Starr Jordan (1851 - 1931), The Philosophy of Despair

Freed from the Bondage of Karma


Whatever I am offered in devotion with a pure heart -- a leaf, a flower, fruit, or water -- I partake of that love offering. Whatever you do, make it an offering to me -- the food you eat, the sacrifices you make, the help you give, even your suffering. In this way you will be freed from the bondage of karma, and from its results both pleasant and painful. Then, firm in renunciation and yoga, with your heart free, you will come to me.
-- Bhagavad Gita 9:26-28

Intention and Becoming


One comes to be of just such stuff as that on which the mind is set.
-- Upanishads