Karmacology: Mindful Living, Sacred Practice

Your Mind is Your Predicament


If you don't get what you want, you suffer; if you get what you don't want, you suffer; even when you get exactly what you want, you still suffer because you can't hold on to it forever. Your mind is your predicament. It wants to be free of change. Free of pain, free of the obligations of life and death. But change is a law, and no amount of pretending will alter that reality.
-- Dan Millman, The Way of the Peaceful Warrior

Photo by ATENCION:

When Belief Bumps Up Against Solid Reality


We are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield.
-- George Orwell

Photo by URIZIRU

That's the Way Things Come Clear


That's the way things come clear. All of a sudden. And then you realize how obvious they've been all along.
-- Madeleine L'Engle

Photo by WenDee

The First Cool Autumn Wind


Even among those
Who think themselves indifferent
To most things,
It touches the very soul,
This first cool autumn wind.
--Saigyo

Photo by Ming chai

Warrior Spirit: Fear Can Never Enter Your Heart


So live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart. Trouble no one about their religion; respect others in their view, and demand that they respect yours. Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life. Seek to make your life long and its purpose in the service of your people. Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide. Always give a word or a sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend, even a stranger, when in a lonely place. Show respect to all people and grovel to none. When you arise in the morning give thanks for the food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself. Abuse no one and no thing, for abuse turns the wise ones to fools and robs the spirit of its vision. When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song and die like a hero going home.
-- Chief Tecumseh, Shawnee Nation

Photo by country_boy_shane