Karmacology: Mindful Living, Sacred Practice

Aim at the Sun


Aim at the sun, and you may not reach it; but your arrow will fly far higher than if aimed at an object on a level with yourself.
-- Joel Hawes

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Alter Lives; Alter Attitudes


The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind.
-- William James

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Every Day You May Make Progress


Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb.
-- Sir Winston Churchill

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You Have to Actually Practice


Cultivating mindfulness is not unlike the process of eating. It would be absurd to propose that someone else eat for you. And when you go to a restaurant, you don’t eat the menu, mistaking it for the meal, nor are you nourished by listening to the waiter describe the food. You have to actually eat the food for it to nourish you. In the same way, you have to actually practice mindfulness in order to reap its benefits and come to understand why it is so valuable.
-- John Kabat-Zinn, from Letting Everything Become Your Teacher: 100 Lessons in Mindfulness

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You Are That One


There is a tale among us, a legend preserved by the old tellers from the farthest distance of our past... It is said that upon the edge of the Earth at the end of time stands a lone man who holds the meaning of it all... It is said that he has mastered all skill and prowess that we desire, all restraint and calm, and has become perfection -- passion and mastery like unto the poised grandeur of mountains. And it is said, should ever one of us seek him out... and contest with him, we will learn the measure of our worth, in defeat or triumph. Therefore we are a seeking people. In each heart among us beats a yearning for this test and the knowledge it offers.

Yet the path which leads to him is unknown, has never been known. It is said that this path must not be known -- that it may only be found by one who knows without knowledge and has not come seeking the thing he seeks.

You are that one.
-- Stephen R. Donaldson, from The One Tree

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