About Awakening Karma
Awakening Karma explores suffering, healing, recovery, and what it means to live with greater awareness and freedom. It is for people navigating difficult experiences, questioning familiar answers, or searching for a spiritual path that leaves room for curiosity and honest doubt.
Why I created this
I’m Ben Taylor. My own recovery led me toward Buddhist practice, meditation, and a deeper examination of how I was living. As my life changed, the questions expanded beyond substances and behaviors. What was I reaching for? What was I avoiding? How could I respond to difficulty with more awareness and compassion?
Awakening Karma grew from that exploration, and from wanting to share ideas and practices that others might find useful in their own lives.
Recovery remains an important part of this work. But the questions reach into everyday life: how we respond to loss, relate to uncertainty, understand ourselves, and find connection and meaning.
What informs this work
Buddhist thought and practice provide an important foundation, particularly the Four Noble Truths and the invitation to understand suffering through our own experience.
I also draw from psychology, philosophy, modern approaches to recovery, and teachers such as Burgs, Alan Watts, Tara Brach, and Ram Dass. Recovery Dharma has been an important part of my own practice and community.
These influences offer perspectives to explore, question, and put into practice. You do not need to identify as Buddhist or hold any particular religious belief to take part.
What I bring
I am currently studying addiction counseling and am a dedicated student of internationally recognized teachers whose work explores mindfulness, lovingkindness, and acceptance. These teachings inform both my own practice and what I share through Awakening Karma.
Alongside that education, I bring my own experience of recovery, ongoing meditation and Buddhist practice, and involvement in recovery community and peer mentorship. I continue to learn through study, service, and listening to other people.
The reflections shared here grow from that experience and learning. Awakening Karma offers educational resources and opportunities for exploration; it does not provide clinical treatment.
An invitation to explore
There is no single path being offered here. Some people find meaning through faith, others through meditation, nature, relationships, service, or a growing understanding of their own experience.
The intention is to make room for thoughtful exploration: taking seriously what helps, questioning what does not, and discovering how insight can become part of the way we live.
You are welcome to begin wherever you are.