Thursday, February 20, 2025
Can we do something, anything about the happenings going on in our country and around the world—wars, fires, famines, floods? Darkness everywhere!
Or as the activist Valarie Kaur says, “What if this darkness is not the darkness of the tomb, but the darkness of the womb? What if our America is not dead but a country still waiting to be born? What if the story of America is one long labor?” And what is going to birth is something wonderful.
“The place to start is within ourselves,” writes Bhante Gunaratana in his book Mindfulness in Plain English. He goes on to say, “Look carefully inside yourself, truthfully and objectively and see what role I have to play in all this. If you do this and as soon as you make such a change within yourself, change will flow naturally.” Your intention has power.
Ask yourself what is my place in society? What are my obligations and my responsibility to my fellow human being? What about my responsibility to myself as an individual living with other individuals? How do I cultivate such mind as to have answers for the questions I just asked?
You are already on the path to cultivate a mind that will help you find answers and achieve understanding and peace. You have been practicing how to cultivate mindfulness inside out with the practice of attention and awareness. Together with journaling the disciplines purify your mind to a state of awareness. You experience concentration, insight and serenity.
Again quoting Bhante Gunaratana, “Good education polishes us but only superficially like a stone that is smoothened by running water through years. But the insides of even civilized people remain unchanged. But if the same stone is forged in the intense heat, it melts and changes inside out. Meditation is like that heat. It softens a person from within. You understand your true self and therefore understand others with without judging, without criticism or prejudice.”
With journaling you clear the trees, pull out the stumps, weeds and wild grass of your mind. You till its soil and fertilize it. In meditation you sow seeds, attend to what is important and grow and harvest the crop of trust, mindfulness, and wisdom. You pump energy and discipline into your mental soil.
In doing so, you begin to hear your true self. You trust it because you experience what it is like. Meditation makes you deeply aware of your own thoughts and words and deeds. Your arrogance evaporates. Your attention and thinking power sharpen. Your thoughts are clear and precise.
Well, all these are words and more words. Just practice Meditation and Journaling and see for yourself if they are worth the effort. Practice and see for yourself what happens.
Jennifer D. Diamond
Good afternoon, Madhu. Thank you for sharing these important quotes and ideas. I love the metaphor of how journaling clears the garden, and mediation plants and fertilizes. Thank you.
Madhu B. Wangu
Good evening dear Jenn,
Valarie Kaur’s quote is one of my favorites and I like the way you simplified the two metaphors. Love
Donna Lucas
Good evening. Madhu, these are wonderful quotes, and I agree that journaling and meditation can help clear our personal weeds and wild grasses.
But what to do about the darkness caused by others’ free will, the choices that affect our country and world? What to do when climate change is affecting the country and world? I think the answer may be that we have no power to help change the course of others or nature on a worldwide or national scale. Is that hopeless or realistic? I don’t know.
All I think I can do in person is in “my backyard” the locales in my profession, community, family, household, relationships, and organizations. On a larger scale, I don’t know what my responsibility is to society. I know that I, like all human beings, have the capability of adding love, learning, laughter, and light to some, but not all.
I’m specifically concerned about my youngest daughter (20) who has been carrying the weight of world issues since she learned about world issues as a teen. She wants to help, be informed, and do all she can to save humanity; earth, air, and water; plants, animals, and insects; and….
She is a Parks and Conservation Management major at SRU who has always embraced nature and doesn’t know what to do for the planet she wants to help. I suggest small things, but I don’t know how to get her to alleviate the individual burden of too much.
Any advice you can share is always valued. Thank you.
Madhu B. Wangu
Hi Donna,
Thousands if not millions of us are asking this question, how can I bring a flicker of light to this world darkness. We all can’t turn activist overnight but can certainly alleviate our own inner darkness of fears, anxieties and frustrations with daily journaling and meditation. Once our body and mind are still and calm our heart turns kind and generous. Such heart-minds have ripple effect that have power to affect others heart-minds.
I write this because that’s what I’ve been doing. I don’t have much physical energy to start a grassroots movement or protest against padlocked minds, lies, injustice and prejudice but I can certainly cultivate a mindset that is tranquil and peaceful and thus send out waves of goodwill and joy to the world.
Let’s do what we can do truthfully and with total devotion, change is bound to happen. Our intentions have power.