Meditation Archives - Madhu Bazaz Wangu
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Meditation

FIVE-STAR REVIEW: UNBLOCK YOUR CREATIVE FLOW

LOOK WHAT I RECEIVED TODAY! Reader's Favorite 5-star review! Reviewed by Asher Syed for Readers’ Favorite Author Madhu Bazaz Wangu, Ph.D., offers a systematic 365-day program in her self-help book Unblock Your Creative Flow: 12 Months of Mindfulness for Writers and Artists. The book aims to increase the creativity and productivity of those in the fields of writing and art. In order to help people reach and maximize their full creative potential. . . This all-encompassing strategy takes into account a person's bodily, mental, and spiritual needs to enable intentional and meaningful living. “An inner journey like this that you have chosen to walk upon demands commitment,” says Dr. Madhu Bazaz Wangu, but I can assure you that Unblock Your Creative Flow rarely feels like a book of self-help chores. Yes, commitment is essential...

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Abundance and Mindfulness

Mindfulness Fructifies in Abundance (Cont.) I’m grateful for the place we are moving into—the apartment, the neighborhood, the city and the state. I’m grateful for going to be closer to our children and grandchildren. Grateful for a home that would have all the conveniences one needs at our age, mid-70’s. And I’m thankful to the universe for little and big things. Gratitude has brought abundance into my family.  When we settle within with attention and awareness, we become one with our consciousness. Our attentive presence focuses more on what is right inside us and outside us, than what is wrong. We feel grounded. We feel good. Don’t let yourself . . .  Continued at my Author Page: https://www.facebook.com/madhubazazwangu/ ...

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Marvelous Japaese Woodcut Prints

Mindfulness and Japanese Prints

Mindfulness and Looking at Art Remember last month, to be precise on June 13th, I wrote a post about going to Carnegie Art Museum to see, “Japanese Printmakers, 1912-2022”? But I was disappointed because this show had not yet open. We ended up seeing Joan Brown’s retrospective instead. And how her emotionally charged and painterly works introduced me to an artist I did not know that had left me invigorated and inspired? The show of woodblock prints has finally opened. Last Friday I got to mindfully saunter through “Japanese Printmakers, 1912-2022” on view until February 2024. If you love Japanese woodcut prints as much as I do, this exhibition is a must see. Japanese printmakers have been and continue to practice and adapt to their centuries old art tradition for technological age. The...

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Matters of Mindfulness and More

Matters of Mindfulness, Mindful Writers Groups and More (Cont.) At the end of October, we are moving from Wexford, Pennsylvania to Ashburn, Virginia to be closer to our daughter. Never has mindfulness been more helpful to me than it is now. Moving to a new home from the one where you have lived for thirty years is believed to be a traumatic experience as traumatic as death of a loved one, divorce, major illness or job loss. The in-between period can overwhelm you, bring you down or depress you. But with mindfulness as my tool I’m going through such a negative experience with self-awareness and loving attention to the tasks at hand. And to my own surprise I feel no stress, regrets or nostalgia midst all this emotional disarray. Remember me, the one...

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From Mindful Path to Mindfulness

From Mindful Path to Mindful Writers Groups

From Mindful Path to Mindful Writers Groups (Cont.) One of ways in which invisible realities that our eyes can’t see, ears can’t hear and mind can’t comprehend are made visible, audible and comprehensive by creativity and imagination. I believe creativity is rooted in spirituality. Like creation of life, artworks seemingly conjure from nowhere and nothing. I am the one who writes or paints but the process itself is guided by an inner source from which new ideas bubble forth. At the same time, the universe assists by sending cues and clues. Once birthed, an artwork has a life of its own. To be able to create one must be completely devoted and dedicated to one’s art whatever it may be. As an author I have a morning routine that I have diligently...

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On A Mindful Path (Cont.)

On A Mindful Path (Cont.) Not until I was in my mid 50’s did I felt a need to ask myself, is this all there is? The question had taken a permanent seat at the back of my mind since my voyage around the world. The things that had excited me once no longer did.  With the practice of Writing Meditation, the braided practice of journaling, meditation, deep reading, nonverbal activities and, of course writing, I was on my way to integrating my fragmented self. In time, the practice helped me connect to the spiritual space within, my inner guide, my true Self.  Many of you already know that our true self is the inner compass that dwells within us. It points us toward the right direction only after we harness with it...

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Looking at my Reflection

Self Contemplation

From Carefree to a Mindful Path (Cont.) Creating collage-drawings gave me some closure. A new chapter of my life began. Experiencing birth and death simultaneously had morphed my sensibility. I started to meditate when I was teaching at the University of Pittsburgh and began writing daily in a journal after my 50th birthday. I’ve described what, why and how of these two disciplines in my latest work, Unblock Your Creative Flow: 12 Months of Mindfulness for Writers and Artists. (Published April 2023).  In time, I was able to link what was going on outside me with what was going inside. The daily practice helped me integrate my body, heart and mind with the spirit which I called my Authentic Self. I was on my path to become whole. Curiosity about human condition of...

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Mourning with my Mother

My Path to Mindfulness

From Carefree to Mindful (Cont.) Mindless I never was. I was happy-go-lucky and carefree. Last child of my parents, I was pampered by them and later pandered to by my husband. Even after I became a mother to our adorable firstborn, my attitude didn’t change much.  Most people function well in their daily life without being self-aware. But such individuals are unable to live their peak mental level. But so many others become mindful. Why and how that happens has many reasons. Something jolts them out of their slumber.  In my case, it was triggered by the deaths of my near and dear ones. First my brother was killed in an automobile accident shocking us all. Each grieved in different ways but before we could give our sorrow a closure my heartbroken mother...

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What Are You?

"This is one of your best books, if not the best," said my husband about my recent publication, "Unblock Your Creative Flow: 12 Months of Mindfulness for Writers and Artists." Then he added, “You were not always mindful! Were you?” Good that he had complimented me before asking this question. Seriously, I was not. The seed of mindfulness was sown when I was in my early 30’s. Since then I have learned to be mindful in spurts.  What was I before I became mindful, self-aware and attentive? Before I was mindful I lived a fragmented life, similar to Dorothy in the book Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum. Carefree Madhu’s body skipping on the yellow brick road, her mind, heart and boldness skipping along her as the scarecrow, the tinman and the...

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Meditating Buddha as the Healer

The Buddha Image

The Buddha's images we are familiar with do not represent the historic prince Siddhartha who after his enlightenment became known as Gautama Buddha. They are symbolic representation of the great teacher. At the age of 29, legend says, Siddhartha left his expansive palace for the first time. Walking through the town with his charioteer, Channa he saw an old man, a sick man, a corpse being carried to the cremation ground and a monk under a tree in meditation. He asked Channa to explain what was wrong with the people he had seen and who was only healthy man in saffron color robes. The charioteer truthfully explained the sights. The price was traumatized and right away decided to follow the way of the monk. As the price he had long hair,...

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