Meditation Archives - Page 5 of 24 - Madhu Bazaz Wangu
4
archive,paged,category,category-meditation,category-4,paged-5,category-paged-5,ajax_fade,page_not_loaded,,select-theme-ver-2.1,vertical_menu_enabled, vertical_menu_width_290,side_menu_slide_from_right,wpb-js-composer js-comp-ver-6.9.0,vc_responsive
 

Meditation

Tuesday, March 4, 2025

Posted on March 3, 2025
in Meditation, Meditation & Journaling at Ashby Ponds, Spirituality
2 Comments

By now you know the meditation we practice is Vipassana or Insight meditation. Vipassana is pure exercise in attention and awareness. When we practice it, we have to toss everything in our mind except pure awareness of sitting. This is not easy to do. We keep practicing diligently and one day our conscious thought, the ego, moves like a cloud and lets the sun of awareness shine. The pure awareness hides behind our ego which is nothing but our reactions to people and events and mental images that hide awareness.  To clear the cobwebs of ego we focus on our breath, the inhalations and exhalations at the tip of our nose. Such focus takes us deeper and deeper and makes us aware of our sensations, feelings and thoughts, in short our life experiences. We learn...

Read More

Tuesday, February 25, 2025

Posted on February 25, 2025
in Journaling, Meditation, Meditation & Journaling at Ashby Ponds, Spirituality
6 Comments

Just as plants have the capacity to bring scented flowers to life, as black rock can crystalize into a glittering diamond, and as an egg can grow to become a captivating dancing peacock, you too can transcend into an Authentic Self. When you are fully present in the now, when you are embodied, whole and grounded, you are at your truest self. Let the intelligence of your body,  your mind and the emotions of your heart inform you, awaken you, and guide you days. How can you do this? How can we become true to yourself? How can you get linked to your Authentic Self?  By practicing journaling, breathing exercises and meditation. These practices will remove the masks you tend to put on to be someone you are not. Be present as you are....

Read More

Thursday, February 20, 2025

Posted on February 19, 2025
in Daily Reflections 2025, Journaling, Meditation, Meditation & Journaling at Ashby Ponds, Spirituality
4 Comments

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...

Read More

Thursday, February 13, 2025

Posted on February 12, 2025
in Meditation & Journaling at Ashby Ponds
0 Comments

We are not naturally mindful. But mindfulness can be cultivated and developed through the deliberate use of attention and awareness. Eventually with practice, the two faculties merge to become one. This results in an expansion and strengthening of our conscious power. With the daily ritual of deliberate breathing exercises and journaling, you are training your mind to pay attention to the thing in hand as well as to “stand back” and become aware of it. When this happens, it changes everything about the way you think, speak and act. You get glimpses of your Authentic Self. What you trust, what you truly value and believe in. You begin to pay attention to the intuitive ideas that cross your mind. Your creative flow is effortless and insightful. All this reflects in the quiet...

Read More

Tuesday, February 11, 2025

Posted on February 10, 2025
in Journaling, Meditation, Meditation & Journaling at Ashby Ponds, Spirituality
2 Comments

Some notes on Attention and Awareness. ATTENTIONWe are born with limited conscious power. But there is a way we can expand and strengthen it. Fortunately we are already practicing the two of these breathing exercises (which will eventually train us for meditation) and journaling. The job of attention is to focus on one object at a time outside of the general field of consciousness. It is energized by our conscious power. For instance, as you breathe, you pay attention to the sensations of air going in and out of the nostrils; as you journal, you pay attention to the words you are writing; and finally when you read you step into a literary dream the book creates.   AWARENESSLike attention, awareness also gets its energy from conscious power. As you pay attention to the...

Read More

Thursday, February 6, 2025

Posted on February 5, 2025
in Meditation, Meditation & Journaling at Ashby Ponds
6 Comments

The word “meditation” is often confused with “mindfulness.” Meditation is the discipline of sitting still in a particular posture in silence and solitude with focus on the breath. (You will learn more about it in Month 3.) Mindfulness is a state of total awareness of the mind that results from the daily practice of meditation. Mindfulness Meditation is also name of a meditation and is one of many meditations people practice such as Body Scan, Loving Kindness, Guided meditations and so on.   You have practiced focusing your attention on your breath. In so doing, you watch your own mind in the present moment. You witness yourself from a short distance. This is similar to looking at your own reflection in a life-size mirror. The way you study your face, your torso, the...

Read More

Tuesday, January 4, 2025

Posted on February 3, 2025
in Journaling, Meditation & Journaling at Ashby Ponds, Spirituality
3 Comments

My earliest attempts at journaling during the time of extreme trauma led me deeper into journaling. Within the span of eighteen months, my youngest brother was killed in an automobile accident, soon after that my mother passed away and my father followed her within a few months. This was the time when I also gave birth to our second child. She along with daily pouring out of emotions in words kept me sane and brought me back to my senses when I was in doldrums. Journaling was the source of emotional relief and healing. The practice transformed my life. I simply poured out my distress and despondence, pain and sadness on the pages. It didn’t matter what I wrote, only that I did. The very process of journaling kept me calm...

Read More

Wednesday, January 30, 2025

Posted on January 29, 2025
in Journaling, Meditation & Journaling at Ashby Ponds, Spirituality
4 Comments

The starting point of discovering who you are,Your gifts your talents, your dreams, is being comfortable with yourself.Spend time alone. Write in a journal.                              (Robin Sharma) It has been a month since we started this practice. When you sit at your Spiritual Power Spot does a calm come over you?  At times when I’m faced with a “shitty” emotional problem I let go of the brick wall of expectations that my inner critic builds. If that doesn’t work (and here’s where my journal comes to my rescue), at the top of the page of my notebook I write, “What should I do? How can I solve this problem?” Instead of carrying  my grievances and complaints around I vent them in my journal as no one else seems to be as intimate as my journal. Journaling requires...

Read More

Tuesday, 28 January, 2025

Posted on January 27, 2025
in Journaling, Meditation & Journaling at Ashby Ponds
4 Comments

Self-doubt is one of the major emotions we go through. There are days when we feel overwhelmed and sluggish without any tangible reason. What can you do? Let a rainstorm of words from the heavy dark clouds of emotions and passing thoughts fall on the pages of your notebook. Trust that by the end of two to three pages it will shed light on things you were only partly aware of and it will present possible solutions to your listlessness. I started doing serious journaling in my early fifties after I changed my professions from teaching to becoming a freelance writer. It felt so good, I wondered why I had not started journaling sooner. Not only was I able to free my mind of distress but my heart also felt lightened.  Writing...

Read More

Thursday, January 23, 2025

Posted on January 22, 2025
in Journaling, Meditation & Journaling at Ashby Ponds, Writing
4 Comments

What you pour on the blank pages of your journal can be compared with autumn leaves. The mountain of dried leaves of your mental trash is all biodegradable. It decomposes into mulch. You sow few seeds and they sprout in fresh green saplings. It often happens, that upon rereading your journal after some time, you gain greater insight into the things that happened. Personal events gather universal significance. You realize such exchanges and events, good or bad, are human. You’re pleasantly surprised at where one year’s journaling has led you.  When I don’t journal for a while a restlessness gnaws at me. My mind feels muddled and overwhelmed with mosaic of petty thoughts and feelings. And when I do journal, it helps me heal my wounds, clear my mind. It affects the...

Read More