Spirituality Archives - Madhu Bazaz Wangu
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Spirituality

Tuesday, April 22, 2025

Posted on April 21, 2025
in Meditation, Meditation & Journaling at Ashby Ponds, Spirituality
4 Comments

Not too far back I read about a monastery. It said, in 1957 an entire monastery in Thailand was being relocated by a group of monks. One day while moving a giant clay Buddha, one of the monks noticed a large crack. On closer investigation, he saw golden reflection emanating from inside. The monk used a hammer and a chisel to chip away the clay exterior until an image made of solid gold was revealed. Art historians believe that centuries earlier, monks covered an image of the Buddha made in solid gold with clay to protect it from attack by the Burmese army. The news fascinated me because here was a perfect metaphor about life hidden in the discovery. Our Authentic Self (Consciousness, Presence, True Self) is the golden Buddha shining...

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Tuesday, April 1, 2025

Posted on March 31, 2025
in Journaling, Meditation, Meditation & Journaling at Ashby Ponds, Nonverbal Activities, Spirituality
4 Comments

Some of you might be struggling with silent meditation practice. Here are a few suggestions for you to use. Hope this helps!  Establish a formal meditation time when and where you have minimal of distraction. It is crucial to sit regularly. Mornings are great, evenings are good too. Sit in the same place each time. You will associate that space with tranquility and therefore look forward to sitting.  The very act of sitting still in silence and solitude will settle your mental clutter and recharge your battery. Let the practice grow gradually and gently. Even ten minutes of silent meditation daily is very beneficial.  The purpose of Mindfulness Meditation is to transform your living experience. You now know  the difference between sensation, conscious thought, and emotion. You are learning how to meditate in the...

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Thursday, March 27, 2025

Posted on March 26, 2025
in Meditation, Meditation & Journaling at Ashby Ponds, Spirituality
6 Comments

This is the last Inspiration on meditation as next week we begin a month of “Mindfulness and Reading for Pleasure.” However, we continue the practices of Meditation and Journaling to strengthen our mindfulness. Mindfulness helps us see things as they truly are, with wisdom and without prejudices or biases that spring from anger, hatred, jealousy, greed and delusion. Relationship Between Body and MindWithout mind body is blind and without body mind is disable. Like a log, body can do nothing by itself except grow, decay and die. The mind can do nothing without the support of the body. But both together, as we know, they have power to connect us with our Authentic Self and teach us to be 100% honest with ourselves.    In our day-to-day life, we face unpredictable obstacles or advantages....

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Thursday, March 20, 2025

Posted on March 19, 2025
in Meditation, Meditation & Journaling at Ashby Ponds, Spirituality
2 Comments

By now you’ve discovered that meditation is simple but not easy. It is rather difficult to do. You ask yourself; then why do I practice it?  You practice it because a spirit of adventure dwells within us—a wondering and wandering spirit. But this spirit, the Authentic Self, that eventually awakens and communicates with us with an inner voice as gentle as air and as strong as a swan’s feather, does not reveal itself easily. We use meditation and journaling to dig deeper, excavate and connect with this fragile bond. On rare occasions you feel an unease coursing through your body. You think, I’m capable of so much more than what I am right now. Is there something I can do to get rid of this feeling?  You certainly can!  Such feelings emerge when your body, heart,...

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Tuesday, March 18, 2025

Posted on March 17, 2025
in Meditation, Meditation & Journaling at Ashby Ponds, Spirituality
5 Comments

The thought that your year-long journey of mindfulness meditation and journaling practice will reveal to you your hidden aptitudes and possibilities thrills me. You have ten bountiful months remaining to fulfill your goals. External events will not actualize them. Only your inner resolve will bring about the changes you intend. Your intentions may not unfold exactly the way you imagine them but one thing is certain, by the end of the year mindfulness would have helped you grow happier, kinder and wiser.  To grow into a better person the following attitudes toward meditation are essential during your practice: Sit as though you have the whole day to meditate. Relax, breathe naturally, and let the breath be your teacher. Follow it wherever it leads you.  Suspend any opinions and judgements.  Don’t expect anything. Whatever comes let it...

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Thursday, March 12, 2025

Posted on March 12, 2025
in Meditation, Meditation & Journaling at Ashby Ponds, Spirituality
4 Comments

“All our lives we are taught to look outwards,” says the Vipassana Meditation teacher S. N. Goenka. “We get accustomed to looking that way. But the only way to experience the ultimate truth is to look within.” Spirituality, Creativity and humanity are experienced simply by observing your own self. Paying attention to physical sensations, focusing on the knots in the belly, watching negative thoughts pass, by leads to self-understanding. Mindfulness holds our hand and points to our negative as well as positive emotions and thoughts. The practice teaches self-compassion and kindness toward others. It helps us to let go of mental clutter and connects us with our Authentic Self within. My introduction to meditation was in 1989 when our family moved from Pittsburgh to Massachusetts for four years. I was home alone,...

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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...

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Thursday, February 27, 2025

Posted on February 26, 2025
in Daily Reflections 2025, Nonverbal Activities, Reading, Spirituality, Writing
4 Comments

In The Happiness Project: Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun, bestselling author Gretchen Rubin writes that she had an epiphany one rainy afternoon in the unlikeliest of places – a city bus. “The days are long, but the years are short,” she thought. “Time is passing, and I’m not focusing enough on the things that really matter.” In that moment, she decided to dedicate a year to her own happiness. Reading her musings, I remembered how many decades ago it occurred to me that I could not change the world but I could change myself. But how? I reread the world wisdom books, researched new scientific literature on meditation and mindfulness, and read tons of...

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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....

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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...

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