Blog | Mindfulness, Meditation, Journaling & Walking in Nature
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Writings and Readings Blog

Madhu Bazaz Wangu

Tuesday, May 20, 2025

Posted on May 19, 2025
in #Neuroscience and Meditation, Flourishing, Meditation, Well Being
1 Comment

Here’s some food for the mind: An EEG (Electroencephalogram) waves represent the synchronous firing of neurons, primarily in the cerebral cortex and are detected through electrodes placed on the scalp. There are five main types of EEG waves: delta occur during deep sleep; theta during drowsiness; alpha when we relax or are awake with eyes closed; beta when we are alert, actively thinking or concentrating. Finally, gamma, the fastest brain waves occur during the moments when differing brain regions fire in harmony, such as moments of insight.  Gamma waves occur when the elements of mental puzzle click together. To get some sense of how it feels, try this: What one word can change each of these into compound words: sauce, pine, crab?OR imagine biting into a ripe juicy sweet peach. Suddenly your senses of sight, smell, taste, feel and sound mesh into a single...

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Thursday, 15 May, 2025

Posted on May 14, 2025
in #Neuroscience and Meditation, Flourishing, Well Being
2 Comments

A mind free from disturbance alleviates stress and suffering, a goal shared by science and meditative paths alike. Apart from contemplative calm and composure there is more practical potential within each and every one of us. Such a life is best described as flourishing or a life of Utter Wellness. Aristotle proposed the goal of life as the “Right Mean,” a quality between extremes such as risk-taking and cowardice, between self-indulgence and ascetic denial. He also stated that we are not virtuous by nature but we can become so by self-monitoring. Self-monitoring means the practice of noting our thoughts and acts in silence and solitude. This is something we are learning to practice when we focus on the breath.             Our feeling about life’s events determines our happiness. We find calm and clarity by distinguishing what...

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Tuesday, 13 May, 2025

Posted on May 13, 2025
in #Neuroscience and Meditation
2 Comments

Did you know that an experience repeated over and over again changes and reshapes your brain? That’s what a ballerina or a pianist or an Olympic swimmer does. Practice. Brain rewires itself in response to anything that is practiced over and over again. This is called “neuroplasticity.” Such an experience expands parts of brain and leave lingering neural marks on it.  Previously “neuroplasticity” was thought to occur only in children. In 1990’s intensive research showed that adult brain can also rewire itself. This finding challenged a long-standing dogma. The new discovery offered a scientific basis for how repeated training could create lasting mental traits in any field including contemplative practices such as meditation. The aim of our Meditation and Journaling Practice is to cultivate wholesome mental states and weaken unwholesome ones. And...

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Thursday, May 8, 2025

Posted on May 7, 2025
in Meditation, Spirituality
4 Comments

Practicing meditation frequently can produce pleasant states but real payoffs are lasting traits that result from practicing it diligently. Altered traits shape how we behave in our daily lives. The most compelling impact of meditation is not better health but a development of better nature. With years of practice it cultivates selflessness, equanimity, a loving presence, and compassion.  In 1987 the Dalai Lama organized meetings of leading scientists at Mind and Life Institute he has established in Dharamshala, Himachal Pradesh, India where he now lives. Its mission “to alleviate suffering and promote flourishing or utter wellness by integrating science with contemplative practices.” To debate, discuss and engage in serious research on meditation, he brought together a community of like-minded scholars and scientists from around the world who share this quest. The graduates...

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Tuesday, May 6, 2025

Posted on May 5, 2025
in Meditation, Spirituality
4 Comments

This month we’ll focus on Mindfulness and Neuroscientific research related with meditation. Mindfulness is part of an ancient tradition with countless benefits. It teaches how to calm down and pause, instead of reacting with your anger or irritability, you act without getting stressed or anxious. But originally the practice was not intended for such purposes. These are simply its side-effects. Easy and brief meditations are its spinoffs that have been adopted only recently. The original aim of meditation, still embraced in some cultures and circles, focusses on deep exploration of the mind to get insights into human consciousness.  A woman undergoing electroencephalography. Using fMRI and EEG (explained below) and a battery of cutting-edge data analysis for the last thirty years or so neuroscientists have been studying minds of Tibetan monks by...

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Thursday, May 1, 2025

Posted on April 30, 2025
in Reading
5 Comments

Reading to Heal In December 2023, I had my left knee replacement surgery. The pain was unbearable. For a few days post-surgery I experienced a few spurts of awakenings. These pikes of wisdom must have been due to the pain pills and the adjustment my leg was making with its new bionic part. I was in a state of deep consciousness that felt devoid of ego, spacious. And in those awakenings here’s what I realized: That billions of people around the world, similar to the health care workers I was surrounded with, are going about doing what they do each day – toil and struggle to make lives better for their families and themselves. And that majority of people are good. Through media – printed, visual, verbal – we are kept informed about...

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Tuesday, April 29, 2025

Posted on April 28, 2025
in Reading
3 Comments

Our brain can adapt, master new skills, store memories and information, and even recover after a traumatic brain injury. This is called neuroplasticity. The lifelong capacity of the brain to change and rewrite itself in response to the stimulation of learning and experience. One of the skills that contributes to brain’s neuroplasticity is reading. It allows our brain to grow, expand, learn, and relearn.  Some older individuals in their eighties or nineties, even if they were avid readers when younger, lose their ability to recall. A short story may be easier to comprehend but reading a novel and remembering all they read until the end eludes them. “Research shows that along with diet and exercise, reading can stave off signs of dementia. Reading, journaling, meditation and other mentally stimulating activities, no matter the...

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Thursday, April 24, 2025

Posted on April 23, 2025
in Being in Nature, Reading
5 Comments

Did you know that stress stimuli can be deflated by reading a well-written book? Reading someone else’s made-up world is a release and a relief. Reading offers your mind the opportunity to recreate a world and in journaling you may expand it beyond the confines of your personal imagination. In children’s literature, stories explain the world using pictures and simple words. When I read Dr. Seuss’s The Lorax to my five-year-old grandson, he viscerally understood the meaning of “deforestation,” “sustainability,” and “protecting the environment.” This story beloved by children teaches kids to treat the planet with kindness and stand up and speak up for others.  With lessons on the beauty of nature, especially imaginary Truffula Trees, it speaks of the danger of taking our earth for granted. Written fifty years ago by this visionary, the story is timely,...

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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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Thursday, April 17, 2025

Posted on April 17, 2025
in Imagination, Journaling, Travel
6 Comments

When you read, words turn into images in your mind and thought process begins that awakens senses and feelings. Two-dimensional pages conjure three-dimensional realities. You become absorbed in the sensory experience of an unfamiliar world. Mentally out of your body you temporarily live subliminally the protagonist’s life. Events seem real as you shed tears, smile, laugh, or feel heartache. Hours fly by as you experience pleasure or suffering from an artistic distance.  At times it so happens that a sudden call, a noise, a smell catapults you out of your imaginary orbit and back to your armchair. How you wish that had not happened! Reading can be that fantastic. And so much more. “Much more” for me is when intense reading persuades me to actualize what I have read, coaxing me...

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