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

Madhu Bazaz Wangu

Thursday, October 30, 2025

Posted on October 29, 2025
in Awareness, Reading, Reading Books, Writing
4 Comments

You know well the benefits of writing alone behind closed door as well as meditating and writing with others at retreats and groups. You’ve come full circle back to where you started as a beginner on your way to an advanced writer. How much pleasure do you feel as you practice in your study, at your Sacred Power Spot? Through years that space has accumulated a presence due to your meditation, journaling, and deep reading practice. It emits a spiritual aura that you sense when you enter the room. No longer do you feel alone. You feel grounded in the source of your creativity, your AS. The walls of this space are lined with books which you know well. The story of your writing life echoes from the pages of these...

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Tuesday, October 28, 2025

Posted on October 27, 2025
in Daily Reflections 2025, Death and Dying, Last Quarter of Our Lives, Meditation & Journaling at Ashby Ponds, Old Age and Death, Spirituality
4 Comments

The text of today's post is addressed to the folks 65+ who live at Ashby Ponds. I've the feeling that most of you who read this blog may not be even 65 yet, but see no harm in your reading and remembering the thoughts I write about. So here it goes: Witnessing sickness, old age and death for the first time can be deeply unsettling—especially for someone who has never encountered these human conditions before. That’s exactly what happened to the prince Siddharatha Gautama, now known to the world as the Buddha.  From the time he was born, Siddhartha was sheltered from all human suffering. In the palace where he lived, physically and mentally disabled, sick and old people were not allowed to enter. He had never seen a dead person. One...

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Thursday, October 23, 2025

Posted on October 22, 2025
in Journaling, Meditation, Meditation & Journaling at Ashby Ponds, Nonverbal Activities, Writing
4 Comments

We all have had experiences of writing alone at home behind closed door, writing with a fellow writer, writing with a group of writers on weekly basis and writing at retreats. These are different experiences. For some writing alone the first thing in the morning or last thing at night in the silence of their study is the most productive way to write. For some others a gentle beginning with a short meditation and/or journaling session inspires them to write for hours.  What helps my flow start and continue for hours is to practice meditation, deep reading, and journaling in the morning. Then, working on my “formal” writing flows like a waterfall. (For decades, I journaled daily. But at some point I had nothing to pour out on the pages of...

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Tuesday, October 21, 2025

Posted on October 20, 2025
in Awareness, Daily Reflections 2025, Spirituality
4 Comments

When I write “to go deep within and become one with my Authentic Self” in meditation, what do I mean? What I mean is that when all my mental sediments have settled down, when I have moved beyond thoughts, sensations, feelings, and when I am observing myself being aware of my inner world, when I am conscious of myself I am one with my AS. This means I’m aware of this present moment, and this, and this. Not thinking of past or future but just being aware of Awareness. This doesn’t happen naturally. But when we try over and over again to become conscious of our awareness and succeed to do so we sense the presence; we feel contentment, peace, and joy. This knowing is awakening and experiential. I was introduced...

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Thursday, October 16, 2025

Posted on October 15, 2025
in Creativity, Meditation, Reading, Writing
6 Comments

Once you dedicate yourself to something you feel passionately about, when follow your calling, the universe listens. It augments the skills required for you to do that you deeply desire to do. So stay in touch with your Authentic Self and pay heed to its whispers.   I experienced the guidance of my Inner Self in the spring of 2009. For years, I had been meditating, journaling and writing alone at home. I had reaped the benefits of these two practices in heaps and wanted to share them with other writers who were struggling with isolation and dithering before the creative flow would stream forth. At the same time an urge to invite writers to meditate and write together repeatedly nudged me.  I hesitated. What would I say? Who would want to meditate...

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Tuesday, October 14, 2025

Posted on October 13, 2025
in Meditation, Online Mindful Writers Group, Spirituality
6 Comments

Except the photos of the Buddha images in-situ that I've been posting lately, the rest of the statues of the Buddhas are the one's Manoj and I collected through years during our travels in China, Japan, and India. There is time to write together and time to write alone. Having written alone, with a writing companion, and in a group I mostly write alone now, especially after moving into a retirement community. Some of the residents who are writers, prefer writing alone unless they are teaching writing. When I write I’m absorbed in my work. On my spiritual journey that includes morning meditation, journaling, and deep writing (and walking later in the day) I'm one with my Authentic Self within, the consciousness. This awareness watches me from moment to moment...

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Thursday, October 9, 2025

Posted on October 8, 2025
in #Stillness, Silence, Solitude, Journaling, Meditation, Meditation & Journaling at Ashby Ponds, Spirituality
2 Comments

When I began my spiritual journey, I knew intellectually what I wanted but emotionally I had no clue. I did not know if I would arrive and where. Yet, I was willing to surrender and walk on the path to the great unknown. Midst running a happy household with two daughters and husband I was struggling, first as an artist and then as a writer. My quest was for something beyond being a mother, wife, artist. The thought, “Is this all there is?” loomed large at the back of my mind.  Somehow I ended up learning to meditate. While learning the practice, I learned that the reason you sit still in silence and solitude is because the novice practitioner is like a jar of river water, all shaken up. The requirement...

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Tuesday, October 7, 2025

Posted on October 6, 2025
in #Stillness and Quietude, #Stillness and Solitude, Awareness, Meditation, Spirituality
4 Comments

The Buddha Blessing, Tokyo, Japan Most of our fears are rooted in the truth that we are born alone and we die alone. Our aloneness is real. There are certain moments when we become aware that we are beings with ego that separates us from other ego beings. We are not certain where we come from and where we are going. How do we confront this fearful emotion? We face it by confronting it in silence so that we may rise above our separate ego self and get closer to our true self—the infinite collective consciousness of our being.   By now with the help of meditation and journaling, you may realize that perhaps as an individual person you may feel alone, but at the level of your essence you are one with...

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Thursday, October 2, 2025

Posted on October 1, 2025
in #Nature Lover, #Stillness and Quietude, #Stillness and Solitude, Awareness, Spirituality
5 Comments

What is it that you do in which you completely immerse yourself? Reading, baking, gardening, knitting, painting? When you are absorbed in an activity, does it feel like nothing else exists? When you are intensely focused on something you truly are by yourself.  Try this. When you are completely engrossed in doing something for an hour or two and you have the need to go to the bathroom, as you walk away from the place you were seated in, become aware of how focused you were a few moments ago, and how you continue to be so for a few more minutes. Sense the spaciousness around you and peace within. This is the feeling that you were not aware just a minute ago. You were immersed deep in your aware self,...

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Tuesday, September 30, 2025

Posted on September 29, 2025
in #Stillness and Quietude, Meditation, Meditation & Journaling at Ashby Ponds
4 Comments

When I began the practice of meditation, more than thirty years ago, it was the toughest discipline to follow. It required sitting still in silence, focusing on the breath and bringing attention back to breathing over and over again. But in time I found it one of the most rewarding practices.  I discovered that there was a subtle difference between meditation and sitting still in silence and solitude. In breathing practice the flotsams and jetsam of my mind settled down and by the time all the debris had quietened down my body was still.  When I was still and by myself I contemplated about the meaning of my life. And I contemplated about current situations. Without silence, solitude did not mean much. I could be alone but listening to music, surfing the...

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