Flourishing Archives - Madhu Bazaz Wangu
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Flourishing

Thursday, January 1, 2026

Posted on December 31, 2025
in Awareness, Flourishing, Spirituality, Well Being
2 Comments

From Our Family to Yours, "Happy New Year to All!" Happy New Year All! Each year the last ten days of December and the first day of January are celebrated with family gatherings, sharing special foods and giving gifts. It is also a time of gratitude, generosity, self-evaluation, self-reflection and resolutions. These are darkest, coldest, and bleakest days around winter solstice and of hope for healthier and happier time. Happiness and hope are symbolized by lighting our homes and gardens with candles, lamps and electric lights. Numerous families, businesses and government agencies create dazzling landscapes with rainbow-colored illuminations on buildings, in gardens and wooded areas.  The outer lights stir the inner light of consciousness and awaken us to the spiritual illumination within. They inspire us to be humbly thankful to our joys and blessings as...

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Tuesday, December 23, 2025

Posted on December 22, 2025
in Awareness, Daily Reflections 2025, Flourishing, Meditation & Journaling at Ashby Ponds, Spirituality
4 Comments

The spiritual space that we’ve created here together is as safe and secure as the Sacred Power Spot where you sit at home to practice. The practice creates a presence that grounds us for a day in a meaningful way. After meditation and journaling an energy stirs that comes alive as we practice and spreads through the rest of our day. Freely expressing our thoughts and feelings is like prying open an oyster and discovering a pearl within. When you journal do you feel a pearl of kindness and wisdom in your heart-mind? Jot down anything that may be obstructing the pearl within. In Buddhism it is said that our intention is at the tip of our every action. Repeat to yourself your intention to practice meditation; the intention to...

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Tuesday, December 9, 2025

Posted on December 8, 2025
in Awareness, Being in Nature, Flourishing
2 Comments

A Lazy Morning in Lhasa, Tibet, 2016 Three cheers for completing your year-long journey of mindful writing meditation practice! Today is a good day to journal! Let yourself be spontaneous, honest, and focused on journaling in detail what you learned about yourself and your writing life this year. Write until your mind can’t think of anything else about the twelve-month adventure you just completed. Here are a few questions to get you started. How is your focus on daily tasks now compared to before you began this journey?  How do you feel, artistically and spiritually? Do you feel more empowered?  Do you find yourself going deeper into meditating, journaling, walking and reading than ever before?  How has your writing skill and productivity benefitted?  How has your sense of awe and wonder over nature and simple things in...

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Thursday, September 25, 2025

Posted on September 24, 2025
in #Stillness and Solitude, Flourishing, Well Being
4 Comments

Someone new to this practice might confuse the whispers of the Authentic Self with a voice in the head. The voice in the head is loud, pessimistic that never stops talking. If you can’t separate yourself from the chain of thoughts, if you unconsciously identify with that voice in your head, become more attentive. Learn to differentiate between the whispers of your inner guide and the critic’s voice. That voice is unproductive and harsh. However, the gentle nudges of your Authentic Self or the inner knowing are true, wise and unexpected.  When you focus on the breath, experience the presence of Awareness behind or in-between the breath, you will know the difference. The whispers of your Authentic Self are from the one who is your inner witness, who knows all about...

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Thursday, August 4, 2025

Posted on September 3, 2025
in Being in Nature, Flourishing, Spirituality, Travel
4 Comments

On our way to Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, the bus stopped for a photo break of the spectacular peaks of the Teton mountain range. The driver pointed to a log cabin in the distance, a cottage in the middle of a meadow of swaying yellow flowers and wild grass. I hurried to the restroom behind it but noticed a sign board: “The Episcopal Chapel of the Transfiguration” and wondered, what exactly does transfiguration mean? When I returned, people had already seen the chapel and left. Its sparce decoration and plain walls constructed with logs moved me. The space felt cool and comfortable. In front of a large rectangular glass window was a table on which was placed a cross flanked by two glass vases with fresh-cut flowers. I sat on the corner seat...

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Tuesday, June 24,2025

Posted on June 23, 2025
in Flourishing, Meditation & Journaling at Ashby Ponds, Sharper Brain after Retirement
6 Comments

Today's inspiration is geared more toward Ashby Ponds' Mindful Creators than Mindful Writers because, if I remember correctly, the age range of MWs is younger. But it never hurts to know things in advance to prepare for future health benefit. So here it goes: By the age 85 and older, about a third of people have dementia. Prevention is the most powerful antidote to this illness. You can’t prevent something you cannot see and dementia is one such illness. It increases exponentially after age 65. The mental decline is linked to lifestyle: physical inactivity, unhealthy diet, social isolation, poor sleep, lack of mentally stimulating activities and misuse of alcohol. All opposites of the eight good habits we’ve been reading about and hopefully practicing.  Prevention should start early. Our Ashby Ponds community may...

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Thursday, June 19, 2025

Posted on June 18, 2025
in Flourishing, Sharper Brain after Retirement, Well Being
2 Comments

Longevity New Research # 1So that you knowWe have been told that our brain has “Left” hemisphere and “Right” hemisphere, and each one of us is either dominated by the “Right hemisphere” or the “Left”? However, the recent research using brain scanning technology has revealed that brain’s two hemispheres work together intricately. They are codependent.  It is still true that the right brain is more creative and artistic and the left more technical and logical. But the processing of reading, math and language is understood to take place in both hemispheres. And more importantly for us to know that regular meditation practice connects and coordinates the two hemispheres. And the more they connect the more optimally we perform on any given task New Research #2So that you know: We have five senses, if we include...

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Tuesday, June 4, 2025

Posted on June 3, 2025
in Flourishing, Meditation, Originality, Spirituality, Well Being
4 Comments

Most of us in today’s world prefer our meditation practice easy and brief. Because of this we leave behind a lot from the world’s rich contemplative traditions. We morph the practice to user-friendly forms. To gain self-awareness, insights into the subtleties of consciousness and achieve lasting positive traits require lifelong dedication. In addition, ethical attitude and moral guidelines are crucial. What we abandon is ignored or forgotten. A strong motivation to practice for the benefit of All requires complete trust and deep reverence for the practice, dedication to the books and principles that make the practice possible, a good teacher, supportive circle of friends on the path who are themselves dedicated to practice. Finally, a supportive culture that recognizes the people who devote themselves to embody virtues of attention, self-awareness, patience,...

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Thursday, May 29, 2025

Posted on May 28, 2025
in #Neuroscience and Meditation, Flourishing, Meditation, Meditation & Journaling at Ashby Ponds
8 Comments

“In the beginning nothing comes, in the middle nothing stays, in the ending nothing goes,” wrote the Tibet’s eminent twelfth-century poet, yogi and sage, Milarepa. What does it mean, we wonder. Matthieu Ricard, the American yogi who lives in Tibet unpacks this puzzle in this way:At the start of meditation practice, little or nothing seems to change in us. After continued practice, we notice some changes in the way of our being, but they come and go. Finally as practice stabilizes, the changes are constant and enduring, with no fluctuation. Instead of being temporary states they become altered traits of the practitioner. The beginners impact begins from under 100 total hours of practice. Long term meditators range from 1,000-10,000 hours. Yogis tested at Richie’s lab averaged three times more than long term...

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Thursday, May 22, 2025

Posted on May 21, 2025
in #Neuroscience and Meditation, Flourishing, Meditation
2 Comments

By now you know that there are variety of meditations. Different meditations train different kinds of mental habits. We practice loving kindness meditation; full body scan; and guided meditations. I strongly suggest that at home you either practice Analytical Meditation (as we discussed in the Mindful Creators Class) or Focus on the Breath Meditation to monitor thoughts without getting swept away by them. Whatever you practice, will improve.  Mindfulness as you know is awareness or attention, becoming conscious of our consciousness. When we pay attention to the in-flow and the out-flow of our breathing, it connects us to the present moment. Mindfulness unfolds. The brain’s executive center, prefrontal cortex, located behind the forehead, gives us ability to anticipate the future, and recall the past. Neither past nor future events have power...

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