Journaling Archives - Madhu Bazaz Wangu
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Journaling

Tuesday, July 7, 2026

Posted on July 6, 2026
in #Neuroscience and Meditation, Attention and Awareness, Flourishing, Journaling, Meditation, Sharper Brain after Retirement, Travel, Well Being
4 Comments

July 7, 2026Dear Mindful Creators Group, Dancing Peacock, 2026, New Delhi, India I thought you might find the summation of Richard Davidson’s new book valuable. (Recently, we discussed a bit of his neuroscientific research with Tibetan monks). His latest work titled, Born to Flourish: How New Science and Ancient Wisdom Reveal a Simple Path to Thriving. Dr.Davidson focuses on transformative practices that train our brain to overcome depression, despair, and loneliness. He writes that we are all born with a natural ability to flourish but that ability needs to be trained for us to live a thriving life. The four transformative practices are: Awareness: Learn to be fully present with your emotions so that you can embrace all of life’s ups and downs. (We practice this with familiarizing ourselves with physical sensations while practicing body scan)Connection: Grow...

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Tuesday, June 30, 2026

Posted on June 29, 2026
in #Reading Poetry, Being in Nature, Creativity, Flourishing, Imagination, Journaling, Meditation, Meditation & Journaling at Ashby Ponds, Reading, Walking, Well Being, Writing
2 Comments

I hope the poems I read in the class this month have motivated you to read more poems. Here is a link to mindful poetry for you to explore: https://cih.ucsd.edu/mindfulness/mindful-poetry I thought you may want to know that by the age 85 and older, about a third of people have dementia. Prevention is the most powerful antidote to the 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 be retired but it has not quit...

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Tuesday, May 12 2026

Posted on May 12, 2026
in #Neuroscience and Meditation, Flourishing, Journaling, Meditation, Meditation & Journaling at Ashby Ponds
2 Comments

Late Spring Roses at Ashby Ponds, May 2026 Did you know that an experience repeated over and over again changes and reshapes our brain? That’s what a ballerina or a pianist or an Olympic swimmer does. Practice. Practice. 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 leaves 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...

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Tuesday, March 31, 2026

Posted on March 30, 2026
in Attention and Awareness, Flourishing, Imagination, Journaling, Meditation, Originality, Spirituality
1 Comment

Daffodil Field, Ashby Ponds A gift! These words rarely come to mind when we wake up to a brand-new day. Instead, our mind is already occupied with memories and anticipations. The blank page of the day stands waiting to be filled with feelings of comfort, joy, and moments that are uniquely ours. But we are not present for it. What if you open your eyes in the morning and feel grateful for another new day. Wash your face, brush your teeth, drink a glass of water, and sit at your Sacred Power Spot. You meditate. Your journal. Then comes several minutes of deep reading – a poem or a short chapter from an anthology meaningful to you. By this time, your mind is bound to feel enriched with benevolence and peace. With positive energy, the...

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Tuesday, March 3, 2026

Posted on March 2, 2026
in Journaling, Meditation, Meditation & Journaling at Ashby Ponds, Originality, Spirituality
4 Comments

Protective Home Kami, 1977, Oil on Canvass The following post was partly inspired by Bhante Gunaratana’s book Meditation in Plain English, Wisdom Publications, 2011. The meditation we practice here is called Vipassana or Insight meditation. Vipassana is exercise in attention and awareness. When we practice it, we must toss out everything in our mind except awareness of sitting still and breathing. 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 judgement, evaluation and criticism of people and events. Such mental images hide awareness.  Continuous focus on the breath at the tip of your nose, (or chest or belly) takes you deeper and deeper and makes you aware...

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Thursday, February 18, 2026

Posted on February 18, 2026
in #Awareness, Attention and Awareness, Imagination, Journaling, Meditation, Meditation & Journaling at Ashby Ponds
2 Comments

Still Life with Samovar from Kashmir 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. We become more mindful. 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...

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Thursday, February 12, 2026

Posted on February 11, 2026
in #Awareness, Attention and Awareness, Awareness, Journaling
2 Comments

Notes on Faculties of Attention and Awareness Attention We 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.     Awareness Like attention, awareness also gets its energy from conscious power. As you pay attention to...

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Thursday, February 5, 2026

Posted on February 5, 2026
in Journaling, Meditation & Journaling at Ashby Ponds, Originality, Spirituality
4 Comments

Personal Power/Spiritual Spot My earliest attempts at writing freely on the pages of a notebook were during the time of extreme trauma. That led me deeper into journaling. Within the span of eighteen months, my youngest brother was killed in an automobile accident, soon after that my grieving mother passed away and my father followed her, his soulmate, within a few months.  This all happened during the months which were supposed to be celebratory for the family, especially for my husband and me. But we were in mourning when I gave birth to our second child. Her presence and my daily pouring out of emotions in words kept me sane and brought me back to my senses from the doldrums.  Journaling was the source of emotional relief and healing. Tending to our beautiful...

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Tuesday, February 3, 2026

Posted on February 2, 2026
in Journaling, Meditation, Meditation & Journaling at Ashby Ponds, Well Being
2 Comments

How does it feel to sit at your Spiritual Power Spot in your home? Peace? Calm? Some other feeling or sensation? Do you journal and practice silent meditation for 5 to 15 minutes at this spot?  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 when 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 this notebook. Journaling requires trust in yourself and believing that the practice you are following...

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Monthly Guiding Points

Posted on January 31, 2026
in Journaling, Meditation, Meditation & Journaling at Ashby Ponds, Sharper Brain after Retirement, Well Being
2 Comments

JanuaryYour decision to walk on the path of spirituality and creativity is noble. If followed diligently it leads to wisdom, peace and joy. But the journey is filled with blocks, pitfalls and false dead ends. In order to overcome any strenuous situation you need persistence and perseverance. To help you successfully journey on the spiritual way I have collected ten practical points about mental clarity that I promise would guide you along the way.  I have learned and recapitulated these lessons from the works of great thinkers, spiritual masters, philosophers and teachers; their written and spoken words. Each guiding point is a practice; simple but not easy. But when practiced seriously, mere words turn into physical sensations and feelings. Eventually they impels us to act accordingly. Once activated they amaze us...

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