#Writing Meditation Practice Archives - Madhu Bazaz Wangu
64
archive,tag,tag-writing-meditation-practice,tag-64,ajax_fade,page_not_loaded,,select-theme-ver-2.1,vertical_menu_enabled, vertical_menu_width_290,side_menu_slide_from_right,wpb-js-composer js-comp-ver-6.9.0,vc_responsive
 

#Writing Meditation Practice Tag

Tuesday, April 29, 2025

Posted on April 28, 2025
in Reading
2 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...

Read More

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...

Read More

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...

Read More

Tuesday, April 16, 2025

Posted on April 15, 2025
in #Story Telling, Reading, Travel
4 Comments

Some more benefits from daily reading as evidenced from scientific research groups: Researchers from Yale School of Public Health showed that reading for 30 minutes a day can add two years to your life span. It keeps the brain active enough to prevent a decline in thinking and processing. Another research study at the University of Sussex shows that reading even for 6 minutes (!) before falling sleep reduces stress. It is better than listening to music or drinking a warm cup of milk. A book is not only a pleasant distraction but also actively engages and expands your imagination, thus helping you enter an altered state of consciousness. Cognition associated with Alzheimer’s is strengthened by reading, which builds discerning power that can compensate for the loss of brain cells damaged by aging and...

Read More

Tuesday, April 8, 2025

Posted on April 7, 2025
in Creativity, Daily Reflections 2025, Imagination, Reading
4 Comments

Whether reading for pleasure or personal growth, what you enjoy depends on your interests and experiences. What you choose to read is as unique as what you enjoy eating or wearing. When you select a book to read, what are you seeking? Pleasure, growth, transformation? It is not what you choose to read but what happens to you when you are absorbed in reading – that pleasurable feeling of forgetting who and where you are, temporarily experiencing life through someone else’s perspective! I read to be entertained, to learn, to adventure into unknown worlds where my heart is slashed, where my guts are punched, or a brick falls on my head. With each book I read, my emotional and intellectual sensibilities emerge and deepen. In 2003, a group of doctors in Wales...

Read More

Thursday, April 3, 2025

Posted on April 2, 2025
in Journaling
2 Comments

Below is a slightly revised version of the Inspiration (Day 91) from the book, Unblock Your Creative Flow. After reading the nightmarish poem, “A Dream” by Hermann Hesse in his book, The Glass Bead Game, I shuddered. A feeling of restlessness creeped in. The only way I could eliminate that feeling was to journal about it. I wrote what ended up being a short story.  Here is a summary:I walk to the monastery on the hill and enter the building. Its walls are lined with books from ceiling to floor. The spines of the gilded lettered books glitter in the morning light. I pull out the one closest to me. The spine reads, Meaning of My Life. The leather cover tooled in gold promises a story still untold. What wisdom will the book...

Read More

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...

Read More

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....

Read More

Tuesday, March 25, 2025

Posted on March 24, 2025
in Journaling, Meditation, Meditation & Journaling at Ashby Ponds
4 Comments

A half-century of neuroscientific research has concluded that meditation is as important to your mental well-being as exercise is to the physical health. If you exercise regularly, you build stronger muscles, denser bones, and increased stamina. If you meditate daily, your attention span, memory, and patience increase. You learn to manage negative emotions and situations more efficiently and strengthen sense of calm, resilience, and interconnects with others.  The moment we were born, the breath was with us and the moment it leaves, we die. Wherever we go, our breath goes with us. It is our anchor. It is perfect the way it is. We need not speed it up, force it, grasp it, push it away or control it. Simply pay attention to its natural rhythm, letting it continue its work without...

Read More

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,...

Read More