Teaching Dharana • Bodhicitta Journaling: A Supreme Preparation for Teaching Meditation
Teaching Dharana
Bodhicitta Journaling: A Supreme Preparation for Teaching Meditation
The Wordless Work of Teaching Meditation
Teaching meditation is a unique dance between the vertical and horizontal aspects of reality. We connect deeply within, to a place beyond words, and then attempt to use words to guide others on a wordless path toward a wordless destination. As Sri Shambhavananda describes, “I’ve never been able to fully define my experience of Nityananda because it’s bigger than my words” (108, Spiritual Practice). Similarly, the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra explains that the state we aim to describe is indescribable. It cannot be told to another; it can only unfold internally:
“This state is, in fact, indescribable.
It can’t be described. In reality,
It can’t be told. It happens;
It is filled with your own ecstasy, your own ānanda.
It is beyond the apprehension of vikalpa, beyond thought” (14).
And yet… yet… yet, words are “the path we must tread” in teaching meditation. As the Vijnana Bhairava concludes: “The path is Shakti; the path is not Shiva where there is no path.” We must tread the path of words, the infinite manifestation of Shakti, and wind our way up this mountain to the stillness and oneness of Shiva, our true nature. Words are the bridge—we begin with them and eventually let them go to fully arrive. As the Yoga Sutras so beautifully state:
“Through self-enquiry the practitioner gains insight,
but eventually all mental logic must come to an end in bliss.
Following that is the comprehension
that all is the Self (yoga)” (1,17).
Teaching meditation is, therefore, an art. It involves describing an experience that transcends words, much like how a musician expresses emotion through notes, a writer conveys an experience through prose, or a sculptor brings form into the world. And, like any art, it requires practice. As Sri Shambhavananda teaches:
“Creativity and the flow of creative energy are gifts. It is a gift to perform, do arts, or to play music. You will grow if you practice and develop your talents. Even those who are very gifted have to work at their crafts, their skills” (161).
And, “[Being able to hold your focus on external activities] will help you develop the muscles to focus inside. Really creative people are people who can focus that way. Real creativity comes from a calm, quiet place inside of us” (84).
Mastering the art of teaching meditation takes years of dedicated effort to cultivate the capacity for this seemingly effortless act of creation. As they say of musicians, “an overnight success is ten years in the making.” As you enter this second level of meditation teacher training, you may be nearing your own “ten years in the making” milestone. You’ve invested deeply in your practice and your teaching. Of course, the “success” we seek in teaching meditation is not recognition or applause—it is guiding others to find their heart and growing in our own practice, a success that itself goes beyond words.
Meditation, of course, remains the cornerstone of our daily practice as “meditation teacher-artists-in-training.” The single most important way to deepen your understanding and ability to teach is to meditate. There is no substitute for this. Some, like Sri Shambhavananda and other teachers in our lineage, have meditated so deeply and profoundly over countless lifetimes that their ability to guide others seems natural and effortless. Their path is wide, carved by their own profound experiences.
A Cross Training Tool for Meditation
For those of us still climbing the mountain, we can benefit from “cross-training” tools to support our teaching. These tools, like journaling, help us communicate the teachings more effectively—making them clearer and more impactful for both ourselves and our students. Just as an athlete trains their body in multiple ways or a singer practices scales, journaling can help refine the skills needed to teach meditation. However, it’s vital to reiterate: nothing replaces meditation. If we are not meditating daily, no other effort will suffice.
So how can we, as meditators and teachers, “cross-train”? How can we enhance our ability to guide others on this wordless path? What tools can support our teaching without simply meditating more and more, which, while invaluable, might create an imbalance in our daily lives?
What if there were a practice that could complement meditation, one that not only supported physical and mental well-being but also cultivated qualities like self-awareness, clarity, and connection? What if this practice also mirrored many of the same inward-facing benefits of meditation itself, acting as a bridge between the demands of daily life and the stillness we touch in our practice? And of course, what is this practice also cultivated our ability to use words more skillfully? To ‘find our voice’ so to speak, so that when we write and teach, we feel comfortable with the medium of words as an expression of deeper realities?
I propose that journaling could be such a practice. By developing a daily habit of journaling, we gain a powerful tool to deepen our self-understanding and enrich our ability to teach. Not only does research show that journaling has numerous physical and mental health benefits, but when done with the proper inward gaze, it also cultivates many of the same qualities as meditation.
Much like meditation, journaling involves turning inward with no external agenda. While prompts can guide the process, the essence of journaling aligns with Nityananda’s teaching: “Go to the heart, and roam in it.” Journaling invites us to reflect and be present within ourselves, bridging the meditative act with the demands of daily life.
Journaling as a practice mirrors the effects of meditation in surprising ways. Just as pranayama can soothe the nervous system and reverse-engineer emotional well-being, journaling provides a space to reflect on and transform our experience of reality—not by changing external circumstances, but by feeling and being present with our inner world. This reflective process improves our experience of life, much like meditation helps us engage with and open to our karmic reality.
Finally, journaling offers a powerful channel for cultivating bodhicitta. This essay concludes by exploring how journaling leads us through the four boundless qualities of love, compassion, joy, and equanimity. When paired with daily meditation, journaling enhances self-awareness and clarity. It becomes another tool for turning inward, creating a space for growth, insight, and connection—both with ourselves and with our students.
Physical Benefits of Journaling
Let’s take a moment to explore something simple yet profound about journaling: it’s remarkably good for us—physically, mentally, and spiritually. Scientific studies have demonstrated that the act of journaling provides benefits we might expect to find from supplements, nutrition, or exercise. It’s powerful to realize that writing on a page is doing more than just organizing your thoughts; it’s also supporting your overall well-being.
For instance, studies conducted by Intermountain Healthcare revealed that expressive writing can improve immune system functioning. Participants who wrote about their thoughts and feelings experienced a measurable boost in immune cell activity, the very mechanism that helps the body fight infections and diseases.¹
Journaling has also been shown to contribute to lower blood pressure. According to evidence-based literature, this is because journaling provides an outlet for stress and emotional processing, which helps alleviate tension in the body. Lower tension naturally leads to healthier blood pressure levels.²
Another fascinating benefit is that journaling can lead to better sleep quality. Research shows a direct link between expressive writing and improved sleep. By processing emotions and reducing stress through writing, individuals find it easier to fall asleep and experience deeper, more restful sleep.³
For those who like practical, everyday benefits, journaling has been found to increase working memory capacity. By putting your thoughts and emotions on paper, you create a space to let go of mental clutter. This process frees up cognitive resources, helping you focus more clearly on what matters. As a result, journaling improves memory function and enhances cognitive processing overall.⁴
On a simple biological level, the act of journaling—whether it’s with pen and paper or pencil and notebook—offers numerous health benefits. It helps you process your day, release tension, lower your blood pressure, fall into a deeper sleep, and even sharpen your mind. It’s remarkable how such a quiet, introspective activity can have such tangible effects on the body and mind.
Mental Benefits of Journaling.
Some of the physical benefits of journaling might be harder to notice in ourselves. For instance, we might observe better sleep if we’re tracking it, or blood pressure improvements if that’s something we’re monitoring. Immune function, however, can be more challenging to gauge. That said, the mental health benefits of journaling often feel more immediate and noticeable in our day-to-day lives.
For me, journaling is an act of surrender. When I put my thoughts on the page, I can see them for what they are: finite. This contrasts sharply with my mind’s seemingly infinite ability to keep recirculating problems. It’s like having a thought spin endlessly in my head—adding energy to it with every turn. But the moment I write it down, that spinning stops. The problem lands on the page, and suddenly, it feels manageable. For example, I sometimes struggle with the challenge of creating seva tasks for 4-5 people everyday that is meaningful for them and the ashram, and I carry that stress with me quietly without realizing it. When I sit down to journal, I write that out and see that I’m carrying around right there on the page. I write what I just said, and then I can see it, and by doing that I create a little space between myself and that tension. I also get bored with writing it, which means I can say to myself, ‘yep, I know that’s there, we’ve talked about it before’, which again helps me surrender it. By simply writing it down it begins to dissolve.
Research supports this experience. According to VeryWellMind, expressive writing alleviates stress and improves mental health. A study published in Advances in Psychiatric Treatment found that writing about emotional experiences leads to significant improvements in both physical and psychological health, particularly in reducing stress levels.⁵ Furthermore, numerous studies have shown that journaling reduces symptoms of depression, especially for those at high risk. One reason for this is the practice of affect labeling—putting your emotions into words. Studies reveal that this simple act decreases the intensity of negative emotions and reduces the physiological responses associated with stress.⁶ As Wikipedia puts it, journaling helps individuals process their feelings more effectively, leading to decreased rumination and enhanced emotional regulation. By simply putting pen to paper, we create a space to unburden ourselves, quiet the mind, and cultivate a greater sense of emotional balance.
For me, this science is easy to feel. It happens right underneath your nose when you write. You can literally feel it happen— when I put my experience on the page, it begins to dissolve. The emotions lose their charge, and the thoughts lose their power. Without this process, those same thoughts seem to grow and regrow endlessly in my mind. Journaling, even for the problems that trouble us most—perhaps especially for those problems—has a way of stripping them of their intensity. Writing them down makes them less engaging, even boring, and allows us to release them more easily.
Spiritual Benefits of Journaling
All these benefits of journaling apply to anyone seeking a healthier, happier life. But why is journaling particularly valuable for someone learning to teach meditation? One of my favorite reasons lies in how journaling mirrors the practice of cultivating inner sensation. In previous sections, we discussed how gentle, exploratory movement—like rolling on the floor or practicing simple asanas—helps individuals reconnect with their body, their breath, and ultimately their heart. This inward feeling, known as interoception, is crucial for executive functions and self-regulation, yet it’s often neglected in our externalized, fast-paced lives.
Journaling offers a similar pathway into inner sensation, but instead of physical movement, it’s a process of gently exploring your mental and emotional landscape. It gives us another pathway to Nityananda’s maxim of “roaming around in the heart”. Journaling strips away agendas and expectations, much like rolling does for asana practice. It invites you to simply feel—feel your thoughts, your emotions, and your inner world. This act of presence and reflection is healing in and of itself. Studies reveal that this simple act decreases the intensity of negative emotions and reduces the physiological responses associated with stress.⁶ Like meditation, the simple act of being tends to be a quite a healing salve, and journaling can help you just be a little more during your day.
To be specific, journaling is an excellent way to cultivate the qualities of Bodhicitta on a daily basis, as the act of journaling naturally guides us down the path of love, compassion, joy, and equanimity. In this way, journaling can be seen as a form of supreme preparation for cultivating these qualities within ourselves. Let’s explore how journaling supports this process, starting with the first quality of bodhicitta: love.
LOVE
When you face a blank page—or even a guided prompt—the act of journaling naturally leads you to engage with an important an all too over looked question: What matters to you right now? What do you want to talk about, want to work with, right now? In other words, Journaling inherently draws you toward the things that hold meaning for you, whether large or small. In this way journaling invites you in to the space of the heart, and asks what you care about, and helps you mingle with the feeling of love from a subtle and simple perspective.
Some styles of journaling, such as gratitude journaling, ask you to do this over and over again, and studies have shown that gratitude journaling can help people experience greater optimism and positive emotions. However, even outside the framework of gratitude journaling, simply writing about something that matters to you helps connect you with the love already present in your heart.
COMPASSION
Journaling is a powerful way to cultivate and practice compassion as it is taught in the yogic tradition. In this non-dualistic perspective, compassion is not merely about horizontal gestures—such as giving someone a hug or donating to charity. Instead, compassion arises as an overflowing quality of your internal state, a direct result of inner practice. The more we grow and expand our hearts, the more naturally they encompass and include those around us.
Similarly, journaling is an inward investment. It allows you to explore and understand your own experience without needing to “fix” anything or anyone externally. When you journal, you are simply talking to yourself. In doing so, you invest in your internal reality in a way that grows compassion from the inside out. By reflecting on and expanding your understanding of your own experiences, you create space for greater empathy and connection to emerge naturally.
Journaling also cultivates compassion because it mirrors the Shambhavi Mudra effect. Journaling helps you practice this by bringing your attention inward—feeling and holding awareness inside yourself—while simultaneously allowing you to consider external situations in your life. This very act of keeping your attention within while reflecting on the outer world is the essence of Shambhavi Mudra, which is defined as holding one’s awareness inward amidst the senses and the mind. Journaling offers a quiet, grounded way to practice this integration of inner and outer worlds. It trains you to hold your attention within while contemplating your external reality, which naturally cultivates the expansive perspective needed for true compassion.
In support of cultivating compassion, a study published in Frontiers in Psychology highlights how self-reflective practices like journaling can cultivate compassion by allowing individuals to process their experiences and emotions more deeply. This deeper processing fosters understanding and empathy, enabling individuals to hold both themselves and others with greater kindness and care.⁸
JOY
Joy is perhaps the main reason I journal—not because the act of journaling always makes me joyful (though it often does), but because it invites me to find joy while I’m writing. In our yoga classes, we often encourage students to “move in a way that feels good to you right now.” This simple cue serves as a powerful reminder: we often put joy on hold, treating it like a retirement account we’ll access later— work now, enjoy later. While this approach might work for money, it doesn’t work for our bodies, hearts, or minds.
In a yoga class, when we ask students to find joy in their movement, it’s about discovering it in the present moment. Similarly, journaling challenges us to find joy in the act of writing—right now. It doesn’t mean you only write about joyful things (though, as we’ve discussed, that has its benefits). Instead, it means engaging in the process itself with a sense of curiosity, playfulness, and even fun.
As Paul Repp famously said: “Until it’s fun, better left undone.” This isn’t just a quirky adage—it’s an essential principle. If you’re not enjoying the act of writing, it’s unlikely anyone will enjoy reading what you’ve written. Journaling calls you to ask yourself: Where’s the joy? Can you find it in the simple act of putting pen to paper?
Much like moving joyfully in yoga, writing joyfully doesn’t have to follow strict rules. You can throw out the conventions: don’t worry about complete sentences, write boldly, use too many adjectives, write big or small, write “wrong,” don’t even write— draw instead, scribble, doodle. Do what makes you happy for those moments. Do whatever it takes to engage with the process and have fun. When you approach journaling this way, it becomes a practice of finding joy in the work itself. This joy can then infuse your other writing—whether it’s an essay, a presentation, or something you’re creating for your students—bringing life and vibrancy to your words.
Journaling with joy has been shown to actively uplift mood. A study published in the Journal of Research and Personality found that writing about intensely positive experiences led to improved mood and health outcomes.⁹ Writing about a positive experience didn’t just reflect the individual’s current positivity—it actively increased it, uplifting their mood and improving their health. Of course, we don’t always have overtly positive experiences to write about. But when we write joyfully, we have the power to transmute everyday reality into something positive. Joyful writing isn’t about the subject; it’s about the approach. Some of the greatest works of art, like still-life paintings of flowers on a table, aren’t created from extraordinary moments but from simple ones, infused with joy. Similarly, journaling with joy allows us to practice finding positivity and beauty in the ordinary moments of life.
Joy is also a path to finding your voice. So often we write for the sake of an assignment, and the whole time we are just trying to ‘get it done’. In these circumstances, we tend to over-ride our feelings on the topic in order to stay on track— we indeed get it done, but we don’t grow a lot from it. Journaling offers you a time to write for the sake of writing, and to do it joyfully, in order to find how ‘you write’— to find your voice. For me, the greatest gift of journaling has been its role in helping me find my voice. It has given me the freedom to explore: What do I want to write about? What do I care about? Without the pressure of writing for an audience or meeting a deadline, journaling creates space to uncover what truly matters to me.
This process of finding my voice is ongoing—journaling reminds me that voice isn’t something fixed or final but something that evolves as I continue to explore and reflect. Without this time to connect with myself, I often find my writing rushed or reactive, caught in a “late-hurry-worry” kind of style. Journaling allows me to pause, ask the big questions—Who am I? Why am I here? What do I care about right now?—and bring those answers to life on the page.
EQUANIMITY
And finally, equanimity. What does journaling teach us about equanimity, and how does it help us cultivate this supreme quality? Simply put, journaling offers a daily practice of introspection—a chance to engage in a meaningful process, accomplish something, and then let it go.
There is no right or wrong way to journal. If you show up, go inward, and interact with the process, you’re doing it. And when you finish, you let it go. Journaling embodies equanimity by creating space to engage fully without expectation of perfection or outcome. It allows you to prepare a space, to work in that space, and then to let go of it and rest in the result of your work. When you finish journaling, you might notice a stillness—a calm ocean of awareness—that arises simply from having done the work and letting it go. This is a beautiful and accessible experience, one you can create for yourself daily through journaling. In the midst of our busy lives, it can be hard to find such moments. But journaling offers a structured way to start something, go through a process, let it end, and then rest in the quiet space that remains.
I often find this feeling after completing significant work, like preparing an essay or teaching for meditation. When the work is done, it’s done. I have nothing left, and it’s refreshing to rest in that emptiness. Journaling works the same way. When I open up fully in my journaling practice, I often finish feeling a deep sense of release and spaciousness.
As Rudi once said, “You have to do the work so you have something to surrender.” Journaling allows us to do this work, to churn through our thoughts and feelings, and to create something tangible to let go of. In that letting go, we experience a calmness—a small but profound taste of equanimity. It’s a feeling of clarity and peace that journaling brings, one page at a time.
Boundless Journaling: Putting It into Practice
By applying these four guiding principles—love, compassion, joy, and equanimity—you can make journaling a powerful and intentional practice for preparing yourself as both a meditator and a meditation teacher.
One simple goal to consider is writing three journal-sized pages each day. With no agenda or prompts, just sit down and write about your experience of reality as you see it in that moment. Allow these four supreme qualities to guide you through the process:
• Love: Begin by taking a moment to connect with your heart. Ask yourself, What do I care about right now? It might be something simple, like the environment you’re in, the cup of coffee or tea you’re enjoying, or something more complex that’s on your mind. Focus on what matters to you in this moment. Breaking the ice on a blank page, like opening your heart, takes courage and commitment. As they say, a journey of a thousand miles, begins with a single step. In terms of journaling you could say the journey of a thousand pages begins with a single word. Its ok to simply write, “what matter to me right now?” Or even just “I don’t know what matters…”, but break the ice, and you’ll feel the work begin.
• Compassion: As you write about these external situations, try to keep your awareness centered within, holding that internal sensation in your heart— the Shambhavi Mudra. Allow your writing to reflect this balance between inner awareness and outer expression, the building blocks of yogic compassion. The only goal with journaling is self reflection and internal focus. None of what you are writing is for anyone else, so keep pulling your focus inside as you continue to allow yourself to consider the external situation you are writing about.
• Joy: Joy is the litmus test, its the way to check in if your journaling is supporting you or just mental chatter. Does it mean you need to be laughing and smiling the whole time you write? Yes! Just kidding, of course not. But what writing with joy means is that you are writing in a way that feels good, and is serving you in the moment—- just as in yoga, where we ask you to move in a way that feels good to you right now. Keep that spark of joy alive in your words, allowing the process to be enjoyable and nourishing. Until its fun, better left undone. I guarantee that if you try to make it joyful, you’ll find a way. As you might remember— you can break all the rules in order to make it joyful. Write big, write small, write in in complete sentences, just write key words, rap, spat, whatever makes it real.
• Equanimity: When you’re done, let it all go. Put the pen down and rest in the space of equanimity, allowing yourself to feel the benefits of your work without any need to push or pull. Simply be present with the stillness and clarity that arises. This is similar to the experience of Shavasana in a yoga class— a very productive shavasana leads the way to a very peaceful shavasana. Its great to take time to journal, but we all need to get back to our lives. This is the moment where we move through that transition mindfully, without rushing or lagging, just being in that space until it naturally ends.
By incorporating these qualities into your journaling practice, you can create a supportive space for growth, insight, and connection. It becomes not just a preparation for teaching meditation, but an extension of your meditative journey itself.
Conclusion
Journaling is more than a tool for reflection—it is a practice that complements meditation and strengthens your ability to teach. By engaging with journaling, you cultivate love, compassion, joy, and equanimity in a natural and accessible way. Like meditation, journaling invites you to turn inward, explore your inner world, and express yourself authentically. It bridges the gap between the stillness of your practice and the dynamic challenges of daily life, helping you grow as a teacher and as a practitioner.
In this journey of teaching meditation, journaling becomes a space for preparation, integration, and discovery. It refines your voice, deepens your clarity, and aligns you with your heart. As you journal, you not only enhance your ability to use words as a bridge toward the wordless but also nurture the qualities that make you a compassionate and effective guide for others.
So, pick up your pen, roam the heart, and let your journaling practice unfold as another step on the path of self-discovery and service. Each page brings you closer to the stillness and wisdom you seek to share.
Footnotes
¹ Intermountain Healthcare, “5 Powerful Health Benefits of Journaling.”
² Evidence-Based Living, “Reduce Stress and Anxiety Levels with Journaling.”
³ Intermountain Healthcare, “5 Powerful Health Benefits of Journaling.”
⁴ Ibid.
⁵ VeryWellMind, “The Benefits of Journaling for Stress Management.”
⁶ Wikipedia, “Affect Labeling.”
⁷ Ibid.
⁸ Frontiers in Psychology, “Self-Reflective Practices Cultivate Compassion.”
⁹ Journal of Research and Personality, “Writing About Positive Experiences.”