Mindfulness of Sensation

by Jill Satterfield

Seanna Browder by Melina Meza

The non-verbal language of our body is sensation. Our body communicates discomfort, fear, anxiety, depression, embarrassment, happiness, love—all through an orchestral variety of sensations.

Becoming familiar with the sensations in our body is a way to become more intimate with ourselves, by seeing sensations as a reflection of our mind and heart. Sensations can be the bridge of communication between body and heart-mind, and being mindful of sensations not only keeps the mind in the present (the body is always in the present moment) but offers a much needed respite to the overly worked and depended upon thinking mind. 

The body will sense and “say” through its language of sensations what the mind is about to think, what the heart is just about to feel. The body warns us that something big is building, and being in the body, and staying present with its current sensation is a skillful way to cut off a strong reaction or loss of emotional control. Staying with sensations—breathing into what we feel—staves off many unwanted reactions and gives us time to have a thoughtful pause, and then a response.

This short introduction to mindfulness of sensations will give you a start to noticing them without judgment, to treating the body with more kindness, and to seeing things as they are without the colored glasses of attachment or aversion.



If you're interested in learning more about embodied mindfulness, I'll be offering another Embodied Mind 200 hour teacher training at Zazen in San Francisco this fall and winter 2015/2016. See vajrayoga.com for further information.

Jill Satterfield is the founder of Vajra Yoga + Meditation, a synthesis of yoga and Buddhism that combines meditation, yoga and contemplative practices. Named “one of the 4 leading yoga and Buddhist teachers in the country” by Shambhala Sun Magazine, Jill has instigated mindful and creative educational programs for over 28 years.

She is also the founder and Director of the School for Compassionate Action: Meditation, Yoga and Educational Support for Communities in Need, a not-for-profit that trains teachers, psychologists and health care providers to integrate mind and body practices into their professions. SCA also provides classes to people in chronic pain, with illness, those suffering from PTSD, and at-risk youth. Jill teaches workshops internationally, is a faculty member of Spirit Rock Meditation Center’s Mindfulness for Yoga Training and the Somatic Training in Marin, California, and is a guest teacher for many other training programs. To find out more about Jill, visit her website vajrayoga.com.

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Hey Doc, What I Can I do About this Ringing in My Ears?

by Baxter

In the 20 odd years I have been working with patients, this question comes up a lot! And the challenging part for me as a healer is that western medical treatments don’t have much to offer the problem of Tinnitus, or ringing in the ears. Often related to exposure to loud noise over time (whether from work setting, environment or loud music), and therefore more common as we age, Tinnitus can range from a mild annoyance to a truly disruptive condition. I was hopeful for a while that acupuncture might provide some relief for my patients, but that modality has had minimal impact for those I have tried it with.  So you can imagine my delight when a friend of mine, who just happens to be a research psychologist at UCSF, mentioned in passing a study she had just completed, applying Mindful Meditation (MM), a system developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn, PhD, to Tinnitus. 

Although our resident scientist will immediately point out that the number of participants (only eight) makes predicting benefits to all suffers of Tinnitus a bit premature, I am still pleased to see that there was significant improvement for those in the study. If you don’t know about MM, it involves sitting meditation practices, breath awareness techniques and gentle movement practices--wow, that sounds like some other system I have heard of…yoga! And not surprisingly, since it is based on yoga asana and Buddhist meditation techniques. To read all about the study by Jennifer Gans and Robert Sweetow, click here. And to learn more about Jon Kabat-Zinn’s work, check out one of my favorite of his books, Full Catastrophe Living, while listening to your favorite music at a reasonable volume.

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What We Need to Practice

by Baxter

Cathedral in Progress by Brad Gibson

As I was enjoying Brad’s post from last week (he really cracks me up—smart and funny!), one statement jumped off the computer screen as I read it. Regarding confronting the inevitable course of aging, Brad stated, “We probably need to practice both acceptance and active engagement as we confront our own aging....”

Men Working on La Sagrada Familia by Brad Gibson 

As I thought about the acceptance part of that equation, it reminded me of an experience a friend of mine had while living for a while at an ashram in Northern California. In addition to the center’s own spiritual leader, there were often visiting teachers and gurus, and one visiting guru had a seemingly straightforward message that went something like this: “Everything is already okay!” Well, this message really seemed to resonate with the staff at the center, especially with the kitchen staff, who took it to heart, so much so that the dirty dishes started to pile up. After all, everything is already okay! Finally, the ashram’s main teacher had to remind everyone that, even though this idea was certainly true, especially as a concept found in many yoga lineages, we also have work to do in this lifetime.

Yoga posits an intriguing paradox that we each have a perfect, eternal quality already within us, sometimes referred to as the purusha or atman, and at the same time, we have a personal dharma or path to follow that requires active engagement in this lifetime. As a way of supporting the notion of healthy aging, I am able to “actively engage” in my life’s work as well as beneficial practices, such as yoga asana (poses) and pranayama (yogic breathing), that support the overall health and well being of my mind and body. And at the same time, I can access other yoga practices, such as mindful meditation and yoga nidra, where I am more involved in accessing the state of “being” as opposed to the state of “doing.” In these practices, I am able to tap into the acceptance part of the challenge of aging, and also this alluring concept that everything is already okay. We have come to discover through observation and research that this second set of practices (the acceptance practices), has very tangible benefits as well, including, to name a few, quieting the nervous system, lowering blood pressure, and supporting healthy digestion and immune function. For those of you not familiar with these practices, I would recommend the following books as an introduction:

• Full Catastrophe Living by Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D., for information about mindful meditation 
• Yoga Nidra by Richard Miller, Ph.D., for information about yoga nidra (an audio CD with practice for you is included) 

More on active engagement next time!

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