Jewish mindfulness meditation connects meditation to Hashem, nature, and words or verses from the Torah. Our brain is continuously processing sensory information from within our bodies and from everyday things going on around us. The brain is divided into three large regions: the lower brain, the middle brain, and the upper brain. We don't ever have to think about controlling these things; they just happen all the time. The lower brain controls our autonomic bodily functions such as digestion, pupil dilation, heartbeat, and breathing. The middle brain is responsible for movement and interpreting temperature, hearing, vision, as well as arousal; this is where the flight, fright, or flight stress responses take place. The upper brain or the prefrontal cortex is the thinking brain this is where we make decisions. This is the area that in many cases, we interpret events as stressful through elaborate full-color scary movies or downplay events and maintain our composure.
Stress dances all over our brains because we are continually processing multiple inputs from the three main regions of the brain simultaneously. Stress can affect each area of the brain. When we perceive an event as stressful, our muscles tense, our heart rate increases, and this can affect our entire body in damaging ways. Cognitive-behavioral therapy techniques propose we can combat stress in a top-down progression by changing our thoughts, and when the stress is decreased, the other areas of the brain will respond. However, we can combat stress through Jewish mindfulness meditation when we slow down the everyday pace of life and focus on one sensory input at a time. For example, close your eyes and listen to the sounds in the room such as Shabbat zmirot we are able to appreciate the sound that we might have otherwise missed and this quiets the upper brain. Other examples are lighting Shabbat candles or the Havdala service, looking at the lights, and smelling the besomim. When we practice Jewish mindfulness, we focus on nature as an expression of Hashem or words from the Torah we are influencing the middle brain.
Jewish mindfulness meditation can be practiced during walking. When we slow down walking and create a stretch on the muscle receptors in the body, we get more feedback from this sensation. When we close our eyes and imagine what we are seeing without actually looking, we can take in the somatosensory bath of our existence. When we touch ourselves and a loved one with intention and focus, we can take in rich sensory tactile information. Focusing on sensory processing, moving slowly and with awareness, stretching the muscle fibers in the body, brings our awareness to the middle brain. When we move slowly and intentionally, this causes the proprioception system to give us new feedback from the middle brain, and this quiets the upper brain. Mindfully walking can occur when taking three steps forward and three steps backward during the Amida, while dancing with the Torah, or walking around a chatan seven times during a wedding.
The source of Jewish mindfulness meditation comes from the Hebrew word to breathe which is linshom. Life is breath. In Parshat Bereishit, when God made man, He breathed into him the breath of life, “Vipach viapi.” Then man became alive. Without breath, there is no life. When a person dies, the last bodily function to stop is breathing. When a new baby is born, we listen for that first cry, because that means that the baby is breathing. Life is breath.
From the root of the word "linshom," which means to breathe, comes the word "neshama," which means soul. During creation when man first breathed, is when he received his soul. Today when we breathe we can get in touch with our soul. What is the soul? The spiritual aspect of each person it is their essence. Without breath, there is no life. Life is breath. When we do focus on deep breathing, we are able to access our soul, our neshama. Many religious people in the world recognize that there is a metaphysical aspect to each person, and that is the soul. We have this incorporeal thing that describes our essence our being, and that is the soul. When we practice mindful meditation and focus on our breath we can get in touch with our essence, our soul.
Francis Macdonald Cornford, a scholar, and poet from the early1900s stated that when a person is awake and moving around, the soul is quiet and sleeping, and when a person is sleeping, the soul is awake. When we quiet our bodies through meditation, we get in touch with our soul. Plato and Aristotle also recognized the soul as a life force that exists. James Hillman said that psychology is "the study of the soul.” When we breathe, we can get in touch with our own thinking our own unique being and feel things that we wouldn't if we didn't take the time to notice. Our soul can also be our consciousness.
We say that a person "has a good soul" or we can "cleanse the soul" or we hope to marry our "soul mates" which connects to the essence of a person. When we take the time to breathe while focusing on nature as an expression of Hashem or a Hebrew word such as “Eicha” during meditation, we impact our minds in powerful and positive ways that are beyond what we can achieve through other means. Connecting to Hashem and his creations are peaceful, purposeful, and powerful and this is possible through Jewish mindfulness meditation.
By Lisa Shooman, Ph.D., OTR/L, CLVT
Assistant Professor of Occupational Therapy, Worcester State University