Cattāri Brahmavihārā

Bodhipaksa from Wildmind Meditation brought the skill of interoception up in one of his regular emails and I have been practicing with it for the better part of the last week. In brief, interoception “is the perception of sensations from inside the body and includes the perception of physical sensations related to internal organ function such as heart beat, respiration, satiety, as well as the autonomic nervous system activity related to emotions.” (Vaitl, 1996; Cameron, 2001; Craig, 2002; Barrett et al.)

Maybe that wasn’t so brief but it was certainly necessary. So, why is this important? Why does it matter if we can feel our heartbeat? Why does it matter if we can feel our breath? Although the answer to the questions could easily fill several volumes (and much of the Suttapitaka is devoted to parsing them out) suffice it to say that knowing the body in the body is a key post of Satipatthana. So interoception and proprioception are key to developing samadhi and jhana.

Here is the link to Bodhipaksa’s well-written and informative article:

Why it matters if you can feel your heartbeat