Mindful Munching...

Just a quick post to let anyone interested know:

Local (Portland, OR) zen teacher and author (and one of my personal senseis) Jan Chozen Bays-Roshi will be reading from her new book, Mindful Eating: A Guide to Rediscovering a Healthy and Joyful Relationship With Food TONIGHT at 7:30pm @ the Hawthorne Powell's Books, 3723 SE Hawthorne Blvd. A discussion and mini-practice session will follow.

The official publisher blurb:

Here is an accessible and encouraging exploration of how and why to apply the Zen art of mindfulness to transform our "issues" with food. Whether we are overweight (as are two-thirds of American adults today) or suffer from an eating disorder, learning to eat mindfully can liberate us from the suffering we experience with food. Practiced for centuries in the Zen tradition, mindful eating is an approach that involves bringing one's full attention to the process of eating—becoming fully present to the tastes, smells, thoughts, and feelings that arise during a meal. Preliminary research funded by the National Institutes of Health indicates that mindfulness is effective in treating eating disorders.

Dr. Bays, a physician and Zen teacher, offers a wonderfully clear presentation of what mindfulness is and how it can help us create a healthier relationship with food. In Mindful Eating she shows us how to rediscover the simple act of eating, thereby gaining control of our eating problems from the inside out. Along the way she reviews the relevant research, offers medical information, and presents numerous practical exercises drawn from her workshops. Through mindful eating we not only overcome our issues with food, but we can reawaken our sense of pleasure and satisfaction. This book shows us how.

Mindful Eating also includes a 70-minute audio CD containing guided exercises read by the author.

About the Author:

Jan Chozen Bays is a Zen master in the White Plum lineage of the late master Taizan Maezumi Roshi. She serves as a priest and teacher at Great Vow Zen Monastery in Clatskanie, Oregon, and is also a pediatrician who specializes in the evaluation of children for abuse and neglect.