Posted by ajoyfulpractice in Books, Buddhism, Fitness, Health, Life, Loss, Meditation, Philosophy, Science, Tragedy, Vipassana, Wisdom, Yoga.
Tags: nervous system, Nyanasatta Thera, pranayama, Satipattthana Sutta, Will Johnson, yoga sutra 1.34
Yoga Sūtra 1.34: pracchardanavidhāraņābhyām vā prāņasya
– “Transparency and calmness of mind also comes by practicing [awareness of breath] that involves forceful exhalation and [natural] breath retention.”
“as you breathe in, breathe in through the whole body
as you breath out, breathe out the whole body
feel how the breath calms and heals the body
like a skilled potter watching clay turn on a wheel
notice how each inhalation turns into an exhalation
only to turn back again into an inhalation
over and over and over again”
– quoted from Breathing Through the Whole Body: The Buddha’s Instructions on Integrating Mind, Body, and Breath by Will Johnson
Take a deep breath in, through your nose. Open your mouth and sigh it out.
Deep breath in, through your nose; deep open mouth sigh.
Take the deepest breath you’ve taken all day, open your mouth and sigh it out.
Now, just breathe in through your nose… and out through your nose… and notice that you are breathing.
Some would say that this is the beginning of the practice – I’ve even said such a thing. However, before this awareness of breath there needs to be the ability to sit, stand, recline, and be still or move in a way that allows you to focus on the fact that you are sitting, standing, reclining, being still, and/or moving while breathing. This is something we may neglect to do all day on any given day – which means that all day, on any given day, we may be taking the shallowest and poorest breaths we’ve taken all day rather than the deepest and richest breaths we’ve taken all day. And the difference in our quality of breath translates into the difference in our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health.
Our autonomic nervous system is comprised our sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. We can (and often do) simplify our understanding of these parts by thinking of the sympathetic nervous system in terms of our fight/flight/freeze response and the parasympathetic system in terms of rest/digest/create. Even with that simplified view of things, we can see how the each part of our nervous system affects the breath and other systems of the body. While there are some extreme cases of human (mental and physical) fitness whereby someone can mentally control their heart rate, pupil dilation, digestion, excretion, and even arousal regardless of outside stimulation, most people have limited control over the elements of their body (and therefore the mind) which are regulated by the autonomic nervous system. On the flip side, almost everyone can control some aspect of their breath.
Even when using a breathing machine, we can bring awareness to and control the breath. This, very simply put, is the most basic form of prāņāyamā. Furthermore, as we observe the breath, the breath changes and brings awareness to our ability to control the breath. I am constantly pointing out that what happens in the body happens in the mind; what happens in the mind happens in the body; and both affect the breath – and, the breath affects what happens in the mind and in the body.
“Thus he lives contemplating the body in the body internally, or he lives contemplating the body in the body externally, or he lives contemplating the body in the body internally and externally. He lives contemplating origination factors in the body, or he lives contemplating dissolution factors in the body, or he lives contemplating origination-and-dissolution factors in the body. Or his mindfulness is established with the thought: ‘The body exists,’ to the extent necessary just for knowledge and mindfulness, and he lives detached, and clings to nothing in the world. Thus also, monks, a monk lives contemplating the body in the body.”
– quoted from Satipatthana Sutta (The Foundations of Mindfulness) translated by Nyanasatta Thera
I know, I know, someone is thinking, “Didn’t we do this whole breathing things yesterday?” Yes, indeed we did. We do it every day and in every practice; however, it is way too easy to take this part of the practice for granted. We may be in the middle of a challenging practice or a challenging day and find that we are holding our breath. We may be shallow breathing during a peak moment in our practice or in our lives. We may find that we have made certain things a higher priority than our breath – and then we suffer the consequences.
Think for a moment, about all the things you want in your life and all the things you need. Make sure you are clear about what is a desire versus what is a necessity. Now, slowly, start thinking about your life without some of the things you desire. If you are honest with yourself and clear-minded, you know you can live your whole life without those things you desire. You may even live a happy life without those things.
Notice how you feel about that.
Now, slowly, go through the list of things you need. How long can you live without some form of protection from the elements? (It depends on your environment, climate, and other external factors.) How long can you go without some form of food? (On average, a relatively healthy and well hydrated adult can survive up to two months without food – although extreme symptoms of starvation kick in about 30 days.) How long can you live without water? (A typical adult could survive about 100 hours, or 3 – 4 days without any kind of hydration; but, again, this can be time line is dependent on temperature.) How long can you go without sleep? (I don’t have a definitive answer for this one. While people have been recorded as going without sleep for almost 2 weeks, the nervous system will drop a person into “microsleep” states. Microsleep may only last a few seconds, but those few seconds keep the body functioning.) Finally, how long can you go without breathing? (Again, there are some variables, but if the average person holds their breath, their body is going to force them to breathe within 3 minutes. If external circumstances cut off breathing, irreversible brain damage occurs after 5 – 10 minutes – unless there are other variables, like temperature.)
Notice how you feel about that.
We may experience great suffering if we have to live without the things we desire. We will experience pain and suffering if we have to live (for a brief period) without the things we need. We cannot, however, live without breathing. It has to be a priority. Additionally, when we start thinking about quality of life, and how the quality of the things we want and need contribute to our overall quality of life, we may find that we have not made quality of breathing a priority. It’s not just about air quality; it’s about quality of breath. And, both the Buddha and teachers like Patanjali indicated that anyone can practice with their breath.
“Mindfulness of breathing takes the highest place among the various subjects of Buddhist meditation. It has been recommended and praised by the Enlightened One thus: ‘This concentration through mindfulness of breathing, when developed and practiced much, is both peaceful and sublime, it is an unadulterated blissful abiding, and it banishes at once and stills evil unprofitable thoughts as soon as they arise.’ Though of such a high order, the initial stages of this meditation are well within the reach of a beginner though he be only a lay student of the Buddha-Dhamma.”
– commentary on the Satipatthana Sutta (The Foundations of Mindfulness) by Nyanasatta Thera
Please join me on the virtual mat today (Monday, October 26th) at 5:30 PM for a 75-minute virtual yoga practice on Zoom.
This is a 75-minute Common Ground Meditation Center practice that, in the spirit of generosity (dana), is freely given and freely received. You can use the link from the “Class Schedules” calendar if you run into any problems checking into the class. You can request an audio recording of this practice via a comment below.
If you are able to support the center and its teachings, please do so as your heart moves you. (NOTE: You can donate even if you are “attending” my other practices, or you can purchase class(es). Donations are tax deductible, class purchases are not necessarily deductible.)
There is no playlist for the Common Ground practices.
### TAKE THE DEEPEST BREATH YOU’VE TAKEN ALL DAY ###
Posted by ajoyfulpractice in Books, Buddhism, Changing Perspectives, Healing Stories, Life, Loss, Love, Meditation, Minneapolis, Minnesota, Movies, One Hoop, Philosophy, Science, Twin Cities, Vipassana, Wisdom, Writing, Yoga.
Tags: Anne Tyler, pranayama, prenatal, yoga, yoga sutra 1.34
“People always call it luck when you’ve acted more sensibly than they have.”
– Anne Tyler
Anne Tyler, born today in 1941, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, grew up in a way that was very different from the way most people reading this grew up. Her family was Quaker and she spent much of her childhood in intentional communities, where people raised their own food, created folk art, and sang traditional music. It wasn’t just the level of community that made life different, it was that every interaction – with herself, the environment, and the world – was different than it was when her family left commune-life. For instance, Anne Tyler was 11 years old before she used a telephone, went to public school, or regularly wore shoes.
Even though I also moved around a lot as a child, my life experiences were very, very different. Some differences could be easily attributed to race and education (one of the motivating factors behind our moves was that my father was earning his PhD), but then you have to explain some of the similarities – like our love of reading and writing, and our habit of observing people in order to tell their stories. If you take a moment to think about it, you too could categorize all many of ways in which you are also different from us…. But, then, what about the similarities.
“Missouri made an exasperated face. ‘You don’t know,’ she told her. ‘You don’t know how it would work out. Bravest thing about people, Miss Joan, is how they go on loving mortal beings after finding out there’s such a thing as dying. Do I have to tell you that?’”
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– quoted from The Tin Can Tree by Anne Tyler
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“‘Everything,’ his father said, ‘comes down to time in the end – to the passing of time, to changing. Ever thought of that? Anything that makes you happy or sad, isn’t it all based on minutes going by? Isn’t sadness wishing time back again? Even big things – even mourning a death: aren’t you really just wishing to have the time back when that person was alive? Or photos – ever notice old photographs? How wistful they make you feel? … Isn’t it just that time for once is stopped that makes you wistful? If only you could turn it back again, you think. If only you could change this or that, undo what you have done, if only you could roll the minutes the other way, for once.’”
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– quoted from Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant by Anne Tyler
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“You wouldn’t question your sanity, because you couldn’t bear to think it wasn’t real. And you certainly wouldn’t demand explanations, or alert anybody nearby, or reach out to touch this person, not even if you’d been feeling that one touch was worth giving up everything for. You would hold your breath. You would keep as still as possible. You would will your loved one not to go away again.”
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– quoted from The Beginner’s Goodbye
As different as our circumstances, our appearances, and personalities – and therefore our lives may be – there are certain things we all have in common. We all live and die, love and are loved, experience great wins and great loss. We are also, to paraphrase First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, all in this together – even when we feel alone, isolated, and going through things we can’t imagine anyone else understanding. Yet, here we sit and stand and lie – here we are, struggling together and apart; finding our way together, even though we are apart.
Over the last few days, I spoke to some friends and we reflected on what how we’re getting through our current circumstances and constant changes versus how we were getting things in the middle of March… or the end of May and the beginning of July. Even with all of our differences and distances, we can all chart the highs and lows of what LG and S call the “coronacoaster.” I mentioned that at the beginning – or at what some might refer to as “the end of before” – I was firmly entrenched in the group of people who emotionally wanted bits of before, something familiar. By April, however, my body wanted (and needed) something a little different – but my mind wasn’t completely on board. So, I had to figure out how to compromise and navigate the conflict – just as if my body and mind were an old married couple (or new friends) suddenly finding themselves in lockdown together.
Then there were more changes, more challenges, more conflicts, and more compromises. And, through it all, I did the same thing you did – I kept breathing. What was helpful (and continues to be helpful), above and beyond everything else, was knowing how to breath and being surrounded by people who also were focused on knowing how to breathe. Breath, after all, is life. It’s not enough just to breathe, however, because how we breathe determines how we live.
“‘Breathing lessons – really,’ [Fiona] said, dropping to the floor with a thud. ‘Don’t they reckon I must know how to breathe by now?’”
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– quoted from Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler
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“‘Oh honey, you’re just lucky they offer such things,’ Maggie told her…. ‘I mean you’re given all these lessons for the unimportant things–piano-playing, typing. You’re given years and years of lessons in how to balance equations, which Lord knows you will never have to do in normal life. But how about parenthood? Or marriage, either, come to think of it. Before you can drive a car you need a state-approved course of instruction, but driving a car is nothing, nothing, compared to living day in and day out with a husband and raising up a new human being.’”
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– quoted from Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler
There is a whole industry built around teaching people how to breathe when they are giving birth. Certain techniques not only lower stress, and therefore trauma, they can also help everyone in the room stay focused on that task at hand – keeping everyone healthy and whole. Funny thing is, proper breathing techniques in our day-to-day lives also lowers stress; decreases our trauma-sensitivity (which means we may have a better recovery experience, even when the initial trauma is significant); and helps us stay focused on the present moment. Research has shown improper breathing leads to physical and mental fatigue, high blood pressure, brain fog, increase stress levels, and (ironically) poor sleep. Some people eat more when they are stressed, others eat less – but, either way, poor breathing can disrupt digestion: the body’s ability to absorb nutrients and expel waste. All of this leads to poor health – something the ancient yogis, Buddhist, and contemplatives documented long ago.
Patanjali specifically states, in yoga sūtra 1.34 that clarity of the mind comes from focusing on the breath. So, take a moment, to notice your breath. If you are not breathing deeply in and breathing deeply out, consider what you need to relax the tension in your body in order to breathe more fully. I’ll give you a hint: start with your belly, your fingers, and your toes… as you breathe through your nose.
“She thought of how she had kept at Fiona, whom pregnancy had turned lackadaisical and vague, so that if it hadn’t been for Maggie she’d have spent her entire third trimester on the coach in front of the TV. Maggie would clap her hands briskly – ‘Okay!’ – and snap off the Love Boat rerun and fling open the curtains, letting sunshine flood the dim air of the living room and the turmoil of rock magazines and Fresca bottles. ‘Time for your pelvic squats!’ she would cry….”
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– quoted from Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler
Please join me for a 65-minute virtual yoga practice on Zoom today (Sunday, October 25th) at 2:30 PM. I am in the process of updating the links from the “Class Schedules” calendar; however, the Meeting IDs in the calendar are the same and are correct. PLEASE NOTE: Zoom 5.0 is in effect. If you have not upgraded, you will need to give yourself extra time to log into Zoom. You can always request an audio recording of this practice (or any practice) via email or a comment below.
Today’s playlist is available on YouTube and Spotify. [Look for “07192020 Compassion & Peace (J’Accuse!)”]
In the spirit of generosity (“dana”), the Zoom classes, recordings, and blog posts are freely given and freely received. If you are able to support these teachings, please do so as your heart moves you. (NOTE: You can donate even if you are “attending” a practice that is not designated as a “Common Ground Meditation Center” practice, or you can purchase class(es). Donations are tax deductible; class purchases are not necessarily deductible.)
### BREATHE IN, BREATH OUT ###
A Joyful Practice 