The conscious breath is one of the tools we have in
this life to clean out our body-mind system before we drift into the natural death
spiral.
The more work we do to free our body-mind energies the
easier it will be for us to let go of our attachments in the end.
Freedom is all we want. Liberty. The pursuit of
happiness. Practicing the conscious breath gives us all of these in abundance.
Breathing appears to be a simple process and it is
most natural. We have been doing it since the moment we were born.
What we haven’t been doing is combining our conscious
will with the breath. We also have not been paying close attention to the
variations in our breathing.
In order to progress on a path that leads to
purification of body-mind, we must fully master our breath.
Energy is flowing through the body-mind system all the
time. Stagnation or blockages result in either physical or emotional discomforts.
Consciously breathing into these blockages will help dissolve
them and thereby ease the discomfort.
Deep conscious belly breathing leads to deep
relaxation of the body-mind system. Sinking deeper and deeper into the lowering
breath brings more and more relaxation and a spreading sense of ease.
Relaxing the abdominal muscles allows us to sink
deeper and deeper into this widening and opening conscious breath. We fill our
lungs with the breath of our existence, and we are thankful for it.
We find our sense of identity in this natural function
of the in-and outbreath. We are conscious of every nuance of it. We get to know
our bodies by following the breath into every part of our bodies. We discover
where there are blockages, where there are tensions, where there is discomfort.
And we honor those blockages, tensions, and discomforts. And then we see if we
can find ways around them, or gently through them, so that our energy can flow
freely once again.
This free flow of energy is the way to experience true
comfort, true physical and emotional health. Our will and our intention are
directing the flow of this energy. We can send it to our head when we have
headaches, or our toes when it hurts there. The way we do this, is through the
breath. We breathe in consciously into our deep belly, and then on the
outbreath, we direct the energy where we want it to go either inside our
body-mind system or even outside of it into our environment.
In other words, we can use the energy for healing
ourselves or for healing others. Our intention is what determines where the
energy goes. First, we store it up in our deep belly, and then we direct it with
our intentions and will.
During a physical workout we can direct the energy
into our muscles on the outbreath. We breathe in and on the out-breath we
contract our muscles and breathe energy into them. Then we hold for a while,
then breathe out and relax the muscle. We can choose any of the various muscles
or muscle groups of our body.
Another way to use the conscious breath in bodywork is
to breathe into each of these muscles or muscles groups while contracting them.
We can start at our toes and work our way up to our head, muscle by muscle. This
wakes up the muscles. This is a good exercise to do in the morning while still lying
in bed.
We need to do all physical exercises while practicing
the fully conscious breath. It is important that we adjust our physical
exercises so that we can keep breathing slowly through the nose.
Agitated breathing is not what we are striving for.
Deep, conscious breathing is our goal. And our intention is always to bring
tension release and relaxation to the body-mind system. We want to dissolve
stress. We want to bring comfort and ease.
This does not mean that we don’t tax our muscles. We
can hold a yoga pose for several minutes until we begin to shake a bit, and
still breathe in a calm and relaxed manner, being fully aware of what we are
doing.
The intent is always towards clarity, towards opening the energy flow in body-mind. Finding those blockages and actively dissolving them. Sensing the buildup of energy in body-mind. Filling up the body-mind with this energy until we sense the bliss of being, the ecstasy of existing. And then we realize that life is truly exquisite. Every conscious breath brings us to the bliss of existence. We load up on bliss every time we take a breath. We breathe. We exist. We are alive. We are thankful for being. We don’t know how we came to be, but here we are, and we are thankful.
