the fundamental things apply

I am feeling simultaneously galvanized by the radical and far-reaching implications-- and sheepish about the Duh! Like totally OBVIOUS, Dude! simplicity of this week's discovery. One of those books that I flipped through at the used bookstore and bought because, as a sometimes-asthma sufferer, the subject caught my eye:The Miracle of the Breath. [author is Andy Caponigro, erstwhile teacher at the Berklee School of Music]

It's a volume I recommend everyone to get a look at, somehow or another-- I hadn't read far before I realized that BREATH IS THE BASIS OF SPIRITUAL [from the Latin, spiritus, breath] PRACTICE. Of course. Somehow the author has a completely unassuming, pragmatic, friendly way of presenting his material that made all the stuff I've noticed over the years, the bits and pieces I'd mentally bookmarked, start assembling themselves into the completed picture of the 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle.

While this process was flowing through my awareness, all sorts of insights started sparking: maybe the chief one was the about way the use of very specialized religious, 'spiritual', 'esoteric', 'occult', medical, or scientific language serves to obscure the simple truth that a truly generous, wise, and compassionate person would wish to share with anyone who wanted to hear it. And that 'Natural Sage' would use the most common, everyday, simple but precise, language that refers to basic human experience. As Shinzen Young, or Joshu Sasaki, or Charlie Tart, or my teachers-- the Aro lamas, Steven Tainer, and Liu Ming-- do. And as does the book's author.

I think we all intuit this at some level; and the violation of this principle is what gives rise to suspicion about teachers and systems that assume continuing dependence of the student on the teacher-- that the teacher is always ahead of the student, always in the position of 'getting there first' and giving the authoritative explanation of the experience, both for the teacher AND for the student.

http://miracleofthebreath.com/author.html



“As your breath regains its vigor and health, the techniques
you practiced on a regular basis will spontaneously show up to support you in
the course of your everyday life. For example, you might be speaking with a
difficult client or having lunch with an irascible relative who grates on your
nerves. Just when your patience is wearing dangerously thin, you’ll suddenly
hear an inner voice quietly reminding you to watch your breath, or you may find
yourself secretly doing the gentle rapid breathing technique to ease your
feelings of exasperation.

When you first begin working with breathing techniques, you’re
using your mind to guide your breath away from its old, bad habits and into
healthier states of balance. Always remember, however that the spiritual
life-force that dwells in your breath is infinitely wiser than your mind will
ever be. So as your breath begins to get back on track as a result of working
with the basic techniques, your next challenge will lie in learning to trust
your breath by allowing it to do whatever it wishes without trying to control
its movements.

The further you travel along the path of the breath, the
more you’ll realize that the advanced kinds of guidance you’ll eventually need
can come only from the natural wisdom of the breath itself. As your breathing
becomes increasingly strong, healthy, and well-balanced, the spiritual
life-force that dwells in your breath will not only ‘tell’ you which techniques
are best to work with at any given time, it will spontaneously modify the basic
techniques you’ve already learned to suit the ever-evolving needs of your breath.
The spirit of life that dwells in your breath is so infinitely wise, it will
even create new techniques, especially for you, that you’ve never seen or heard
of before.”

[two things that popped into mind as I was reading: first, how frequently meditators have found that they wanted to, and suddenly COULD, quit smoking; second, how the biggest-deal 'spiritual experiences' I've had-- waking or dreaming or in deep sleep-- were notable for a changed breathing]

This is something I hope others will chime in on!

I have to apologize for the weird things that happen when I try to edit my posts. I guess the solution is to get them right the first time!

attempts to edit out the extra spaces served only to increase them!

OK, then-- I'll consider it a kind of accidental enso.

[She can't quit; she can't stop!]

"There are many levels or degree of meditative consciousness. the deepest and most powerful of all is a state of profound meditative absorption that the Hindus call 'samadhi.' Samadhi is the highest goal of all spiritual practices because it is from within this state that our most profound experiences of Divine communion and spiritual liberation take place. The Hindus also call it 'the breathless state' because, at the deepest levels of samadhi consciousness, one's breath completely stops moving for minutes-- or even hours-- at a time, without harm to the body. As we enter the state of samadhi, our breathing becomes so slow and refined that its movements are nearly imperceptible. At deeper levels of samadhi consciousness, our breath completely stops moving, our mind becomes profoundly peaceful, time stands still, and we feel that we are standing in the presence of Eternity itself...

Unfortunately, many people who attain these feelings of stillness and peace from practicing spiritual disciplines fail to recognize their true significance because their experience of Divine communion didn't take the form of a mystical vision of heaven or a visit from an angelic being. Most of my students enter the state of samadhi at least three or four times during the course of a weekend workshop. When I invite them to share their experiences with the rest of the group, some people typically say, 'Well, my mind became very peaceful. But aside from that, nothing significant happened.' "

I love this, even more so because it comes from a professor at a music college!

One thing this brings to mind for me is the concept of the "breath body". My yoga teacher will occasionally run us through a quick "checking in" with our various bodies. It's only happened once or twice, so I can't recall the full run through, but I do remember that our "breathing body" is one step "up" from our physical body, and that in a way, it is the link between the physical body and the soul/spirit/etheric body (or whatever). So the breath is kind of a mediator between the Platonic form that is our "soul" (or whatever) and our physical presence.

Another thing is that the energy worked with in both yoga and chikung/taichi is breath energy. "Prana" or "Chi" is something that is brought into the body with the breath, and something that we more readily absorb when we pay active attention to the process as its happening. In my own experience in Zen, focusing on the breath in the hara (lower abdomen) will build an kind of energy known as jiriki, something I believe can be associated with both "presence" and "attention".

Anyway, just kind of riffing on what you posted. Thanks for sharing Kate.

Well, the guided-meditation CD available for working with the author's breath meditation arrived yesterday, and I got started with the first exercise today. Talk about 'the simplest thing'! We all do it, all day long, year in and year out. In moments of grace, it is like being gently carried to PRECISELY and entirely, inexhaustibly, perfectly-- here. Again and anew. Where there is no danger of doing it wrong or of doing it more perfectly than anyone else or than I did yesterday. As to the moments of 'less grace'-- that's just getting caught up in my thoughts; the breath is very forgiving-- starts afresh several times every minute.

The guy's an obscure genius for allowing things to step out and reveal themselves, of themselves-- for making it implicitly clear: it's not about him/his system; it's not about me, my success or failure or pre-existing conditions; it's not about them, others with whom there is accord or conflict, things that are beautiful or ugly. There is a 'natural state', and it is a perfection too inclusive to admit of imperfection. At any moment, in any condition, it is possible to know this: it will 'look like' whatever is within the perceptual field, being radiantly it/them-selves.

Awesome

Day two, meditating with the breath. As I melt into the timeless, placeless, bodyless, mindless-- and, I notice, virtually breathless-- Space I have a little blip: meditation isn't done with the mind; it's done with the breath. Mind is carried along; all other psychophysiological processes/functions are carried along. Heartbeat aligns itself; tensions, down to the tiniest ones that define 'my' body in 'this' location-- release as a sigh of radiance.

For some months I'd suspended my 'sitting' practice out of a foreboding that I'd somehow stumbled into one of those misconceptions that leads practice further and further astray. It was, I see now, the idea that meditation was about the effects on mind, that breath was just one means of producing those effects. I was hearing the directive, 'Find the presence of AWARENESS in the dimension of...'

Today, I hear 'Find the PRESENCE of awareness in the dimension of...' as the more accurate description of what I experience, when it seems I'm 'home.'

The dance of shi=ne and lackthong continues?

Today, the mind is like a little indicator light, flashing its useful, but modest, message.

Today this possibility occurred to me: what has been called 'enlightenment' [as a discrete experience] is the moment poised at the threshold of the Luminous Emptiness dimension. Transformation begins with taking that step, on solid air, across the threshold, into the dimension. The moment of death seems to provide this opportunity, according to those who have returned, and to some practice traditions.

Is this true? I don't know. It is certainly possible.

Awesome stuff Kate, thanks so much for sharing this.