...namely, exercising the breath.  Of all the centering exercises which you can do, none is more important than working with the breath.  I've talked about physical exercises and I've talked about mental exercises, but when you exercise your breath you are exercising them both at the same time, and in the best centering way possible. 

Breath is, after all, our most vital function.  We can live for hours without water or days without food, but we cannot live for more than a few moments without our breath.  Breath is life.  Breath is spirit.  The word spirit comes from the Latin spiritus, which means breath.  Throughout history, the words for spirit or soul in countless cultures have always had some kind of connotation with the breath.  In other words, the intangible, spiritual side of us humans has always been associated with the air or with the sky--you might even say that our souls are the spaciousness of the sky within us.

Breathing is something that we do every second of our lives, mostly without consciously thinking about it.  But of all of our automatic body processes, it is the only one which we can deliberately control.  Which means that if you start manipulating your breath, you are working with your most essential mind/body connection.  I have long believed that breathing exercises are infinitely more important than physical exercises of the body.  Exercise your breath, and you invigorate your spirit.  You purify your mind.  And you start feeling centered.

Which is why, by the way, that there is nothing more destructive you can do to yourself than inhaling an addictive substance.  Snorting cocaine, sniffing glue, toking the weed, or lighting up a cancer stick--better you swallow the booze or mainline heroin than suck the stuff in with the air.  Your breath is your life.  Absorbing a substance through the lungs will enslave your spirit as well as your body.  It's what people do when they puff their lives away.  Repeated inhalations of anything addictive are not just damaging physically, they are also guaranteed to enslave the spirit.

Working with the breath is called Pranayama in Hindu culture, where it has been practiced for millennia.  There are dozens of books which have been written about various pranayama techniques in recent years, and perhaps hundreds of sites on the web devoted to it.  I'm no expert on pranayama, but I have practiced it for thirty years and can testify to the profound impact it has made upon my life.  Indeed, I am convinced the exercise of the breath is much more important than exercise of the body, and you should devote a part of each day to it.  It can be of itself a meditative practice, especially if you focus upon nothing but your breathing when you do it.  And needless to say, it will engender a feeling of centeredness. 

Here are the most fundamental things I have learned over the years about pranayama:

Breathe from the Diaphragm

First, when you practice your breathing, you should always take deep belly breaths from the diaphragm, instead of just shallow inhalations from the upper part of the lungs.  Furthermore:  you should push your belly out when you inhale and contract it when you exhale.  This seems the wrong way to do it, and it takes some practice getting used to it.

Furthermore, not only should you push your belly out when you inhale, but you should also try to sense energy flowing down the front of your body.  Then when you contract and exhale, feel it going up and out your back.  I have read that this is the way qi energy normally flows, so when you breathe like this you are aligning yourself with the natural flow of your life force.

So as you inhale, you push your belly out while you feel your energy going down your front.  When you exhale, you suck your stomach in while sensing your energy going up and out your back.  Doing it like this takes some getting used to, like learning how to rub your stomach and pat your head at the same time. But after you get the hang of it, it seems perfectly natural.

Slowness

The next thing to understand is that you should make your inhalations and exhalations as slow and as protracted as you possibly can. You should also try to exhale twice as slowly as you inhale.  This is an instruction which is constantly repeated in yoga and Zen texts: you are repeatedly told to breathe out twice as slowly as you inhale. I never understood why this was so important until I figured out that the more slowly you exhale, the calmer becomes your mind.  Breathing as slowly as possible is one of the best possible ways to quiet that good old monkey mind.  "Whoever breathes slowest lives the longest," says Sepharial in Second Sight, a statement with which I wholeheartedly agree.

The Moment Between the Breaths

You also need to pay careful attention to the pause between your inhalations and your exhalations.  The Vijnana Bhairava repeatedly stresses the importance of this centering moment between the breaths.  This moment is what I consider to be one of those good old between moments of special intensity, where we can always find truth or reality.  So not only do you need to deliberately pause between your breaths, you need to pause as long as you can.  This takes some getting used to, since your natural impulse is to start another breath immediately after an inhalation or an exhalation.  But when you do the hang of it, you can feel its calming energies start to work.

Nadi Sodhana or Alternate Nostril Breath

Finally, there is the yoga practice of idea of Nadi Sodhana, or alternate nostril breath.  And of all the centering techniques I am recommending, this simple physical practice has got to be the most important. 

Alternate nostril breath is easy enough to practice:  you block your right nostril with your right thumb and inhale through your left nostril.  Pause for a moment, block you left nostril with your middle or ring finger, and then exhale through your right nostril.  Pause again for your centering moment.  Then inhale through the right nostril, block it with your thumb, and exhale again through the left.  Continue in this fashion for at least fifteen minutes, and don't forget breathe from your belly as slowly as possible. 

That's all there is to Nadi Sodhana, but when you start to practice this exercise devotedly each day, your life will change--and I am not kidding.  What this breathing exercise does is calm both your mind and emotions.  It will bring a sense of balance and tranquility into your life that nothing else can generate--and it stays with you throughout the day.  I have learned that whenever I have a cold or the flu and cannot do my daily Nadi Sodhana practice, my mind gets fuzzy and unfocused, unhappy memories start darting around in my mind, and everything in the world seems dead.  However, whenever I am finally able to resume Nadi Sodhana, my mind clears, my perceptions increase, and I start enjoying life again.  If I were ever to write a book entitled One Simple Exercise for Perfect Happiness, Joyful Tranquility, and Blissful Serenity, the only thing I would write about would be Nadi Sodhna.   

Why is Nadi Sohana so effective?  It has been observed that people don't breathe equally with both nostrils--one nostril is dominant for a few hours, then the other.  Needless to say, our physical being always goes out of whack whenever one side or the other is dominant.  Only for relatively brief periods in our lives do we breathe evenly through both nostrils.  However, this is what we should aim for if we want to feel centered.  Nadi Sohana helps you to balance your inhalations, and if you practice it every morning, its effects stay with you throughout the day. 

We also need to remember that our left cerebral hemisphere seems to be more concerned with logic and analysis, while our right with psychic ability (as well as creativity and emotion).  If we try to utilize our psychic skills at a moment when we are breathing energy into the left hemisphere of the brain, our intuitive energy will just sit there like a flat tire.  We need to have both sides of our brain equally energized if we wish to divine:  we need the right side to pick up on hidden energies and the left to make sense of them. 

And, by the way, it is the left side of the body which affects the right side of the brain, and vice versa.  This is the reason why old cartomancy texts always recommend that you pull the cards with your left hand when you are reading them.  Moving the muscles on the left side of your body or breathing in through your left nostril is will stimulate the intuitive side of your brain, not the opposite. 

I make time to practice Nadi Sohana at least fifteen minutes each morning, and in the evening if I can manage it.  I always do it in silence as it is a practice which requires concentration, so no TV or music or reading allowed.  I have learned that this is also a good time to contemplate my monthly Vijnana Bhairava dharana, which helps to keep my mind steady and focused. 

Meditation

Despite my dislike of lengthy formal meditation, I always allow myself a few meditative moments after Nadi Sohana.  I simply go into silence, let go of my thoughts, and become pure awareness.  Even just a few minutes of this after practicing Nadi Sohana can make a colossal difference in your life.  This is my idea of appropriate meditative practices for a computer geek:  fun, brief, simple, and effective.   

Further Information

There is one pranayama text available at Project Gutenberg:  Hindu-Yogi Science of Breath  by Yogi Ramacharaka, aka William Walker Atkinson.  Although this book does have some helpful pointers, it is not very impressive:  Atkinson was apparently one of those all-American boys who realized he could start milking the suckers by turning himself into a Hindu sage, complete with silk turban and pretentious moniker.  The links listed at the Wikipedia pranayama site are more helpful, and the article on alternate nostril breath at Wiki Health is also good.  next

Centering  •   M.C. Richards   •   Tea   •   Stones   •   Exercises   •   Meditations   •   Breath   •   Chakras  •  
Four Elements  •   Daoist Scriptures   •   Cult of Tranquility   •   Etc.