Take a Deep Breath

 

07.30.2021 TAKE A DEEP BREATH The new issue of Lion’s Roar  magazine takes a deep dive into the power of breath. Inside, you’ll find teachings and meditation instructions on the breath from a variety of Buddhist teachers.  Noticing our breath is perhaps the simplest of mindfulness practices, available to us at any moment to quell distraction and offer a reprieve from anxiety. Though we breathe roughly twenty thousand times a day, we hardly notice our breath, writes Zen teacher Karen Maezen Miller in “How I Discovered My Breath (and So Much More).” “We remain unstirred by its subtle constancy and unmoved by its deep mystery,” Miller writes. “Yet right there under our nose lies a journey into the pulsing heart of a living, breathing universe.” The three teachings below offer an exploration of the power and practice of breathing. May they each invite you to notice your breath this weekend, and wake up to this profound tool right under your nose.  —Lilly Greenblatt, Digital Editor, Lion's Roar

How I Discovered My Breath (and So Much More) Counting breaths — the simplest of mindfulness practices — took Zen teacher Karen Maezen Miller on a profound spiritual journey. It’s one we can take too. Breathing exposes the expectations we bring into a practice: what we think it should feel like, what we aim to accomplish, and what it all means. But each breath defies our expectations and is entirely original: sometimes long, sometimes short; sometimes smooth, sometimes not. Breath is movement and movement is change, the truth of our existence. We can hold on to our expectations, beliefs, and judgments, but we cannot hold on to a breath, which is the manifestation of the present moment. The exhalation itself guides us into the empty ease and relief of letting go.

What Are We Ignoring About Breathing?  Like each breath, your life constantly appears and disappears. The late Taizan Maezumi Roshi teaches how to do the profound practice of breathing. Usually we say there are three essentials in life: clothes, shelter, and food. Breathing, the most important essential, is not mentioned. Not only do we ignore our own breathing, but we often ignore the breathing of other creatures. Animate and inanimate beings are all breathing. Breathing is a most important dharma. Without this very body, the dharma can’t be appreciated. We must be aware of how this so-called body and mind exist. It is the most mysterious, subtle dharma; everything comes out of it.

The Magic Moment Sharon Salzberg explains how to practice basic breath meditation. Deliberately take three or four deep breaths, feeling the air as it enters your nostrils, fills your chest and abdomen, and flows out again. Then let your breathing settle into its natural rhythm, without forcing or controlling it. Just feel the breath as it happens, without trying to change it or improve it. You’re breathing anyway. All you have to do is feel it. Notice where you feel your breath most vividly. Perhaps it’s predominant at the nostrils, perhaps at the chest or abdomen. Then rest your attention lightly — as lightly as a butterfly rests on a flower — on just that area.

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