T.N.G. SIGNS OF THE TIMES - N.M. January 2, 2003 (#115)
Greetings from Russell's Remnant: www.oocities.org/dkone_us
Dr. Russell Whitesell gave a hint to his disciples that the interludes were very important. There seems to be an esoteric clue hidden in this hint; however, one area that he confirmed fit this hint is the interlude between the in-breath and out-breath.
The Tao of Natural Breathing by Dennis Lewis
The lungs have a total capacity of about 5,000 milliliters, the average breath is only about 500 milliliters.
To breathe fully is to live fully. Our chronic shallow breathing reduces the working capacity of our respiratory system to only 1/3 of its potential.
Most of us depend mainly on chest and clavicular breathing, and have little experience of diaphragmatic breathing. Thus we seldom draw air into the deepest areas of our lungs, where most of our blood awaits oxygenation.
Many of us breath faster than the average rate of 12-14 time a minute – a rate which is already faster than it needs to be. We hyperventilate – we take quick, shallow breaths from the top of our chest. Some believe that this hyperventilation actually magnifies our psychological problems and conflicts.
Through natural breathing we are able to support our overall health.
Breathing naturally for even a small percentage of the 15,000+ breaths we take each waking day would be a big step toward preventing many physical and psychological problems and also support our own inner growth.
Not breathing with abdominal breathing necessitates that we take two to four times as many breaths, thus increasing energy expenditure through higher breath and heart rates. This retards venous blood flow which carries metabolic waste from the cells to the kidneys and lungs. Realize that 70% of the body’s waste products are eliminated through the lungs. Non-abdominal breathing weakens and disharmonizes the functioning of almost every major system in the body and makes us susceptible to chronic and acute illnesses and diseases of all kinds.
The Diaphragm – the “Spiritual Muscle” – is the most important respiratory muscle from the standpoint of health. Few of us make efficient use of this muscle. When we inhale fully, the diaphragm can double or even triple its range of movement and actually massage the stomach, liver, pancreas, intestines, and kidneys, promoting intestinalmovement, blood and lymph flow, and the absorption of nutrients. Unfortunately, most of us do not experience the full benefit of this “spiritual muscle.” Our breath has an influence on all our major organs.
When the inner smile is combined with deep, spacious breathing, called the “smiling breath,” the effect can be even more powerful. The Smiling Breath is a practice of both self-awareness and self-healing.
Our breathing has to help open us to our own inner healing powers and spiritual development.
According to Lao Tzu, if we can somehow expand this narrow image we have of ourselves and live from our wholeness, then many of our problems will disappear on their own.
There is absolutely no doubt that superficial breathing ensures a superficial experience of ourselves.
Our faulty patterns of breathing have developed over many years and are tied in closely with our self-image.
In full inhalation, we renew ourselves – not just with oxygen, but also with new impressions of everything in and around us.
Because your face most directly reflects the tensions of your self-image, it is by learning how to relax your face that you can begin to relax the rest of your body.
Venting our anger causes us to get more angry, not less. Stress increases the acidity of the blood. By reducing chronic tension, we reduce the quantity of waste products. When we are tense, we automatically focus on the supposed cause of our tension.
The Pause of Spaciousness: The great mystical traditions have spoken of this pause between exhalation and inhalation as a timeless moment – in infinite space – between yin and yang, non-action and action, in which we can go beyond our self-image and experience our own unconditional nature.
By simply relaxing your eyes, you can relax your whole body.
In the stress filled circumstances of everyday life, try spacious breathing into your navel area – for it is here that you will have the largest impact on your overall well-being and health.
Head Breathing: Inhale into the third eye, the crown, and to the jade pillow (where the spine meets the skull). Exhale from the jade pillow, the crown, and out through the third eye. Breath in this way 3-6 times, sensing that each cycle is helping your chi clear the pathway of any stagnation or nervous energy. Do this without tensing the muscles of face and head. You will soon experience definite results.
The Tan Tien Cleansing Breath: Heal yourself by gently inhaling all the way down into the tan tien area, an inch or two below your navel. As you inhale, put your attention on the lower tan tien and sense your breath energy filling your lower abdomen. As you exhale, sense any tensions and toxins going out with the breath as your abdomen naturally contracts.
Transformation takes place in the three main energy centers of the body, called “tan tiens,” or “elixir fields” – located in the lower abdomen, the solar plexus, and the brain.
Squatting is useful not only for opening up the lower back, but also for your overall health. It also helps cleanse and energize the kidneys. If you have trouble squatting, you can stand and bend over with your upper body supported by your hands on your knees. Breathing in begins to energize your lower tan tien.
Opening your belly: as you inhale, sense that you’re breathing directly from your nose through a long narrow tube into a balloon behind your navel.
Use no more than 60-70% of our capacity in carrying your physical or spiritual practices.
As you inhale, sense the breath energy moving up the governor channel from the perineum through the various centers. As you exhale, sense the energy moving down the functional channel from your mid-eyebrow point through the centers back again to your perineum. Taoists masters through the centuries have said that when you can experience energy flowing through the microcosmic orbit, hundreds of illnesses can be avoided or cured.
As your breathing begins to reach into more parts of yourself, the results will come – usually when you least expect them.
Negative ions in the lungs allow oxygen to be more efficiently absorbed by the blood.
Deep abdominal breathing helps move our life force into the higher centers where it can be transformed, and it also helps to quiet the mind and calm the brain. The brain burns ten times as much oxygen and produces ten times as much carbon dioxide as the rest of the body.
Put you attention just below the navel and sense the energy ball expanding and contracting as you inhale and exhale. Once you feel that you are in touch with this area, allow your attention also to include the upper tan tien between your eyebrows. Sense your eyes relaxing back into their sockets. Feel the entire area around your eyes relaxing. The actual experience feels like something hard softening, or like ice melting to become water.
Taoists have observed that as we inhale, we can also draw the yin energy of the earth, a powerful healing energy, through our feet and upward into our body. As we exhale, we can direct any toxic or stagnant energies down through our feet and into the earth. Taoists also maintain that during inhalation we can draw the yang energy of heaven into our body through the crown and during exhalation distribute the energy downward throughout the body.
Every time we inhale we take in some 1022 atoms, including approximately one million of the same atoms of air inhaled by Lao Tzu, Buddha, Christ, and everyone else who has ever lived on this earth. Our breath is a link in the cosmic ecology. It connects our so-called inner world with the vast scale of the outer world.
Gurdjieff said “Without mastering breathing nothing can be mastered.”
Some Buddhist and Taoists advise:
The simple vehicle of the breath takes the practitioner from calming the mind to the deepest wisdom, to nirvana. The breath is the uncomplicated path to enlightenment.
Develop mindfulness and concentration on the breath. If attention is drawn away from the breath, the gentle perseverance of returning to the breath both strengthens concentration and cultivates the ability of letting go. The breath will get subtle, but we watch it as it is; we needn’t do anything. It’s a fascinating process.
Know all we can do is take one breath at a time and watch what comes next.
The breath is a whole world. It is easily worth a lifetime of study. It is a superb aid in helping us stay in the present moment. No matter what comes up: keep it simple, and stick to the present moment.
Zen master Hogen said that the whole universe is the breath.