Breath is a Bridge

Breath is the essence of life. Everybody knows this. The breath is taken so much for granted that most people are not even aware of the process of breathing. In the recent past, there is a rise in the number of people who want to understand the relationship of breathing to health and spirituality. Unfortunately, few people understand the importance of ‘natural breathing’. To understand what is ‘natural breathing’, one just needs to observe small babies or infants breathe. The way they breathe a complete breath, and the rise and fall of their abdomen with every inhalation and exhalation, is what comes as a nature’s way to breathe. This kind of spontaneous breathing is natural to the infant; nobody teaches them how to breathe correctly. We were all born with the same gift of nature. But, along the process of becoming civilized, we have lost touch with many of our natural blessings; breathing is one of them.

Instead of trying to learn to breathe naturally, many people impose complicated breathing techniques on top of their already bad breathing habits. These habits are not in harmony with the psychological and physiological laws of the mind-body. According to Sensei Kuki, natural breathing is like the neutral gear in a car’s gear mechanism. One has to learn where the neutral gear is before learning the other gears. So when one shifts gears, before going to any gear, it is important to be aware of the transition passing through the neutral gear. One cannot bypass the neutral. One must essentially re-learn ‘natural breathing’ and then, if needed, learn to do different complicated versions of controlling their breath. One must try and understand the relation between the body-breath-mind phenomenon.

Breath is intimately connected to the state of the body. In every posture, every activity and inactivity, the breath moves differently. When the individual is at rest, the breath moves differently as compared to sitting, standing, walking, jogging, or sprinting. If we observe the breath we see that as the activity intensifies, the breath also becomes faster and shallower. With the increase in physical stress, the breath also changes patterns. Similarly, every thought and emotion is intimately connected to the breath. For example, when a person is angry, the breath becomes rapid and shallow, and also affects the other physiological parameters like blood pressure and heart rate. Every single breath connects and is connected  to everything, from grossest to the subtlest experience within the framework of mind-body.