Every Breath You Take

From Menletter September 2010

By Tim Baehr

We can live for a month or so without food, for a few days without water, and for just minutes without air. Air is the only substance we put into our bodies on a nearly continuous basis; with water, it is the only substance I can think of that we can put into our bodies without any danger of addiction. We may suffer fatal "withdrawal symptoms" if we're deprived of air, but we don't become so adapted to it that we crave more and more of it (one of the classic definitions of addiction).

Air and breathing are the source of human life and spirituality, in the Biblical accounts of creation and in the New Testament. In the creation story most widely known in the West, God breathed life into clay to create Adam. Jesus talked about spirit as the breath of life; in fact, the word "spirit" comes from a word that means "to breathe."

Breathing has a long history in the creation of meditative or altered states of mind. Cut off too much air (hypoxia) and you can experience euphoria (along with seizures and coma, among other nifty things). Meditation practices in yoga, Buddhism, and other disciplines often involve paying attention to the breath, deep breathing, or counting breaths. In holotropic breathwork and integrative breathwork, deep and rapid breathing (under close supervision) can lead to fantastic visions, reliving old traumas, and emotional release. Even in more mundane settings, we can breathe a sigh of relief, take a deep breath to calm ourselves, or pant in pain, fear, or physical exertion.

The effects of breathing in ways other than the unconscious in-and-out breathing we do all day and night can be psychological (increasing concentration, for instance) or physiological (lowering or increasing heart rate, for instance). The deep and rapid breathing of holotropic breathwork can cause involuntary body motions and temporary (and harmless) tingling or numbing of hands and face.

Conscious breathing can also be part of a spiritual practice - Zen or Yoga discipline, or spiritual contemplation. Tonglen meditation, a Tibetan Buddhist practice that arrived by way of India, involves breathing in and accepting pain and suffering (usually someone else's) and breathing out compassion and loving-kindness. This is not an attempt to heal or ease the pain of others; rather, it is intended as a way to increase altruism and compassion.

The common denominator in breathing exercises is air. Air has no allies or enemies. Air suffers no attachments to the world. Air is not striving for achievement or moaning about bad luck. Air has nothing to boast about, and nothing to be ashamed of. Air is neither bold nor shy, smart nor stupid, evil nor virtuous.

Air just is.

We may or may not have a meditation practice, which inevitably involves some form of conscious breathing. But we breathe all day and all night anyway. What if we made at least some of our breaths conscious ones?

We sit at a traffic light, impatient because we're late for an appointment. Three deep breaths can both calm us down and be a reminder not to be so attached to life's outcomes. We've invited into our body something that "just is."

A friend or store clerk or boss is rude to us. A deep breath can give us enough of a pause not to respond in kind or escalate the situation. It can also be a chance to consider that the rudeness comes from a painful place we don't know about. So we breathe in that pain and breathe out compassion. We've invited into our body something that "just is."

We sit in meditation and intrusive thoughts flood our minds: what to fix for dinner, why our life is wonderful (or sucks), what to say to the boss, why the car didn't start, how to spend the big bonus we just got, whether we'll see that hot babe on the subway tomorrow. We notice suddenly that our breathing has become shallow. And when we become aware of this jumble of inner voices, we take a breath and then another and then another. We've invited into our body something that "just is."

Throughout the day, we can occasionally take a conscious breath and remind ourselves to "just be."