Breathing

by Elihu Genmyo Smith (An edited version of a talk of January 5, 2003)

It is a new year. It is good to remind our self of the basics of our practice. Most basic is our aspiration to be awake; this moment, each moment. To awaken as who we are, to life we encounter and function as from morning to evening. To be who we are, nothing more, nothing extra. Practice efforts support and manifest being awake, awakening, aspiration.

Breathing is the most fundamental functioning of this aspiration, this respiration at which we are all experts. We all are expert breathers. And yet, though we breathe from morning to night, much of the time we are not awake in the midst of breathing, not being the breathing that we are. Breathing is not breathing.

So the simplest effort to renew practice is to be breathing. It is most basic and simple, what all grows out of and comes back to. I don’t say be breathing in any particular way. Short breath is short breath, long breath is long breath, deep breath is deep breath, shallow breath is shallow breath. Being breathing that we always are. This is our support in practice. Whether sitting or walking, speaking or being silent, breathing is a wonderful support. Breathing manifests and supports our aspiration to awaken, it is being awake.

We all know our life quite well; much better than anyone else. In the specifics of our life circumstances it is vital to make the appropriate effort to be breathing, to be awake. Whether when we sit, at work, when we enter a room or when we speak to someone, be breathing. Use the breathing that we are to be awake rather than caught up in reactions to conditions and circumstances. We are bigger than the caught-up-ness of attachment, of reaction. We all know very well what the practice opportunities of our life are, when we are caught up in circumstances and beliefs, what circumstances keep us dreaming. It is the habits of mind that make dreaming, make for not being awake. Where is the little chink opportunity to insert my effort, my aspiration of awakening, of being present? Being breathing can be this chink, this practice effort opportunity. Breathing is always here, it is exactly aliveness. Inhaling, holding, exhaling, in the midst of whatever our functioning.

As long as we are alive, breathing supports being awake. So, as we start the year, I want to remind us of the effort that we can make. This is a time to re-awaken, refresh our practice aspiration. I want to encourage it. Because after all it is what we are doing here. We use all practice supports. In fact, this physical body is a whole support that enables us to be who we are. Body-mind awake. So our choice is to use supports or let them go by the wayside.

Student: I always saw breathing practice as something to do only while sitting on the cushion or taking a moment in the office. Something you said struck me about being breathing as an ongoing practice.

EGS: Yes, breathing is typing on the computer, reading, all interconnected functioning. When we are not present, awareness of breathing, awareness, is gone.

Student: When I’m really caught up (in emotion-thought) I’m not breathing. I’m holding my breath unconsciously. It makes me aware of how much I’ve been holding onto, breath as a figurative symbol of holding on.

EGS: Breath is more than just figurative. Breath is this connectedness of body-mind. As you say, attachment of emotion-thought in this seeming nonphysical realm is very much manifested as holding our breath. Body and mind are not two separate realms. We may talk and think about it as separate but breathing is this body-mind united. And we see it very clearly. As breath calms, mind-emotion state calms down. As mind-emotion state is, our breath is. As you say, there is the connection. Certainly, we don’t make an extra effort when getting upset, to “breathe upset.” It just happens. Because it is all one functioning; better, it is not two. There are all kinds of explanations, scientific, et cetera, for how that is but that is not the point. It is so.

Sometimes we say, “my breath.” And yet we discover that breathing breathes us. Breathing breathes me. Breathing breathes the karate form, breathing breathes painting, cleaning, eating. It is not something mysterious and yet it doesn’t fit beliefs and emotion-thought. So sitting is giving us this opportunity to be breathing, to be awake, to be awakened as who we are.

It’s not about breathing in a particular way. Yes, there are practices of breathing in a particular way to develop particular states of being. Nevertheless, whichever way you breathe, right here is the opportunity of being breathing awake this moment as is. Long breath is long breath, short breath is short breath. Short breath we are this awake short breath, long breath we are this awake long breath.

Though we think we are awake, there are many ways we find to not be awake in the midst of daily functioning. Which is why our practice effort needs to be this awakened life that we are, to awaken to life, as our life. Practice efforts force us to face the ways we want to stay a dream, not be awake. Yet, in the midst of habits of emotion-thought, being awake is not so easy, which is why we need the practice supports and effort to be awake throughout our day, throughout our life.

So my encouragement is for all of us in this next year, in this day, in this moment, to make the efforts that will support and manifest being awake.



© 2003 Elihu Genmyo Smith