reverie

Breathing is viewed very spiritual in many faiths... Connecting your individual self in the coexistance of so many forces and entities. So many different techniques to experience, which also play such a vital part in meditative states.

So my questions to you are; Do you ever think about breathing? What are your breaths typically like? Shallow, short, deep, long? What importance (if any) do you believe this act has?

Any symbollogy that comes to mind would also be appreciated

Thanks.

__________________

Elegies and Reveries to No One. Aka: Poetry and shit.

Mescalito

Yin and Yang. In and Out. Inhale and exhale. Input and Output. Air is good stuff. I use my awareness upon breathing to achieve many things.. basically to alter the way i feel/experience.. change states of consciousness.

At its basic level awareness of it means focused awareness.. which means awareness not focused on other things. So its a discipline thing.. and meditation thing.. a tool for allowing the more inportant thoughts to surface for attention.

At another level we can start manipulating our natural breathing rythem as to achieve other things. Ive heard one of the best ways to get energy is to breath in 2 hold for 8 and out for 4.. relatively. Do that ten times and you do feel high.. its a good thing to do to remain calm.. and to boost your general feeling of well-being. To relax i breath progressively deeper and slower.. although i find heavy awareness of this defeats the purpose.. so a gentle awareness and manipulation of breath is a better approach. I do this exercise to get into a suggestive state and to also get into the state where i am no longer aware of any body feel.. then i can attempt to project.. become lucid.. or just let the dream unfold.

My usual breathing pattern and time is 2 secs in 3 secs out.. Im sure it used to be the same ratio.. but more like 4 in 6 out. Theres so many different ratios of pattern you can experiment with.. tweak the speed variables.. the intake volumes.. the time.. etc.

Beyonder

A taoist way of picturing no-mind (wu wei) is to think about the moment between inhalation and exhalation...

There are also meditational methods concerning breathing... One I've come across involves visualisation of a constantly rotating wheel... In Zen buddhism, people consider breathing and just sitting as pure enlightenment... In the sense that to willfully sit somewhere or breathe is to experience direct reality without intervention...

__________________
He who lets the world, or his own portion of it, choose his plan of life for him, has no need of any other faculty than the ape-like one of imitation. He who chooses his plan for himself, employs all his faculties.

-John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

I must create a system or be enslaved by another mans; I will not reason and compare: my business is to create.

-William Blake

SweetSativa

I've used various visualizations with conscious breathing. Here a while back (I posted about it as I was so excited ), I bought a Yoga tape and they have a little section on conscious breathing. He uses the visualization of the rib cage spreading like birds wings. I never liked it until last night... I couldn't 'fit it' into my perception... last night I didn't "try" and suddenly the rise of my breath became the rise of my wings but I was not 'visualizing' wings, I was FEELING them as part of my body....lol, pretty cool. I like the old visualization of breath out gray (old, used, unhealthy energy) breathe in white (purifying, healing, etc). I had noticed a difficult time taking deep breaths for quite a while now... but now that my back is realigned and being regularly stretched and excercised by Yoga, I can breathe deeply and with ease. Really quite essential to stretch and breathe deeply, to deliver oxygen to the various parts of the body. LOL... I will refrain from going off on oxygen therapy and just say I'm a big believer

__________________
"Why is it that when people talk to God, we call it praying but when God talks to people, we call it crazy?"- Touched by an Angel
http://www.youtube.com/user/immelody.../0/DDRj93dQ0O0

The Rev

Breathing is the primary bodily function that is both autonomic (automatic, like the heartbeat), and voluntary. The only other one I can think of off the top of my head is blinking your eyes. Yogis have taken this to mean that the breath is the road to greater control of autonomic functions of the body (among many other things). Given some of the performances skilled yogis have given (like slowing their own heartrates and such), they may just be on to something.

There is a great book by Swami Rama called "Science of Breath" that goes into breathing in great detail, from both a western scientific view and an eastern religious view. A very interesting read.

My personal opinion: breathing is a great joy, when given proper attention.



The Rev

__________________