Breathing

I am relatively new to regular meditation. After dozens of starts and pauses, I feel like I am finally experiencing progress by doing a daily practice (sometimes twice daily). And what I enjoy most about meditating is practicing breathing.

We all know that breathing is core to our survival, and many of us already know how it is the central focus of a meditation practice. I can now understand why breathing is a perfect choice. Although it is a body reflex that we do billions of times in a lifetime to survive, it can be easily taken for granted. It’s a regular occurrence, like our heartbeats, but it’s complex enough to keep our minds busy to set aside pesky interrupting thoughts. During each meditation, we are asked to focus on this one small yet massively important part of our existence. And just this action can spark unique insights for us that can transform our lives.

Why am I writing this?

I decided to share my experiences meditating and studying compassion and Buddhism online. I hope that by sharing my experiences during this journey, some may see the value of this work to influence change in ourselves, our friends and families, our communities, and eventually, the world. I hope to inspire at least one other person to cultivate compassion and maybe change the life of someone in their own circle.

A few months ago, I took the Compassion Cultivation Training offered by the Compassion Institute. The Compassion Institute was founded by Thupten Jinpa, Ph.D., the English translator for the Dalai Lama. He and his team created programs introducing compassion, starting with a two-week training and expanding those concepts to an eight-week, more in-depth course. I completed both trainings, but I experienced a profound personal transformation after the eight-week course because it included meditations. My heart was more often filled with love and understanding. And I appreciated myself and others more. I approach life now using the mantra, “we shall see,” rather than trying to decifer mysteries about what’s happening in my life. I am so much happier. As I continue my learning, I am looking forward to experiencing more changes and insights.

Why breathing as my first post?

It’s a natural place to start, especially since most mediation sessions start with breathing to focus the mind and sync one’s mind with the body. When I start meditating, I appreciate having a few minutes to relax my mind by concentrating on breathing alone. Although my mind wanders here and there to remind me of this or that, having a few minutes to focus on breathing helps me get that mental meandering out of my way and prepare for more authentic and focused visualizations or contemplations.

When my mind wanders during the session (It always does. Why meditation is a practice.), the act of concentrating on my breathing brings me back. Although breathing is a natural part of life, I realize how many steps are involved in taking a breath when I focus on breathing. Air rushes through my nose, gets warmed by my body, goes to my lungs (I often don’t feel that), is processed to give blood oxygen, and air rushes out of my body. That all sounds so simple, but dozens of micro steps are happening, making it immensely complicated. It’s a lot to observe, keeping my mind distracted and eventually calm. I can’t plan a trip or create a to-do list and follow my breathing at the same time — there’s not enough mental power for such multi-processing.

What I have learned

I realize that I have gained many insights about not just meditation but life and compassion when I reflect on what breathing during meditation has taught me.

Everyone breathes.

Breathing is something that every living being does (except for maybe some bacteria). It’s an equalizer among us. We inhale and exhale automatically, without any training, so we all can participate and be part of a meditation session at any time. But we all can perfect our breathing through practice and by using it as a tool to calm our minds.

In so many ways, we are similar — we all want to feel happiness, we don’t want to suffer, and we all breathe. Breathing is a shared experience that unites us, and this idea helps me feel more connected to others during practice. It’s where we all start our meditation journeys and where we all return. It’s a nice feeling.

When I breathe, I discover that I am enough, just as I am right now, breathing.

In our busy culture, we may believe that we need to always be doing, contributing, completing, and being active. We are always busy, and sometimes it’s unclear what we are busy doing, but we are busy, nevertheless. We may believe that we are contributing to a project or to society when in fact, we are just doing activities.

Most people in the US measure an individual’s success based on our actions and what we achieve in life, not who we are. And that alone can cause an unbelievable amount of distress. If your loved ones determine your worth based on what you own and what you achieve, you may wonder if your personal qualities and traits have any value. And that makes it challenging to feel self-compassion or self-love. The self-worth of your existence and your world in those cases becomes dependent on the perception and judgment of others. So rather than spending time getting to know yourself and love yourself first, you spend time working to attract attention and feel that love externally. And that constant need for acceptance can cause sadness, frustration, resentment, and anger.

I didn’t fully understand self-compassion and self-love until I learned about tonglen meditation. Just by breathing and being present, I could be valuable and useful to help someone else relieve their suffering. I didn’t even need to be near them so that they can benefit. Just by sitting, breathing, visualizing, and being myself, I could help people. (Yes, there is a lot more to it than that, but based on the basic ideas behind the meditation, this is how it can work.).

And if you reflect on the idea that you help people even if they don’t see it directly, that can also change your perception of yourself. Your existence matters to help others, even if you don’t see it right away.

Too often in our society, we hear how it’s good to be selfless and how that is the opposite of being selfish. But I disagree. You need to understand your own value to know that you can help others and offer them value. If you don’t see the value you offer others when you try to help them, then there is a paradox: how can you truly help others if you don’t believe that you have any worth or value in doing so?

In those cases, do you believe you can offer someone else value to help them and truly be giving? Or are you helping someone so you can be seen in their eyes as offering value, so they give you recognition? Who is doing the giving? This is why self-love is important. You need to know what you are giving and that it is of value.

Breathing taught me how to put my needs first.

This may remind one of the airplane warnings of what to do if cabin pressure drops and the face masks hang down from the ceiling. You can’t help others put their masks on if you can’t breathe. I know that I sometimes cling to ideas of self-sacrifice and martyrdom to do things for others before myself. And when I do that, I almost feel that I’m better than others because I am sacrificing for them. But that is not the case. I am hurting myself because although I help others, I am not taking care of myself properly. If I am not okay, how can I help others? Or rather, what type of help could I offer, really? And I need to ask myself if I am helping them to be of service or if I am helping them so they help me feel better about myself?

This connects to my first point of how breathing is the great equalizer. We all do it. If you don’t breathe, you won’t be alive very long. So you need to be sure that you get enough air for yourself to continue your own journey before you can help others on their journey. You need to love yourself first so you can give to others.

This is also a reminder that before I do anything, I need to remember to breathe. Before I respond to a challenging conversation, I should breathe. Before I do something that puts me out of my comfort zone, I need to breathe. Breathing in this sense doesn’t mean I’m procrastinating. Breathing and pausing before action allow me to clear my thoughts and center my body before challenging myself to something new. Even while working on this piece, before I decided to share any personal thoughts, I took a breath.

I’m grateful for my body.

Our bodies are amazing machines! They operate almost on autopilot to keep us alive, notifying us of what’s needed to be in top form through our feelings, emotions, and thoughts. They are truly incredible.

There was a point in my life when I was not grateful for my body; in fact, I was highly ashamed of my hips and thighs. I starved myself or worked out too often in a vain attempt to make my butt and hips smaller. Nothing worked. It took me many years to realize how my body deserves to be celebrated for doing all these great things it can do. Like breathing. Or working out. Or walking through parks and gardens. Or seeing vibrantly colored flowers and smelling their fragrant aroma. All bodies are wonders. We need to love them more for what they do for us.

I only need what I need at any moment.

When was the last time you took a breath, gathered it in your body, and then saved it for use later? Or if you took a breath with extra air and set it aside just in case you are in a situation where you need air in the future?

The last time I checked, it’s not physically possible to save air in your body for later. If you are drowning or suffocating (an awful thought, but stay with me), you only have enough air to use in your body from what you inhaled during your last breath. There are no reserves to use for breathing. What you get in the present moment to use is what you get. Use that wisely.

This is because when you breathe, you take in only enough air to provide for what your body needs to survive at that moment — no more, no less.

When I realized that my body was only gathering what was needed to survive, my view of life shifted. I understood simplicity and wondered how many of my “things” I needed in my house. How much food did I really need in the refrigerator or freezer? If animals don’t hoard and our bodies don’t hoard, why are we constantly accumulating or collecting anything?

Impermanence and inconsistency: each breath is new and different.

I am a fan of consistency. I try to practice it in my life through consistent action and consistent, logical thinking. I work out every day at about the same time. I try to meditate twice daily at about the same time. I keep my life organized on a tight schedule, even on Saturdays. One could say that I approach life as if I have OCD, but I find that I can maintain simplicity through consistency.

A good analogy of how I view my scheduled life is like when Steve Jobs chose to wear his black turtleneck and jeans every day. His predictability in his wardrobe reduced the number of decisions he had to make in a day by at least one — he always knew what to wear. With his daily outfits being pre-determined, his mind was free to design products. In some ways, with my schedule pre-defined, my mind is more open to new ideas, so I don’t need to worry about what’s next. It is laid out for me. I just need to show up for myself.

But breathing has shown me that’s not how life works. Although I may like to think that there is consistency with each breath, there isn’t. Sometimes I’ll breathe more or less air, depending on what I need at that moment. One breath may be a little faster or slower. The only permanence I experience during breathing is the need to breathe and for the body to get air to survive. How often or how much air goes in or out changes every breath. And that last breath I took will never happen again, just like it did right now. It may be similar, but it’s not the same.

This small part of life, breathing, has taught me that nothing in the world is consistent, and it’s all fleeting. We are in the present, like our breath. And having decisions pre-made may not be best for us. True consistency may be a dream but not a reality. I wonder if true consistency may be inconsistency or variance every day, like breathing.

Breathing has given me many insights about life so far. I’m curious about what else I will learn during my meditation journey.