Re: Breathing
From a Collage of Poppy's Life
by
Dennis Hooker
MAKOTO NO KOKYU
(TRUE BREATH)
"If you stay in one spot, and spin and spin and spin, soon you will discover that even though the world whirling about you is a vast blur, in your own kinesthetic sphere is a clarity, a lucidness in your vision. You can hold out your hand and see it exactly as it is. And you realize that you are not moving, your body is moving. You are just there, watching, motivating your action.
Breathing is a bridge between you and your body. It may be something required of you, but not something you are responsible for. Breathing goes on in spite of you. If the bridge is broken, your harmony in the universe is broken. If your breath is short, cut off, it may not make it to your center and consequently you feel off-centered. So, even though breath flows continuously, if we disturb its progress, we disturb our life, our consciousness, and our vitality. The Indian word, prana, is one word for which the English has two: life (aliveness, vitality) and breath. We may use this to understand that the significance of breath is one which unites us with the Universe, with the present and with time and space. When a breath comes in and then goes out, it is but one breath: it is a circle. The same breath going in makes a turn and goes out.
The cycle (a single breath is a single band of a spiral) is the motion of the Universe which has come to your body, which is nearest to your body. Your body is a part of the Universe. In this way breath meditation is a technique to realize the source of life. There are many breath techniques for many kinds of people. The moving meditation of Aikido is a breathing technique. The rhythms, motions, adjustments to ki direction, joining with other energies, are all spiraling with the same deep pulse of the Universe of which we inhale and exhale constantly."
Here is a story about not giving up, and finding value in all that you do, and about not blaming yourself for things you can't control. Once my teachers convinced me that my sickness was not a curse brought about by my personal faults, but a gift from God to help my spirit grow stronger, I began to see things differently. Like many kids I guess I had my horrible experiences and living nightmares. For years I blamed myself for having Myasthenia Gravis, for not being able to walk, or comb my hair, or hold a spoon, and all that stuff. I thought I was being blamed and punished for things I had no control over. But that was not true, I just had a sickness and I had to learn to deal with it. I think it has become an asset in my life now. Once we take away the self-hate and doubt and blame all there is left to do is heal. If not the body completely, then the spirit. What your about to read gave me the will to be well and the means to follow that will. Much of the time I felt like I was that small child again sitting in the Ice Plant Woods. I was not learning how to do this as much as remembering how. In many ways it was like going home again after being away for years. I remember one time sitting there taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly and the thought that crossed my mind like clouds across the sun was ahhh Sanity Again.
Energy -- Spirit- Consciousness
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