Releasing The Breath
I recently spoke with a friend who had just begun meditating – she was having difficulty with using her breath as a main object. She said as soon as she turned her attention to it, her breath would begin tensing up until she felt like she couldn’t breathe. It was as if, simply by paying attention to it, she couldn’t help controlling it, which was creating a kind of uncomfortable paralysis.
Over the years, I’ve found quite a few people have this controlling reaction to the breath – including myself when i began meditating thirty years or so ago, The issue I had was also to do with my instinctive habit of trying to control my breath whenever I paid attention to it.
I’ve written about this before in another post (link is here), which is probably worth reading – but in this post, I’ll offer a different solution than that which I proposed in that post.
With me, the problem happened when I first began meditating with the movement of the belly as a main object. Being new to meditation and overly keen and trying to get ‘the meditation experience’, I tried much too hard. I poured all of my energy into following my belly as I breathed, and in focusing so intensely, I began instinctively trying to control the two parts of my breath as they appeared in the movement of my belly – the in and the out.
Result being, with my breath no longer able to ‘breathe itself’ as it should, it was like I was forcing my breath to march in time with some false rhythm in my head – which caused my body to tighten up, and the simple act of breathing to become tense and painful.
And the strangest thing was, I knew what I was doing wrong, but I just couldn’t help it. So even though I would determine to let go of my breath as I paid attention to it, inevitably I would lapse back into control and tension.
When I complained of this to the teacher, he said: ‘You’re trying too hard. It’s simple. Just breathe, and watch how your belly moves as the breath goes into your body, and then out … that’s all you have to do.’
All well and good – I already knew what he was telling me. Nevertheless, my controlling habits persisted.
And as I think about it, it makes sense that many of us have this instinctive habit. In our human world of work, money, competition and building a life, we need to control things – in fact, we need to control most things – the way we express ourselves, our finances, our relationships and everything in our lives – we need to control almost everything we attend to. Very little in our life is allowed to flow in its own way – so it makes sense that our habit of control should be so instinctive, that whatever we pay attention to, we will immediately begin interfering with it.
In my previous post, I said the key to paying attention to the belly as you breathe is to take the middle way – not too heavy that you interfere with its natural movement – and not too light that your attention keeps drifting off to its favourite distractions and daydreams.
Easier said than done – particularly when we’re new to meditation. So I’ve given it some thought, and experimented a bit with an alternative main object, and I think it’s the way to go if you’re having difficulty with what I’ve described.
So here it is:
Instead of paying attention to the belly as it moves in and out with each breathe, try switching to the sensations on your upper lip and around the lower part of your nose as you breathe.
This main object is nothing new – it’s commonly used in many Vipassana schools of meditation, in particular by the very popular and wonderful Goenka method and in their meditation centres. I began my own meditation journey with the Goenka method back in the ‘90’s and though I veered off into other methods, I strongly recommend it. If you can ever get the opportunity to take ten days off to practice with them, it’s an adventure you’ll never forget.
They have centres all over the world – you can find out all about them HERE.
Anyway, as I said, I’ve dusted off what I remember of the method and how they use the main object, and I’ve been experimenting with it over the past week, and I think it solves the problem of tight breath.
I’ll describe it here:
1. With your attention you’re exploring the area around centre of the upper lip and around the nostrils and lower nose, both outside and inside – seeking out whatever sensations you can find.
2. You’re not interested in whether you’re breathing in, or out. You’re just looking for whatever sensations are there – whether cool air going in, or warm air coming out of the nose, or an itch on the upper lip, or any other sensation, or sensations.
3. You’re not thinking about the sensations, nor are you imagining them, and they are not especially significant. They’re just a place to rest your attention on so your mind and body can go still.
4. If you can’t find any sensations, then keep looking. The more intently you pay attention to this area on the upper lip, and around and inside the nostrils, the more sensations you’ll discover. Something is there, you just have to find it – you’ll know it when it appears
5. The object is for this main object, over time, to absorb your attention so thoroughly, that it will stop fidgeting and darting about everywhere, and go still – at which point, with the mind and body receiving less stimulation, they also will go still and awareness will become more noticeable, and more expansive.
The good thing about this main object is, unlike with the belly, it is not overtly connected to the IN and OUT of your breath, so your body is released to breathe whichever way it wants. As such, rather than taking a hypnotic IN and OUT form, it should form a continuum of one constant breath – which will make it easier for stillness to appear.
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Roger’s book, ‘BEING STILL – MEDITATION THAT MAKES SENSE’ is available now. Just click on the links below:
AUDIOBOOK (including ebook & MP3 exercises) – AUD $25.00
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