The Tibetan Yoga of Breath: Breathing Practices for Healing the Body and Cultivating Wisdom (2 page)

Although I am a committed practitioner of the Secret Mantrayana tradition, I do not take lightly the discipline and diligence required to engage in many of its practices. Because of its strenuous asana poses, I have never thought of Yantra Yoga as a tradition I was capable of practicing. And tales of Anyen Rinpoche’s own story of training in the middle of winter seemed magical and otherworldly to me, and completely out of my reach. However, as my understanding of Vajrayana practice has grown over the years, I began to learn some of the breath practices from the Yantra Yoga tradition that immensely improved my mental and emotional stability, as well as augmented my physical health. These were aspects that even I, an ordinary practitioner, could learn, use, and benefit from. I noticed a change in my ability to balance my body and mind in daily life situations, and I began to feel more comfortable with my ability to adapt to all kinds of environments and to work more compassionately with others.

As I prepared to write this book with Anyen Rinpoche, I delved into the medical research that has been done on the subject of the breath and on the health benefits of bringing the proper amount of oxygen into the blood, with the assistance of my Vajra Sister Sarah Teague Johnson. I was amazed by how the yogis of India and Tibet, prior to the invention of modern technology or research instruments, gained a thorough knowledge of the effect of the breath, proper and improper, on our physical, emotional,
and spiritual health. Not only did these classic masters understand the problems caused by improper breathing in a way that perfectly corresponds to modern medical science, but they also knew how to remedy these problems with very simple techniques. These breathing “treatments” and “cures” are as easy as working with posture, nasal breathing, and the elongation of the inhalation and exhalation. The benefits of these contemplative techniques can also be explained with a detailed understanding of medical science. How remarkable that the masters of old could have knowledge that is so true, so exact, and so pertinent to our health in the modern world.

In this book, we have attempted to offer the most useful information for those interested in starting to practice wind energy training, using medical science as a starting point. Yantra Yoga, with its rich oral and textual tradition, has its own parallel way of describing the negative effects of oxygen and carbon dioxide deprivation on the body, mind, and emotions. By weaving together the knowledge of these two sources, the modern and the mystical, we hope many readers of this book will be inspired to start working with the tradition of wind energy training.

Of course, this book offers only the most basic of teachings on wind energy training, those that are appropriate for any individual to start applying. For anyone who wishes to delve into deeper training and more detailed instructions than a book can provide, the importance of seeking out an authentic spiritual master cannot be overstated. An authentic teacher who has had a lifetime of training in Yantra Yoga and has become the close student of a master of this tradition will be able to give proper and complete instructions on this practice, and point out mistakes and pitfalls. In the West, we are used to thinking that a teaching-certification program is enough to make us a master at something, since it confers a license to teach others. While this may be true of some subjects, wind energy training is definitely not one of them. True
proficiency and skill is not gained in a few weeks or a few months. A few classes or retreats do not make a master!

While I do not claim to be a great practitioner of meditation, I have found that many of the physical and emotional conditions that I suffered from earlier in life, such as anxiety, migraine headaches, and chronic lung conditions, have disappeared since I began working with meditation, mindfulness, and the breath. I am not surprised to find that all of these conditions are associated with improper breathing and a lack of balance between the oxygen and carbon dioxide in the blood. Meditation has not only helped to quiet my mind, it has also naturally brought greater balance to my wind energy, which has helped to heal many of the imbalances in my physical and mental health.

I would like to be clear that we, the authors of this book, are not doctors. We believe in taking a holistic approach to the treatment of any physical, mental, or emotional imbalance. We believe that a combination of factors—working with wind energy training, practicing meditation, exercising, paying attention to diet and nutrition, following the advice of health care practitioners, and using Western and natural medications when necessary—is the most effective way to treat any imbalance. We urge you not to stop any treatment plan that you are currently following, but instead to add wind energy training to your current treatment plan. As you find greater balance in body and mind, you will be in a better position to evaluate or make changes to your overall wellness program.

In this modern world, so afflicted by famine, war, weaponry, genocide, and the swift and unknown effects of technology, how lucky we are that we have available the guidance of many rich spiritual traditions! May the teachings in this book alleviate the suffering of beings everywhere.

A
LLISON
C
HOYING
Z
ANGMO

PART ONE

Why We Practice Breath Yoga

1

Breath Is Life

The Physical and Elemental Workings of Breath

AFTER THE CONSCIOUSNESS
enters the mother’s womb, the greatest support and condition for life is the breath. In this case, when we speak of the breath, we are not only speaking of the ordinary inhalation and exhalation of oxygen and carbon dioxide but we are also talking about the air element—one of the fundamental elements of life. Great classical philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle described the phenomenal world using the framework of the four elements: air, fire, water, and earth, and their harmony or discord. Like Western philosophy, the ancient traditions of Eastern philosophy, medicine, and meditation all place importance on the qualities and harmony of the four elements. The general Sutric tradition of Buddhism names the four elements and their properties as cohesion (water), solidity or inertia (earth), expansion or vibration (air), and heat or energy (fire). Tibetan Buddhist philosophy names five elements: air, water, earth, fire, and space. The fifth element, space, is uniquely important because it is the quintessence of all phenomena; space
pervades all material phenomena, and makes it possible to recognize form. Space, conversely, is also the absence of form.

Classical Eastern and Western philosophy both tell us that the elements are the building blocks of life. But what does it mean to say “breath is life”?

Etymology and the history of language itself show us that breath has always been linked to life. In the linguistic roots of Latin and Greek, the names given to the soul or the spirit are directly connected to or synonymous with the breath. The Latin words
animus
(spirit) and
anima
(soul) are the same as the Greek
anemos,
meaning “wind.” Another Greek word for wind,
pneuma,
also means “spirit.” Our ancient ancestors often associated breath with the soul, since breath takes on a misty, ghostly shape in cold weather.
¹

Historically breath is what gives us our soul or spirit, but we also know that breath quite literally sustains life. The strength and vitality of the body is maintained through the balance of oxygen and carbon dioxide at a cellular level. In fact, as we will demonstrate, Western medical research shows that our overall health is directly related to how we breathe.
²

H
OW
W
E
B
REATHE

Breath is physiological, psychological, a conditioned behavior, and a voluntary action; it is a dynamic, multifaceted, vital function of the body. Physiologically, breathing occurs automatically based upon the metabolic demands of the body. The word
metabolic
is used to describe a biochemical process in the body—the buildup of some substances and the breakdown of others. On a cellular level, breathing brings about the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide that has built up in the blood. For example, when we are running at full tilt or when we have a high fever, our body needs more oxygen pumped quickly throughout our body. Our heart rate and our breathing rate are linked for this reason; they
both speed up and slow down at the same time—and this all occurs behind the scenes without any conscious effort on our part. We feel the effects of this without needing to understand the science or anatomy behind it, let alone have a medical degree.

Breathing is also influenced by our psychological condition: our perceptions and emotions. We each have a particular emotional temperament, which may be influenced by genetics, our family environment, and our life experiences. Because of these variables, our breathing rate, depth, and quality change in reaction to emotions: when we think about something in the past that upsets us, or anticipate something exciting in the future, or experience a challenging situation in the moment.

Breathing is also a conditioned behavior, a habitual response. Over time, repeated reactions to inner and outer conditions become ingrained tendencies, like any practice or habit. We unconsciously associate breathing patterns with stimuli, and therefore breathing patterns are reinforced and generalized. The more often certain emotions are associated with certain experiences, the more breathing will shift and settle into a pattern, which may not always be healthy. For example, you may have a coworker who is difficult to work with and says unkind things that are upsetting. After repeatedly experiencing this, you may feel anxious, your respiratory rate may increase, and you may carry extra tension in your shoulders while at work. Perhaps this coworker leaves for another job, so the direct stimuli are no longer there to agitate you. However, the body’s pattern of increased breathing rate with tension in the upper back and shoulders may continue—the behavior has become automatic and generalized to being at work, rather than being around that coworker. In other words, our bodies can confuse conditioned response with natural function.

The voluntary control of breathing is an important and unique characteristic of the body. What other visceral functions are we able to directly control? None! We can learn to influence other visceral functions such as our heart rate or our blood pressure, but
we are not able to directly control them. We can hold our breath, or breathe faster, or breathe slower, at any time, by choice. Why does this control matter? It matters because breathing is the link between our inner and outer experiences—we take air from the outside world into the body with every inhalation. It is also the link between the physical and emotional reactions we have to those experiences. In other words, what is happening within our bodies and minds is channeled through our breathing. But the flip side of this statement is that the way we breathe can also change what is happening within our bodies and minds.

We can think of the control of our breathing as existing along a continuum, from being entirely controlled by the body (unconscious) to being entirely controlled by the mind (conscious). On one end is the physiological/automatic aspect of the breath, determined solely by the physiological requirements of the body. Moving along the continuum, we find the conditioned/behavioral; this is where our body confuses conditioned behavior based on emotions and perceptions with natural function. Physiological function is altered through repeated behavior and experiences of the mind. Conscious behaviors have transformed into unconscious physiological reactions. Next, we arrive at the psychological/perceptual/emotional qualities of the breath: how we breathe in response to our emotions and perceptions based on what is happening in the mind at that moment. The interaction of thoughts in the mind produces an accompanying physiological response. And on the far end of the continuum, we find the voluntary aspect of the breath, where the breath is directly controlled by our mind. This continuum shows that breathing is the dynamic link between the mind and the body. It spans our physical needs as well as our emotional reactions: it represents our whole experience in the body.

Research shows that our behavioral breathing patterns are so pervasive and habitual that even during REM sleep, when the body is resting the most deeply, voluntary breathing patterns can still control how we breathe.
³
Again, our bodies confuse conditioned
response with natural function. Breathing is distinct from other bodily functions because it is something we can directly control through awareness and training. Unlike our heart rate and other core mechanisms, which we can only influence indirectly, each of us has the power to change the way we breathe.

Two Types of Voluntary Breathing

Western medicine recognizes two types of breathing patterns. These two types of breathing patterns correlate with the area of the body where the breathing occurs, and are called thoracic and abdominal breathing.
Thoracic
refers to the thorax, an area of the chest encased by the ribs.
Abdominal
refers to the area below the diaphragm, or around the navel. Learning the differences between the two types of breathing makes it easy to understand the basic philosophy and techniques presented in this book.

When we are at rest, abdominal breathing is generally considered the healthiest pattern. Abdominal breathing primarily relies upon the contraction and relaxation of the muscle beneath the lungs called the
diaphragm
. The diaphragm pulls air into the lower part of the lungs. However, when our bodies need more oxygen, such as during strenuous exercise, our body may involuntarily supplement abdominal breathing with thoracic breathing. In thoracic breathing, air is pulled into the upper part of the lungs.