It's Always A Private Affair

"The breath is a private affair," my student tells me. This is one of those moments when everything stops, and you can perceive the profound meaning of the words still echoing off the walls. Taken at face value, your ego filter interprets it as a stuffy statement, a refusal to follow along with the suggestion of the teacher. If you follow The Four Agreements and practice #2: "Don't take anything personally," you uncover a gold mine.

You can easily observe the breath on the outside. Watch someone's ribs and stomach expand and contract, or even watch their back if you're clever. The thing is, that's the tip of the iceberg; the vehicle form of a Transformer.

Here's where it gets more absorbing:

Every body has different geometry- my bones are different sizes, muscles are stronger and weaker in different ranges of motion, and my organs are organized in a way that is completely unique. So, right at the start, before adding any learned behaviour about how to move your body (sports, martial arts, dance training), we already have poses our body is better suited to perform. That means every body will move differently. This means each set of lungs will take in a different volume of air into different places. It's not possible for you to breathe like me, or me like you.

The breath is our connection to what's going on inside of us. Most of us leave breathing to be controlled by the brain stem; part of our reptilian, primal brain. Its purpose is to keep us alive long enough to replicate- controlling motor function so we're dynamic targets instead of static ones, pumping nutrients to the rest of the body (heart, lungs) to fight or take flight, and making facial shapes to attract a mate. Stuck in this mentality, breath remains a basic, automatic function. If you choose to turn the attention of your forebrain (the frontal lobes) on to your breath, you immediately discover you're only breathing into a fraction of your potential volume.

With the power of the frontal lobes at work, the practice of breathing into more spaces in the body instantly turns the awareness inward. We unearth the ability to use the breath as a window to the places the outer eye can't see. You might even discover that space between the thoughts where consciousness contemplates consciousness- meditation.

Unite the data of the observation of breath on the outside and observation of breath on the inside, and you have a yoga practice. It could be any kind of movement: simple or complex, martial or venusian, East or West. It doesn't matter what you're doing with the body when you are aware of how you are doing it. When you work on this level, it's always a private affair.

Keep listening for the gold.

Eternal Repairation

Jan 16, 2013
NYC

On my way up the stairs to my apartment, I bumped into a neighbor I hadn't seen since last year. We wished each other Happy New Year, and he asked about our renovation. "Almost done," I told him. "Should be finished the last phase, the kitchen, by the end of next week." He was surprised, and shared with me an old Russian saying, roughly translated, "You can start your repair, but never finish."
Of course, this applies to a physical structure, like a building, house, bicycle, or car. These things require consistent upkeep, being perpetually worn down by nature. My first thought was of the body. It, too, is ever in repair: unable to find completion, that 100% charge of the battery. That's not really its purpose, though.
The body dies. Your physical form was always supposed to be finite. After age 20-something, the body stops growing and begins maintaining, hoping to live day in and out until you find a mate and create a new body for a new consciousness. Then your Earthly-dimensional form can fade away, having replicated. That's the body's set of instructions, its mandates. If you've spent any time in meditation, caring for young or old people, or have had a near-death experience (some psychedelics count toward this one), you may have discovered- we are not the body.
The animating force within, the conscious divinity, needs no maintenance. It is already infinite. Through practicing how to breath, we learn to let go of tightness in the body and mind to allow this inner, subtle consciousness to grow strong. That's the point of yoga. It is union, weaving together the body, breath, and mind. Discover that practice, and in time, you'll uncover a body of stress and fear to find one filled with joy and peace.

See you in class.