17. Learning to Breathe

While my sense of sight is one tool I use as part of my spiritual practice, my breath offers another tool to help calm my busy mind. It also draws my attention to the different breathing centres in my body – my head, chest and abdominal centres – each with their separate function and purpose.

So when I wish to become centred and still, I begin by focusing on the sensation of the air entering and leaving my body through my nostrils or mouth. I am also aware of my thoughts – and note them without conversing with them – as I let them float away on each out-breath.

After a few minutes, I move my attention to my chest and feel the movement of my chest expanding and contracting with each breath. This is also my heart region so I note any emotion that arises with my breathing – and let this also float away on my out-breath.

When I am ready, I turn my attention next to my abdomen, and consciously use my abdominal muscles to draw in each breath – then relax them on each exhalation. This area of my body is associated with the 'Ground of my Being', or my 'Soul-centre' – the place where we especially hold God's image and presence, a living blueprint of whom we are created to be (1). It is here, 'At the centre of your being' you have the answer,', says Mary Jane Ryan in her book, 'Grateful Heart, where 'you know who you are and you know what you want'... as I sit, quietly present to the Presence of God, in my breathing body.

I find this Prayer-Meditation practice helps me to rest in mindful stillness – but it is more than that. When I was Warden of a Retreat Centre, a Sati Meditation Group used our chapel for their meetings. Their teacher, Roshi John Garrie, drew on several traditions to develop a mindfulness practise he taught as "Sati". In his book, 'The Way is Without Flaw', Roshi John taught that 'Within stillness, which is sometimes approached through silence, sometimes through movement, and always through breathing, there is the way to freedom'. We do this, by using our breathing body, as we focus on the air rising and falling with each breath, in the motion of a backward circle.

So starting at my navel region, I followed my breath expanding up the front of my body with each in-breath, then follow the sensation down my back as I let the breath flow out until I rest once more in the Soul-centre of my Being – until my body calls for a new breath. All I need to do is to be in my body and follow the breath – and that is enough. The body knows what to do, and given space, it becomes my teacher.

This practice was a special gift to me and one I came to value so much when my wife Jane died from cancer. It was so refreshing amid all that was happening, to lie on the floor and just breathe and be. That is what I needed most. A way to be. It became my 'life raft', to use a Buddhist phrase, and those of you who have had to support someone you love dearly through the journey of terminal cancer will know what I mean.

As breath is spirit,
fully breathe in this moment
taking time with eternity.
Let the stillness soak into your being...
Release, like a trust, fall into the arms of God
focusing on the presence of the eternal...
Breathe in and out
resting and soaking in the
presence of God.(2)

Kia mau te rongo me te pai ki a koe i to haerenga
May you find peace and goodwill on your journey.

Phil.

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(1) The Catechism of the Catholic Church, Continuum International, 2nd edition, 2000. See para:362-368.

(2) Holmes, B, What Everyone Should Know About Breath Prayer http://contemplativemonk.com/breath-prayer/

• Dyer, Phil, Pathways to the Fountain – A Christian-Buddhist Exploration, Tawera Press, 2015.

• Garrie, J, The Way is without Flaw: The Teachings of John Garrie Roshi, UK, Sati Press, 1998, p11.

• Keating, T, Intimacy with God,http://www.norumbega.net/path/iwg.html#ch14 Ch 8.