Breathing Problems

[Ouroboros]

I've been having an issue reaching the mind awake/body asleep state, and I think this may have to do a lot with the breathing aspect of things. I'm posting in the meditation forum because I know that there's a lot of meditation techniques involving the breath, and figured this would be the best place to get some advice.

The problem I seem to be having is that I can't just watch the breath without interacting with it. When I pay attention to the sensations of breathing, I start manually breathing. Whenever I try to let myself go and breathe automatically, I stop breathing...or sometimes, I'll keep breathing but it feels like I'm not getting enough air. I'm totally clueless how to overcome this, so any advice would be greatly appreciated!

[Korpo]

Hello, Ouroboros.

I just know how you feel. And I don't have a definite answer for you, since all the manuals just tell you to focus on the breath and let it be natural, but how to do that they leave as an exercise to the reader? :roll:

So, in order to overcome this tendency within me I tried several tricks, and while it is as of yet unclear whether they will help overcome this, here they are:

This is best done sitting in meditation posture or lying on your back. The technique tries to make use of gravity and your natural reflexes, attuning you better to what your body wants to do instead of what you want your body to do.

Take in a breath. Feel your belly expand. Try to note a point where it starts to feel like "too much". If you can find one - good. If not - no problem. Just take in the breath.

Now you make use of gravity. You just let your breathing muscles sink back where they want to go anyway. This moves the air out of your lungs naturally. You needed some effort to fill the lungs, but this one "comes for free". Go with it.

So, now the air is moving out of you while your muscles sink back in their natural "start position". This process stops by itself at some point. Now wait. The sensation you are waiting for is the breathing reflex itself. Your body wants to breathe, to take in air. The breathing reflex happens when you don't pay attention to it, that's the breathing that happens when you don't pay specific attention to it. Now you use this to find the natural rhythm of breath. As the body wants to breathe go along. Just finding that point where the body wants to breathe is okay, the in breath you can take in consciously.

As you move with this you find a natural breathing rhythm, IMO. You start to notice how the body has a signal for not overfilling the lungs, for not straining on the in breath. How breathing out can happen on its own. How the next in breath has a natural starting point.

Playing with this for a while should help you come in touch with the breathing rhythms of your body. As you relinquish part of the control you had over your breath, you not only influence it less (which is a step towards letting go of control of the breath altogether), you also might notice the differences in the breaths the body takes. Some are long and relaxed, but I also find short, contracted breaths. I think observing "less than perfect" inhales and exhales, flutters, tension and other irritation is part of connecting with the breath and its underlying energies. Observing this will help to smoothen the breath and resolve the underlying problems.

Hope this helps,
Oliver

[Ouroboros]

Awesome, that sounds like a great trick Korpo! I'll give that a try either tonight or tomorrow and see how it goes. Thanks!

[Ouroboros]

Wanted to post a little update on this.

I've had some success with your methods, Korpo! Although I still haven't really experienced anything I'd call an altered state of consciousness, I have noticed that keeping in mind your ideas about letting gravity do the work etc. makes it much easier to breathe "naturally." I'm still not 100% past the issues I have with the breath, but it IS getting better.

[Korpo]

That's good news! 8)

Give it time. Don't worry about altered states of consciousness - in fact, don't worry! ;) Just let it happen. Go with your intuition if you can. Stay with the breath. Move gently back to the breath if you are not with it. That's quite enough.

Oliver