A Breath of Fresh Air

     Central to Zen meditation (zazen) is maintaining attention on the breath in the lower abdomen (hara). With patient, persistent practice, this cultivates both a stabilizing & energizing force - anchor, ballast & power plant - not just during meditation, but throughout life. This practice is central to all Chinese, Japanese, & other Eastern martial arts & is the basis of "core strength" in gymnastics, diving, dance, figure skating etc.

     A baby sleeping on her back will breathe slowly, regularly, the chest remaining still, the abdomen slowly rising & falling. This is normal, healthy abdominal (diaphragmatic) breathing. When a deep breath is taken, first the abdomen rises (due to the diaphragm bowing towards the stomach, thus displacing the abdominal organs outwards), then near the end of the inhalation, the (intercostal) muscles between the ribs become activated, expanding the chest. On exhalation, the intercostal muscles relax, the chest returns to normal, then the diaphragm relaxes, allowing the abdomen to return to normal.

     This is very efficient breathing and is naturally slower than the way many today breathe - chest breathing - which is intentionally (self-consciously) holding the abdomen in, and breathing primarily in the upper chest.

     James Nestor wrote a very interesting short article (based on his book: "Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art"): https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/jul/26/every-breath-you-take-the-lost-art-of-breathing?utm_source=pocket-newtab  In it he writes about the benefits of abdominal breathing:

     "But lest we forget, nature is simple but subtle. For me, the perfect breath is this: inhale for about 5.5 seconds, then exhale for 5.5 seconds. That’s 5.5 breaths a minute for a total of about 5.5 litres of air. You can practice this perfect breathing for a few minutes, or a few hours. When we breathe like this, breathing practitioners suggest that circulation in the brain and body will increase while the burden on the heart decreases. All the while the diaphragm – that umbrella-shaped muscle in our chests – will drop lower and rise higher, allowing more air to enter the lungs and assisting in pushing blood throughout the body. For this reason, the diaphragm is sometimes referred to as 'the second heart', because it not only beats to its own rhythm but also affects the rate and strength of the heartbeat."

     A key component needs to be added - the quality of our relationships. A surprising number of us relate to our own breath much like the new owner of a car who has absolutely no interest in or affection for their car other than to use it to go places. Disconnection / dissociation from not only our own breath, but also from the rest of our body, from our own deepest values, from our family, friends & co-workers, from our community, from the environment, from nature, from the present moment, from our very life - is more common than we realize AND is profoundly alienating, lonely & unhealthy.

     A small but important step towards re-establishing a healthy, normal relationship with life is through our breath. A normal healthy relationship is modeled by our hands. How do our left & right hands naturally relate to each other? That's a deep question to silently ponder - and then bring to ALL of our relationships.

     We can all use a breath of fresh air in our lives.

Complete Experiencing - Healing Trauma

     To be held in safety & unconditional love is one of the most fundamental of human needs. But life's paradoxical. A part of us longs for, while another part resists intimate connection.
     Meditation practice helps us to clearly see ourselves, others & the rest of reality, accept and re-establish intimate relationship with everything - "life's 10,000 joys and 10,000 sorrows." Shinzen Young's book (below) clearly explains how to achieve this through regular meditation practice.

     "Every time we identify with feeling separate from life, that’s a very subtle trauma. It’s the trauma of the perception of isolation." Caverly Morgan

      "... everything yearns to be met. Everything yearns to resolve itself in love – that love being the open space of acceptance, of allowing, of staying resolutely present, and unconditionally open to every nuance of your inner experience." Amoda Maa

      "Once we are willing to be directly intimate with our life as it arises, joy emerges out of the simplest of life experiences." Pat Enkyo O'Hara
 
     "To be enlightened is to be intimate with all things." Dogen

     "If trauma is defined as ‘inescapably stressful event that overwhelms people’s existing coping mechanisms’ and that in its psychological sense overwhelms the integrity and continuity of the self because its damage to the internalized links between self and other, then for a great many people there can be many small traumas, generating many areas of sequestered, dissociated, and partially dissociated experience. This is in addition to vulnerability to severe trauma.
     ... most crucially at issue in dissociatively-based psychopathology is the collapse of relationality – both interpersonal and intrapersonal (or interstate). Dissociation, as a state of being divided and as a chronic process, is ultimately a barrier to relationality, both within and between selves.
     ... I believe (most of us have) an addictive proprietorship over dissociative solutions ... The way we do this and how much we do it may differ, but I think we do it all the same.”
     Elizabeth F. Howell. “The Dissociative Mind.” Routledge, 2008

      “Paradoxically, the more we try to change ourselves, the more we prevent change from occurring. On the other hand, the more we allow ourselves to fully experience who we are, the greater the possibility of change.
 
      Every identification we hold about ourselves disconnects us from the fluidity of our core nature. Our identifications – that is, all the fixed beliefs we take to be our true self – along with the associated patterns of nervous systems dysregulation separate us from ourselves and the experience of being present and engaged. As much as we may feel constrained by our survival styles, we are afraid to, or do not know how to, move beyond them.
      Our survival styles are reflected in our bodies in two ways: as areas of tension (hypertonicity) and as areas of weakness or disconnection (hypotonicity). Patterns of tension and weakness reveal the ways we have learned to compensate for the disconnection from our needs, core self, and life force.
     All of us are somewhere on the continuum of connection to disconnection from our core selves and our bodies.”
       Laurence Heller, Aline LaPierre. "Healing Developmental Trauma: How Early Trauma Affects Self-Regulation, Self-Image, and the Capacity for Relationship.” North Atlantic Books, 2012.

     “The basic premise of mindfulness meditation is that consistently infusing the qualities of concentration, clarity, and equanimity into ordinary experience over time causes a fundamental shift in our paradigm. It is for this reason that mindfulness is sometimes called insight meditation.

     If you want to be happy independent of conditions, you’ll need to learn how to have a complete experience of each basic type of body sensation. On the spiritual path, we have to learn how to have a complete experience of anger, so that anger does not cause suffering which then distorts our behavior. For the same reason, we have to learn how to have a complete experience of fear, sadness, and so on. We even have to learn how to have a complete experience of physical pain, as well as other unpleasant feelings in the body such as fatigue and nausea. When I say, ‘Have a complete experience of x,’ its’ just a quick way of saying, ‘Experience x with so much concentration, clarity, and equanimity that there’s no time to coagulate x – or yourself – into a thing.’ You and x become an integrated flow of energy and spaciousness.
     Learning how to have a complete experience of discomfort sets us free. Learning how to have a complete experience of pleasure deeply fulfills. … The body sensations of making love are spiritual to the extent that they are complete, that is, experienced in a state of concentration, sensory clarity, and equanimity. To know what true love is, we need to experience it as it truly is. In Tibet, that’s called the oneness of bliss and void.” 
       Shinzen Young. “The Science of Enlightenment. How Meditation Works.” Sounds True, 2016.
 

Enlightenment?

     The culmination of normal, healthy human maturation has been referred to as awakening or enlightenment. A sadly common impediment to healthy maturation is dissociation, which we apparently all do, to some degree.

     “Although enlightenment is no more mysterious than many other human experiences, such as our ability to love or to create, it is more rare. It only occurs as we reach a particular degree of sensitivity or openness to life. … many people are capable, with some practice, of … the realization, or unveiling, of a subtle dimension of consciousness pervading our own being and everything around us as a unified whole. It is the experience of the luminous transparency of ourselves and our environment, and the fullness and vividness of being the occurs with it.

      Meditation practices show that there is a potentially spontaneous process toward complete enlightenment. Just by sitting and doing nothing but breathing, the body and mind unwind toward the balance and openness of fundamental consciousness. … this spontaneous process is impeded by the bound childhood pain and psychological defenses that we hold in our bodies, (but) this binding can be released.” 
       Judith Blackstone. “The Enlightenment Process. A Guide to Embodied Spiritual Awakening.” Paragon House, 2008.

     "Although dissociation may originally have been a way of staying in relationship, what is most crucially at issue in dissociatively based psychopathology is the collapse of relationality – both interpersonal and intrapersonal (or interstate). Dissociation, as a state of being divided and as a chronic process, is ultimately a barrier to relationality, both within and between selves.
     Because self-states exist in relation to significant others and to other parts of self, they have different agendas. This divided agency, which results in the experience of being pulled in different directions (and, in cases of more extreme dissociation, of being taken over) is ultimately weakening and fatiguing. Another consequence is that because the dissociative system is one that seems to have worked, reliance on dissociation and the attachment of parts of the self to each other may at times be greater than reliance on or attachment to any real human being outside the system. One severely dissociative patient explained to me that because her life had been so unbearably painful, dissociation was a ‘magic formula,’ the only thing she had ever had to rely on. It had always been there for her, and, at that time, she wasn’t about to give it up. Although this is an extreme example, I believe that this patient’s dilemma of an addictive proprietorship over her dissociative solutions is one she shares with most of us. The way we do this and how much we do it may differ, but I think we do it all the same.” 
       Elizabeth F. Howell. “The Dissociative Mind.” Routledge, 2008.

     “There may be fear involved in releasing the psychological defenses that obscure our realization of fundamental consciousness (awakening), because (psychological defenses) have given us a sense of safety and power. We may think that we will cease to exist without them. But we do not cease to exist. The process of releasing our defenses and opening to fundamental consciousness reaps an unmistakable deepening of all our human qualities, such as our ability to love, to think, and to experience pleasure. We have a felt sense of coming to life – of becoming fully born – within our body.”

       Judith Blackstone. “The Enlightenment Process. A Guide to Embodied Spiritual Awakening.” Paragon House, 2008.

www.awakeningartsacademy.com

Ideology, Identity & Science

     From outside the US, it's hard to understand how a majority of American politicians, and those who elected them, could care more about partisanship (group egoism) than the welfare of their fellow human beings & the environment. 

     Katharine Hayhoe (KH): “We as people have become increasingly polarized over the past two decades - not as much in Canada as in the United States... We’re becoming increasingly polarized, and climate change is one of the biggest casualties of that political polarization because one party has decided – and these are in the words of Senator Inhofe from Oklahoma, who is famous for writing a book about how climate change is the greatest hoax ever perpetuated on mankind, in his own words in 2012 he said, ‘I used to agree with you that this was real when I headed the Senate Environment Committee, until I found out how much it would cost to fix it.’ 

     … arguing over the science (only) deepens the divide between people who are convinced that this isn’t real, not because of any scientific arguments they’ve been presented with, nor even because of any pseudo-scientific arguments they’re bringing to the table. They’ve been convinced because they can’t be who they are and agree that climate change is real. It’s an identity issue. 
     Social science has actually shown that arguing the science like that does end up with people who are more firmly convinced. In ‘The Years of Living Dangerously’, an excellent series on Netflix or Amazon, one of the episodes is about my friend Anna-Jean, whose father is a conservative pastor in the South-East United States, who is quite convinced that climate change isn’t real. The episode was about Anna-Jean trying to convince her father, marshalling all the evidence to convince him that yes, this is real and that as Christians we should care about it even more because it effects the poor and the vulnerable. That episode is a fantastic example of ‘the backfire effect,’ because he ended up more convinced that he was right at the end, than he was at the beginning. It’s a textbook case."
     Michael Enright (ME): "Then we’re all doomed aren’t we? I mean, if you can’t present empirical data and facts and so on to someone and get them to change their minds, where do you go from there? What’s the endpoint of that?" 
     KH: "We’re not doomed. And that’s what I’ve spent the last ten years trying to figure out. … What I’ve learned is, talking science, science, science, isn’t what changes peoples’ minds. But what does is, first of all genuinely connecting and bonding over shared values, or shared concerns, or shared loves. So understanding whomever it is we’re talking to enough to where we can say ‘Yah, let’s talk about this thing that we both really care about, whether it’s our family, our faith, fishing, water, farming, the economy, national security, skiing … And then, sharing from the heart here’s why I’m concerned about climate change is because it effects this thing that we both agree on. 
     And it’s really fascinating because my friend Anna-Jean who I mentioned before with the father who’s very convinced that this isn’t real, she recently told me that they actually had a great conversation the other day where they got to the level where they were talking about their genuine fears and concerns. And she realized that on their fears and concerns, she and her Dad weren’t hardly that far apart at all. In fact they were very close. It was just where they went from those fears and concerns that ended up in completely different places. 
     So if we can connect on that level, which is hard to do to be honest, then at that point we can share from the heart why we are concerned, but then always, always, always bring that to solutions.
     Because if we feel that there’s nothing we can do, to fix this massive global problem, our defense mechanisms psychologically is just to shut down, dissociate, disengage and deny. 
     Whereas if we feel like ‘Hey, did you know that in Texas so far this year we already got almost a quarter of our energy from wind? Isn’t that amazing?’ Next time I turn on my lights, I realize that’s a quarter wind, we’re doing great, let’s do more. 
     So there are different ways we can engage. And by talking solutions that are already in place, solutions that we can be part of, solutions that we can engage in in our daily lives ourselves – one of those big solutions just being simply talking about this issue – because hardly anybody ever does, we feel like we’re part of the solution. And that actually changes our perspective on the issue too."

       The Sunday Edition with Michael Enright “Donald Trump versus the climate: a conversation with Katharine Hayhoe.” Sunday April 30, 2017

http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thesundayedition/april-30-2017-the-sunday-edition-with-michael-enright-1.4087030/donald-trump-versus-the-climate-a-conversation-with-katharine-hayhoe-1.4087037

Objectivity & Observer mind

     “You can be aware of bodily sensations, mental feelings, and mental activities. But do not think of them as ‘mine’; they are just what they are: sensations are sensations, feelings are feelings, mental activities are mental activities – that is their fundamental nature. Always try to observe them with this view in mind; if you don’t, ie if you experience them as ‘mine’, attachment or aversion will inevitably arise.”

         Ashin Tejaniya “Don’t Look Down on the Defilements – They Will Laugh at You."

http://sayadawutejaniya.org/teachings/

Photo: Julius T. Santos   www.dpreview.com