Breath Blog

Friday, June 30, 2006

Benches: places of last resort and places to ponder



There's something about a bench. People end up on benches when they have nowhere else to go, but they also offer a place to sit and ponder.

What I've been pondering is "my heart" - I started doing Tibetan Tonglen meditation about a year ago and I started to feel my heart as an energetic entity, not just a physical chamber pumping my life blood.

And then earlier in the week, there was one of those science programmes on the telly, which always manage to tell you stuff that your common sense had figured out a long while ago.

Although my common sense had in a way clocked this information about the heart, it was inspiring to hear that science has detected that more information is sent from the heart to the brain than vice a versa.

Nice to remember when I'm in a dilemma - knowing that whether I am aware of it or not, my heart is doing its bit for me....

And I'd like to spare a thought and prayer for all those for whom benches are a place of last resort tonight!

This bench is at Cockmarsh on the bank of the River Thames

Thursday, June 29, 2006

Quote of the new millennium

"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance - that principle is contempt prior to investigation."

- Herbert Spencer

Grumpy old man and flying pigs

My wife's - pictured right - comments on me giving up my "right to be miserable" were as scathing as those about my taste in shorts.

"Pigs might fly," she said.

And look what happened!

Overcoming my shadow self


The miracle of my breath tells me to be happy, confident and generous; my shadow self tells me otherwise - to be wary, cautious, penny-pinching and miserable.

Every day now, I focus on giving up my "right" to be miserable.

And today, I read the 29 June entry from Leo Tolstoy's Calendar of Wisdom, which has sparked this post.

The count views misery and depression like this - in his usual unequivocal, straightforward way:

"Depression is a state of the soul in which you can see no sense in either your own life or in the life of the world. This state is not only painful for the people around you, but it can influence them, and a truly good person deals with this unpleasantness, when he is alone. When you have had bad spirits or are in a low mood, or you are irritated, you should be so in solitude.

When everything you see appears in dark, gloomy shades, and seems baleful, and you want to tell others only bad and unpleasant things, do not trust your perceptions. Treat yourseld as though you were drunk. Take no steps and actions until this state has disappeared.

You should never feel depressed.

A man should always feel happy, if he is unhappy, it means he is guilty.

O Lord, help me to always be happy and to rejoice following and fulfilling your will.

Both our physical sufferings and periods of depression are part ot our life in this world, and we should patiently wait until they are over, or our life is over."

------------

This is hardline stuff - and I agree that it is best to delay any important decision-making until misery has lifted. But total isolation to deal with depression. Well, I get the point that misery can be infectious, but a very important part of my humanity is to be able to share my misery with others and to help my friends and family bear their particular load.

This approach, which is based on the "a problem shared is a problem halved" premise, is valid for me, but is only "half" the battle. For profound unhappiness to shift, as the count says, prayer and reliance on our higher selves, or higher power, is pretty much essential...

So I am back where I started: in awe of the power that breathes life into me...

(The disturbing picture of Misery is sourced from a New Vic Theatre press release.)

Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Green Tara - Tibetan goddess of compassion


In particular she represents compassion in action, since she's in the process of stepping from her lotus throne in order to help sentient beings.

Her mantra is the soothing:

Om Taare Tuttaare Ture Svaahaa

Yet another "song" I am adding to my growing repertoire.


Here is a bit about mantras from: Wildmind Buddhist Meditation

"But trying to understand mantras intellectually is probably a bit like deconstructing a joke - you can do it, but by the time you have finished the task you've completely lost the point of the joke in the first place. Some people hold that mantras have an inherent "spiritual meaning" - that is that someone chanting the mantra of Avalokiteshvara will develop a connection with the compassion of Avalokiteshvara, even without knowing anything of the meaning (inasmuch as there is one) of the mantra, and without knowing anything about the bodhisattva himself. Others hold that the one develops associations with the mantra as one chants it and begins to learn more about the bodhisattva. Certainly, it is possible to benefit from a mantra while knowing nothing about it.

As an object of concentration - like any other -- a mantra can help to still the mind. While you are reciting a mantra out loud or internally, there tends to be less mental chatter. Even if there is a parallel stream of internal discourse going on at the same time as the mantra, the chanting creates more of a sense of continuity, which will grow with practice. The word Mantra is said to mean "that which protects the mind."

What do you do when you meditate?


This is the penetrating question that my wife asked me last night.

I'm not quite sure why she asked me, as she has been meditating for over 30 years like me.

But this made is all the more important to answer with care and consciousness. I really had to think about my reply and what I said was more or less: "I sit and experience my breath going up and down in my body, and wait, hope and pray as that gentle swinging motion helps me transcend my mundane thinking and move into a state of transcendent peace and mindfulness."

I remembered this chat when I was looking for an inspiring quote from one of my breath books.

I came up with something from the godfather of yoga, Patanjali, author of the Yoga Sutras, regarded as the seminal work on the subject.

This is his take on Mystical awareness from his Yoga Sutras:

"The next level of the practice is becoming proficient in turning the senses inward in order to temporarily sever the link between your mind and senses, and external stimuli... This enables you to separate and disentangle yourself from the conflicts and contradictions that are occuring in the mental field so that you can look down into the Lake of the Mind and become aware of thoughts and feelings that you are not normally aware of."

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

The secret history of our enemies (and families)

This quote posted on 23 June by Ellie Finlay on her blog Meditation Matters has a great resonance for me, as does the notion of pain caused by others being a great teacher.

"If we could read the secret history of our enemies we should find in each person's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility."

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Psychopathic school teacher as "guru"

Something remarkable has happened - my singing voice is starting to heal...and it has to be down to the Healing the Family and Ancestors workshop.

I can sing on my own again (or perhaps for the first time). To be honest that I might sound like an out-take from Pop Idol doesn't phase me for a second... As I am actually singing, yes actually singing out loud and feeling very pleased with myself...

My introduction to singing was at the prep school I unwillingly attended as a boarder from the age of seven to 13.

It went something like this: we trouped up to the music room in the attic of the school, and the mad music teacher got each boy to come up to the piano to sing notes that he played. I was one of the poor unfortunates who could not sing these notes. For whatever reason, this inability seemed to enrage him to the point that he would lash out and hit me about the head.

This effectively "froze" my voice before I was even a teenager.

The sorry saga has more to it: in my efforts to please. I volunteered to help him record the choir during their practices using a reel to reel tape recorder. My stategy failed as it didn't stop the abuse. I can even remember him jumping on me in the gym - feigning horseplay. I say feigning because I could feel his erection in his grubby, baggy corduroy trousers. (He was one of three teachers who abused me sexually.)



I'm not trying to get the sympathy vote here, but it is a trauma not to be minimised - to have the music beaten out of you violently and at the same time have your innocence violated.

The consolation is that I've never really given up on getting better, and tried to live a spiritual, searching life for the last 40 years... And the return to singing is a real bonus...

I have found my voice singing a Tibetan mantra Om Ah Hum Vajra Guru Padme Siddhi Hum - the first three words are seen in Tibetan at the top of this post.

This is what we sang all day for five days on the Healing the Family and Ancestors workshop - but whilst there I still found that I couldn't sing it on my own and maintain the tune... Returning home I had tried with the help of my wife, but still couldn't manage it on my own, until yesterday when I was saying goodbye to her at the front door, I suddenly "burst out into song" - and, yes, I was singing and I could hear that I was singing it more or less correctly, and I felt that something had been restored, and that more of the past had been healed, and that I could lay to rest another grievance that has been festering in my pysche against my parents...

The characters below are the Tibetan for the famous Om Mane Padme Hum mantra - which I can also sing. And the picture above is of more Tibetan mantras carved into rock. This focus on the Tibetans, as well as giving me the means to help find my lost voice, is based on their belief that life's hardships are there to teach us what we need to learn.

So psychopathic school teacher as "guru" is not as far fetched as it sounds!


Downloads of me singing will be released in the quite distant future....

Monday, June 26, 2006

Stillness and absorption in the moment


I love herons for their total focus, something that many creatures have.

Just now, they fly all around the river and sometimes land on the river bank outside our house. This one was two doors down, outside the pub!

I suppose I just wanted to clock my admiration for its powerful "darshan".

And also register that my wild-life photography needs attention...which I intend to give it...

Sunday, June 25, 2006

Healing family and ancestors - summer solstice


Meet the dragon from the Earth Spirit centre near Glastonbury, venue for last week's five-day Healing the Family and Ancestors workshop.

Dragons are held in high regard in the East, symbols of prosperity and transformation; in the West we seem to be keen on slaying them. Our patron saint George being a case in point.

Well, this particular dragon became my mascot for clear-sightedness and moving into a new field of family and ancestral resonance during Jill Purce's revelatory workshop. I found a sense of harmony, compassion and understanding towards my family - that had previously been blackened by memories of abuse and dysfunction.

As the effect of the intense five days begins to filter through into my conscious mind - as cause and effect rather than deep emotional resonance - these are my first thoughts.

The biggest gain was changing my perspective on my now deceased parents.

Although there was prosperity in my family, there was massive dysfuntion. No sense of family community, no real communcation. This gave way to a strange kind of caring neglect - I was sent away to posh schools, where I was sexually abused by teachers, and my parents refused to let me come home and I was too shamed to disclose the abuse, as I was only 11 or 12 years old.

I wanted for nothing except love. When I wanted love and affection and understanding, it was withheld, as if my parents had no notion of these concepts and that their children might be craving them. The fridge, though, was always full.

Jill's extraordinary work combining shamanistic trance, the cradle of communal Tibetan Buddhist chanting (picture is the Tibetan goddess of compassion, Tara), and family therapy ideas incorporating the family sculpture work of Bert Hellinger pushed back the boundaries of these memories. And it really softened them as I started to understand why their particular predicaments would have caused them to behave as they did.

I saw them as real people not as people trying badly to play and fulfull the role of parents.

As people they were frail - having lived through two World Wars. Frail in the sense that they did not seem to have a strong sense of their own worth, preferring instead a marriage to conformity. And that, I suppose, has been my view, filled with sadness, hatred and contempt, for virtually all my life.

My new perspective is now that they were brave, even iconoclastic, people, brave enough to challenge and confront the accepted social conventions of the day. My father, a Jew, married my mother, a non-Jew, against the strong wishes of both families.

My hope is that they were swept away on a wave of liberating passion. Because once the marriage began its everyday reality, neither would visit their in-laws. My sister and I were the ambassadors of a reconciliation that went unresolved to their graves.

The details of the ensuing family dysfunction now no longer seems to matter that much. I have therapised over it for years and years.

But when I got to act out my own family and ancestral psychodrama, with fellow workshoppers acting as my immediate relatives, it was as if I was standing on their shoulders seeing thing for the first time from an elevated point of view.

I saw my parents' pain and identified with it: the horrible feeling of rejection when you are forbidden to folllow your heart.

They too must have understood the feelings of alienation and exile that became my constant companions.

It was somehow easy now to sheath my burning sword of resentment. This virtual emotional enactment of my past shored up the recent research that revealed that many of my mother's relatives were womanisers and alcoholics. I could accept my mother whom I had falsely idolised on new terms. Her only mistake was that she really didn't understand - something that I am determined not to go on repeating.

Nothing, though, prepared me for the trauma lurking beyond my father's parents, Jews who emigrated from Germany at the end of the nineteenth century. No one in my shrinking family knows anything of my paternal grandparents. And then it became clear, that my father's entire family must have been wiped out in the Holacaust!

My all too harsh judgements of him have suddenly softened. No wonder, I thought, he did not discuss his religion of birth. (My sister and I were never told that he was Jewish - it was something we surmised from him refusing ever to eat bacon.)

His obsession with appearance and his living denial of his Jewishness were more than likely his subconscious way of shielding my sister and I from any future persecution...

Rather than denying us he was actually protecting us... God bless him!

Saturday, June 24, 2006

Noses: the unsung heroines of our anatomy


After sitting cross-legged for 10 hours at Jill Purce's six day Healing the Ancestors workshop, I pondered my relationship with my breath and wanted a fresh look at the fascinating part the nose plays in my life, so I leafed through:

Donna Farhi's excellent Breathing Book and found this extract:

"We don't usually appreciate the nose until it becomes blocked. We all know how awful it feels to wake up after a night spent propped up on our pillows swallowing for air like a goldfish. The unsung heroine of our anatomy does more for us than sniff out pleasant and unpleasant aromas; the nose prepares the air before it enters the delicate lung tissue so that it is at just the right temperature and humidity. Air drawn into the nose is separated into right and left caverns, and is swirled through nasal hair and along passageways lined with a light blanket of mucous that serves to catch any dust, bacteria, or other tiny particles. The air then enters a three-storied chamber. The brain, eyes and optic nerve are just above the top chamber, the nasal cavity occupies the middle chamber, and the bottom chamber is just above the roof of the mouth. These chambers are called turbinates and the aerodynamics of their curved walls cause the air to swirl round and round, passing over a much greater surface area than it would otherwise. While the air is doing the Viennese Waltz in your turbinates, it is picking up moisture so that it will be at just the right humidity before entering the lungs. By the time the air has passed through these chambers it has also reached body temperature.

We also know that air alternately enters the nose through the left and right nostrils during the course of the day. Blood shifts from one nostril to the other every 90 minutes or so, causing one nostril to open and the other to become congested. Scientific studies show that when the left nostril is open the right hemisphere of the brain is more dominant, activating the more creative feeling side of the mind. When the right nostril is open the left hemisphere of the brain is dominant, facilitating more analytical, rational and intellectual mind activity. Yogis observed this phenomenon thousands of years ago and developed a sophisticated practice called "alternate nostril breathing" or nadi shodhanam, in which they deliberately changed the flow of through the nostrils to balance their psychophysiology. They believed that when the right nostril was open the surya, or sun/heating element, was dominant and that when the left nostril was open the chandra, or moon/cooling element, was dominant. By opening and closing the nostril in varying patterns one could adjust the physiology of our body just like regulating a hot and cold faucet to produce warm water. Although present research on the subject is controversial, many believe that right nostril dominance stimulates the arousal-producing sympathetic nervous system and left nostril dominance elicits the relaxation-producing parasympathetic system. By alternating the flow of air in a regulated way yogis could have been trying to create an equilibrium in the two sides of the autonomic nervous system and a balance between excitation and relaxation."

Friday, June 23, 2006

Healing my ancestors and family




Have been away for a week or so on a workshop with Jill Purce focussing on healing my ancestors and family...

It was illuminating to say the least - I will try to digest it and write more over the weekend.

Meanwhile, the article above is what I wrote about her for the London Daily Mirror back in February 2002.

Friday, June 16, 2006

17 June - A big breath day for me

It was 35 years ago tomorrow, that I met my first guru, who introduced me to my breath in a totally uplifting and inspiring way. No longer was it something that I just did automatically.

He taught that becoming aware of it could lift me to a new level of awareness - a plane that I had visited on LSD, mescalin and marijuana. Back from California, I could simply not handle the angst of taking drugs any more, after three years of constant use. So, to move on to a natural high that was wonderfully simple turned despair into hope.

The above is a picture of his arrival at London's Heathrow airport back in 1971; he was just 13 and I was 21. I was in the grips of post-hippie disillusionment, I was a lost boy; and he was Peter Pan.

Since then I have practised the meditation, called the Knowledge, on most days...

I am very grateful to him.

Thursday, June 15, 2006

Ancestor struck by lightning


My wife and I are going on a Healing the family/ancestors retreat tomorrow for a few days.

So I've been asking my surviving relatives about the family - with some interesting results...

My great-grandfather on my mother's side was a chap who liked to gamble and have a drink or three. He relied on his horse to get him home after a night of cards - and that was to be his final undoing as he was struck dead by lightning on the way home one night.

Just what all this means, I hope to discover...

Monday, June 12, 2006

Astounding full moon in Sagittarius


Taken last night from our back garden...

Breathtaking...

Small but powerful images of decay and death


I was walking through a field yesterday, feeling the early morning sun and cranking up a measure of joy into my life.

Then I saw this feather and a dead frog, which had not yet become ants' breakfast...

The effect was profound...not depressing...just that it was more important than ever to clarify my thinking about my life...and in that process to follow my bliss by following my breath...

Sunday, June 11, 2006

The kindness of the breath


Returning from my walk after sitting by the river, where some cows came over to check me out, I was struck by the absolute kindness of my breath...

That is comes and goes with incredible efficiency...and looking at the other sentient beings, a funny Buddhist phrase, (I would normally say "cows" but I'm being spiritual this morning), I started to think: "How kind am I?"

How important is kindness in my life?

What difference does it make?

When I feel the kindness of my own breath, I actually realise that kindness is essential...

Sentimental as it sounds, I will be trying to be kind today...with the faith that it will actually make a difference...

breathblog, breathblog

Saturday, June 10, 2006

Don't sacrifice the breath for the posture



Got back into Astanga Vinyasa Yoga with my trusted David Swenson CD this afternoon. I was extremely - unusually so - uncompetitive with myself - and it felt great. And for once listened to the instructions about not sacrificing "the breath for the postures."

It had been something I'd been promising myself for a long while... It's always a good feeling when procrastination comes to an end.

The pic is of Radha, who teaches Ashtanga, in Crete at Yoga Plus. I've been a couple of times, lovely place, great food and a tough but flexible yoga regime...

breathblog, breathblog

Noble conversations and Nightmares


Woke this morning in the wake of a scary, scary dream... It was centred on some really grim behaviour...but the real sting in the tail was "getting caught" and feeling the terrible shame of being found out. It felt unbearable, but then I woke in a cold sweat.

I then called a mate of mine just before seven o'clock, and we shared our trials and tribulations as we often do of a morning...and the detritus of horror started to clear and then sort of vanished, when it became clear that the dream mirrored my everyday reality and that there were conclusions to be drawn and lessons to be learned....

Friday, June 09, 2006

I'm not taking a deep breath, just posting a tag

In the great quest for visibility on the Web, I'm informed I should post a tag.

Here goes:



And I'll see what happens....

If anybody sees this, I wish you a wonderful weekend....

Insight is the environment around the breath


As far as Buddha was concerned, at that point [of his enlightenment] it was
not the message but the implications that were more important. And as
followers of Buddha, we have this approach, which is the idea of
vipashyana, literally meaning "insight." Insight is relating not only with
what you see but also with the implications of it, the totality of the
space and objects around it. Breath is the object of meditation, but the
environment around the breath is also part of the meditative situation.
- From "The Way of the Buddha" in THE MYTH OF FREEDOM.

All material by Chogyam Trungpa is copyright Diana J. Mukpo.

The count and breathing with the universe

Apparently, Tolstoy regarded his book of inspirational readings for each day of the year, as his most valuable contribution to literature; it vanished from public sight under socialist repression, but surfaced again and was published for the first time in English in 1997.

A dear friend of mine just sent me a copy of A Calendar of Wisdom, and I've been reading it with relish.

The great count believed that drinking in wisdom every day through the writings of the the wise and holy was of indescribable benefit.

In his own words: "What can be more precious than to communicate every day with the wisest men in the world?"

Well, not much... Except, perhaps sitting on Winter Hill at the back of the house in the early morning, feeling my breath going in and out - and then imagining that the universe itself was breathing me and then starting to feel it...




breathblog, breathblog, breathblog, breathblog, breathblog

Thursday, June 08, 2006

Breathing up the garden path and visibility


Best day in the garden so far this year - the irises and roses are out together...

I am trying to get my blog more visible - in between breaths of course - and I think that using the blog name in posts, will mean that search engines will see it as a keyword and help the blog being picked up by Google and the like...

So at the risk of being a bit obvious: breathblog, breathblog, breathblog, breathblog...

Things will get better tomorrow...

Tuesday, June 06, 2006

The interconnectedness of all our energies


Claire, my eldest daughter, and I met with James and Matt from Safetel. They have pioneered a revolutionary battery that neutralises the harmful rays that mobile phones fry our brains with.

The four of us were plotting an internet project, when the subject of phones came up.

And I said: "Have you every muscle tested your batteries?"

"What?" they replied.

So we tested them both with the usual kinesiology method - click on the cutting above to enlarge and read the bubble. (This cutting is something I wrote for the Daily Mirror back in 2002 under my old name "Winter".)

The results were very positive... The batteries were completely non-toxic when tested against a mobile phone with a conventional battery...

They were both blown away...as this was a clearly demonstrable benefit of their outstanding new product.

What has this got to do with breath? Well, it just reflects the interconnectedness of all our energies.

Monday, June 05, 2006

It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime.


What is Life? It is a flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.

- Crowfoot

Source: Coles Quotables

Breathing drug free life into asthma patients

Buteyko breathing exercises have reduced drug use by up to 80 per cent in asthma sufferers, the UK press reported today.

The results of the study, conducted by Professor Christine Jenkins in Sydney have replicated the results of similar earlier Australian studies.

Asthma UK research fellow Dr Mike Thomas commented: "There have been a number of studies recently suggesting that at least some people with asthma may benefit from different types of breath exercise."

Well, knock me down with a feather. What an epiphany!

As far as I am aware most doctors never monitor how we breathe - and perhaps they are not aware of what correct breathing entails. Certainly the doctors in the practice I visit invariably encourage me to manage my asthma with drugs - both with reliever inhalers, the broncholilators which offer immediate relief from troubling symptoms and steroid based preventers for long term suppression.

They show no interest in my attempts to manage my condition with breathing and until recently seemed to regard my efforts as bordering on the suicidal. A weary tolerance of my eccentric behaviour seems to have crept into the dialogue of late.

But such choice remarks as: "Asthma kills 2000 people a year in this country" continue to pepper the exchanges.

And asthma now means a hefty hike in life insurance premiums - which I have recently discovered to my cost.

With almost one in ten people in the UK suffering from breathlessness, you would have thought that some kind of education programme would be instituted, and major research on the effects of breathing exercises on asthmatics would be instigated by a health service, which we are forever told is strapped for cash.

Past studies have yielded positive results, And children who make up more than 25 per cent of asthmatics can use the Buteyko method from a very early age....

So what's the problem? The cosy arrangement the medical profession seem to have with drug companies who must be making a fortune with over five million patients in the UK alone? Their inherently cautious nature - which is no bad thing in other circumstances? The fact the recommending a patient for a breathing programme will require monitoring - and doesn't offer the quick fix of presription drugs?

Whatever the reasons, the incredible ability of the human body - and mind - to learn and adapt to better breathing techniques is being badly overlooked - and the rise in asthma sufferers will continue to climb as will the death toll.

Saturday, June 03, 2006

The path is long, but a step at a time it is not so bad...


Here I am of an evening mulling over my fate...feeling a bit cheated...things aren't going my way...and I've had a hard, difficult life...

But I'm weary of that tired old tape...so I'm thinking about this picture my wife took and how much I like it. How it incorporates the crossing from one state to another and then an uphill journey to the top of a hill, where I can look down on the valley below and see things a bit more clearly....

I am thinking now of my evening meditation and how I would like it be a clear, conscious affair, not dogged by my many irrelevant obsessions....

I throw myself to the mercy of my breath...in hope and trust, knowing all will be well...

No matter what...



"We can always begin again..."

- Jack Kornfield

Jack often hits the nail on the head... And today when I look at this peone rose - I think: "Yes, that's the way the universe is. Almost the kindness of it... That there always is a new starting point..."

The cycle of nature, beginning again, another hope, another day, another breath...

Friday, June 02, 2006

The breath is how it happens...


June is here and it's a wonderful late spring day. I just saw a Wren in the garden - the smallest bird in Britain... Life feels like a celebration this morning...

I picked up a lovely book yesterday: Breath - the essence of Yoga, by Sandra Sabatini. A new publisher seems to be re-printing it, which is good news.

Here's a sample:

it's not about dying...

it's about undoing... letting go... releasing... allowing... opening... softening...

as you breathe and become aware of your breath
all this will happen naturally in your body

everything will happen naturally - if you let it

the breath is how it happens

enjoy the benefits

as you focus attention on the breath, it becomes
very effective at claring and purifying at a deep level

and as the breath cleans and purifies
there is an increased feeling of lightness
and renewed energy in the body
and a greater calmness and clarity of mind

More blogs about breath blog.