The Tao of Natural Breathing Part 1

The Tao of Natural Breathing.

Dennis Lewis.

Dedicated to my son, Benoit, who, from the moment of his birth, has inspired me to always attempt to keep learning and growing.

And with my most profound grat.i.tude to Lord John Pentland, my primary teacher, who was an outstanding leader of the Gurdjieff Work in America until his death in 1984, and who taught me how to think from the perspective and sensation of wholeness; Jean Klein, the Advaita Vedanta master who helped me understand that love and consciousness are at the very heart of being; and Mantak Chia, the Taoist master who brought the Healing Tao to America, and who, along with Chi Nei Tsang pract.i.tioner Gilles Marin, showed me that healing is a power we all have-the creative power of life itself.

Empty yourself of everything.

Let the mind become still.

The ten thousand things rise and fall while the Self watches their return.

They grow and flourish and then return to the source.

Returning to the source is stillness, which is the way of nature....

Lao Tsu, Tao Te Ching.

FOREWORD.

There is a growing interest today in the relationship of breathing to health and spiritual development. Unfortunately, few people who experiment with their breath understand the importance of "natural breathing." This is the kind of spontaneous, whole-body breathing that one can observe in an infant or a young child. Instead of trying to learn to breathe naturally, many people impose complicated breathing techniques on top of their already bad breathing habits. These habits are not in harmony with the psychological and physiological laws of the mind and body. They are not in harmony with the Tao.

Natural breathing is an integral part of the Tao. For thousands of years Taoist masters have taught natural breathing to their students through chi kung, tai chi, and various other meditative and healing arts and sciences. Through natural breathing we are able to support our overall health. We are able to improve the functioning and efficiency of our heart, lungs, and other internal organs and systems. We are able to help balance our emotions. We are able to transform our stress and negativity into the energy that we can use for self-healing and self-development. And we are better able to extract and absorb the energy we need for spiritual growth and independence.

Many books on breathing have been published over the past several years. None of them, however, has gone as deeply into the meaning, practice, and benefits of natural breathing as this important new work by Dennis Lewis. Based on his own long study and research in various traditions and disciplines, including the Healing Tao, Lewis brings together in one book the psychosomatic vision, the scientific knowledge, and the vital practices that can help us discover the power of natural breathing to rejuvenate and transform our lives.

The Tao of Natural Breathing makes a big contribution to our understanding of how the way we breathe influences our lives. Whatever their level of experience, readers will gain new insights into their own specific breathing habits and how these habits often undermine their health and well-being. They will understand that natural, authentic breathing depends less on learning new breathing techniques than it does on what Lewis calls the "reeducation" of our inner perception. This reeducation, which involves learning how to sense the inner structures and energies of the mind and body, lies at the heart of the Taoist approach to healing and spiritual development.

MASTER MANTAK CHIA.

The International Healing Tao.

Chiang Mai, Thailand.

PREFACE.

William Blake wrote: "There is a crack in everything that G.o.d has made." For me, this crack-this place where something new and more meaningful can enter our lives-became especially visible in 1990, when I found myself physically, emotionally, and spiritually exhausted, with a constant, sharp pain on the right side of my rib cage. I had just gone through the enormous stress of selling my public relations agency to a well-known English firm, and had worked to maximize the sale price of the company for two years under the direction of the new owners. Though I had had chronic abdominal discomfort for many years, and indeed had been diagnosed with "colitis" some years before, this pain was different. I went to doctors, ma.s.sage therapists, and various body-work pract.i.tioners to put an end to it, but to no avail. It was during this period that I met Gilles Marin, a student of Taoist master Mantak Chia, and a teacher and pract.i.tioner of Chi Nei Tsang (CNT), a Taoist healing practice using internal-organ chi ma.s.sage and work with breathing to clear unhealthy tensions and energies from our bodies.

When Gilles first put his hands into my belly and began to ma.s.sage my inner organs and tissues, and when he began to ask me to breathe into parts of myself that I had never experienced through my breath, I had no idea of the incredible journey of discovery that I was beginning. Though Gilles told me that CNT was part of a larger system of healing and spiritual practices called the "Healing Tao," founded by Master Chia, my immediate concern was simply to get rid of the pain. I had my own spiritual practices; what I needed was healing.

Healing. ... A word I had not pondered very deeply in my life. But as Gilles began to work more intensively with me, and as it became increasingly clear that the healing process depended in large part on my own inner awareness, I began to understand why the expressions "to heal" and "to make whole" have the same roots. Though the physical pain disappeared after several sessions, and though I began to feel more alive, a deeper, psychic pain began to emerge-the pain of recognizing that in spite of all my efforts over many years toward self-knowledge and self-transformation, I had managed to open myself to only a small portion of the vast scale of the physical, emotional, and spiritual energies available to us at every moment. As Gilles continued working on me, and as my breath began to penetrate deeper into myself, I began to sense layer after layer of tension, anger, fear, and sadness resonating in my abdomen below the level of my so-called waking consciousness, and consuming the energies I needed not only for health, but also for a real engagement with life. And this deepening sensation at the very center of my being, painful as it was, brought with it an opening not only in the tissues of my belly, but also in my most intimate att.i.tudes toward myself, a welcoming of hitherto unconscious fragments of myself into a new sense of discovery, wholeness, and inner growth.

I quickly realized that Chi Nei Tsang-with its penetration into my physical and emotional energies through touch and breathwork-provided a direct, healing pathway into myself, and as I learned more about it through its action on me I soon found myself taking cla.s.ses from Gilles and even beginning to work on my friends. I also found myself taking cla.s.ses in healing practices and chi kung, many of which involved special breathing practices, from various Healing Tao teachers, including Master Chia. After more than a year of CNT cla.s.ses and many hours of clinical practice, I was tested by Master Chia and certified by him to do CNT professionally. And after many Healing Tao cla.s.ses and retreats, as well as intensive work on myself, I also became certified by Master Chia to teach some of the Healing Tao practices. Since then I have done CNT work both on my own clients and at a Chinese medicine clinic in San Francisco, and have taught ongoing Healing Tao cla.s.ses and workshops, with a large emphasis on breathing.

As a result of my work with the Healing Tao, as well as with other teachings, such as the Gurdjieff Work and Advaita Vedanta, two facts have become clear to me with regard to the relationship of breath to health and inner growth. First, that our poor breathing habits have arisen not only out of our psychosomatic "ig-norance," our lack of organic awareness, but also out of our unconscious need for a buffering mechanism to keep us from sensing and feeling the reality of our own deep-rooted fears and contradictions. There is absolutely no doubt that superficial breathing ensures a superficial experience of ourselves. Second, that if we were able to breathe "naturally" for even a small percentage of the more than 15,000 breaths we take during each waking day we would be taking a huge step not only toward preventing many of the physical and psychological problems that have become endemic to modern life, but also toward supporting our own inner growth-the growth of awareness of who and what we really are, of our own essential being. It is my hope that the ideas and practices explored in this book will help make this possible.

INTRODUCTION.

A Miracle and a Warning.

The process of breathing, of the fundamental movement of inspiration and expiration, is one of the great miracles of existence. It not only unleashes the energies of life, but it also provides a healing pathway into the deepest recesses of our being. To inhale fully is to fill ourselves with the energies of life, to be inspired; to exhale fully is to empty ourselves, to open ourselves to the unknown, to be expired. It is through a deepening awareness of the ever-changing rhythms of this primal process that we begin to awaken our inner healing powers-the energy of wholeness.

To breathe is to live. To breathe fully is to live fully, to manifest the full range and power of our inborn potential for vitality in everything that we sense, feel, think, and do. Unfortunately, few of us breathe fully. We have lost the capability of "natural breathing," a capability that we had as babies and young children. Our chronic shallow breathing reduces the working capacity of our respiratory system to only about one-third of its potential, diminishes the exchange of gases and thus the production of energy in our cells, deprives us of the many healthful actions that breathing naturally would have on our inner organs, cuts us off from our own real feelings, and promotes disharmony and "dis-ease" at every level of our lives.

What is natural breathing? How would this kind of breathing alter our lives and our health? To answer these questions we must undertake an experimental study of breathing in the laboratory of our own body. We must personally experience how our breath is intimately bound up not just with our energy, but with every aspect of our being-from the health of our tissues, organs, bones, muscles, hormones, and blood to the quality and breadth of our thoughts, att.i.tudes, emotions, and consciousness. We must begin to understand the great power that our breathing has to help open us or close us not only to our own inner healing powers but also to our potential for psychological and spiritual development.

Of all the great ancient and modern teachings that have explored the full significance of breath in our lives, the Taoist tradition of China, which is more a way of life than a formal religion, offers one of the most practical and insightful approaches to the use of breath for health and well-being. One of the reasons for this is that from the very beginning of Taoism, at the time of the reign of the Yellow Emperor (Huang Ti) around 2700 B.C., the goals of health and longevity were never separated from the goals of spiritual evolution and immortality. Taoists realized that a long, healthy life filled with vitality is not only an intelligent goal in its own right but also an important support for the more difficult goal of spiritual growth and independence. Supported by more than 4,000 years of experimentation with their own physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual energies through special postures and movements, ma.s.sage, visualization, sound, meditation, diet, and many other practical disciplines, the Taoists observed that natural breathing-breathing according to the actual "laws" of the human organism-could have a powerful influence on the quant.i.ty and quality of these energies and thus on the quality and direction of our lives. For if the Tao can be defined at all, it means the way, the laws, of nature and the universe-the laws of creation and evolution. It is through living in harmony with these laws that we become free to discover and fulfill our physical, psychological, and spiritual destiny.

The Tao of Natural Breathing integrates key Taoist teachings and practices regarding breath-especially those arising through my work with Taoist master Mantak Chia-with my observations and discoveries over the past 30 years in relation to various other systems and teachings, including the Gurdjieff Work, Advaita Vedanta, Feldenkrais, and Ilse Middendorf, as well as with important principles from anatomy, physiology, and neurochemistry. It is my experience that any serious work with breathing requires far more than appropriate exercises. It also requires a clear "scientific view" of the human body and a deep work of organic awareness-the ability to sense and feel oneself from the inside.

A WARNING ABOUT BREATHING EXERCISES.

The great spiritual pathfinder G. I. Gurdjieff once said that "without mastering breathing nothing can be mastered."1 But he also warned that without complete knowledge of our organism, especially of the interrelationships of the rhythms of our various organs, efforts to change our breathing can bring great harm. It is clear that work with breathing, especially some of the advanced yogic breathing techniques (pranayama) taught in the West through both cla.s.ses and books, is fraught with many dangers. In his book Hara: The Vital Center of Man, Karlfried Durckheim-a pioneer in the integration of body, mind, and spirit-discusses some of the dangers of teaching yogic breathing techniques to Westerners. He points out that most of these exercises, which "imply tension," were designed for Indians, who suffer from "an inert letting-go." Westerners, on the other hand, suffer from "too much upward pull ... too much will." Durckheim states that even though many yoga teachers try to help their students relax before giving them breathing exercises, they do not realize that the "letting-go" required for deep relaxation can be achieved "only after long practice." At best, says Durckheim, giving breathing exercises prematurely grafts new tensions onto the already established ones, and brings about "an artificially induced vitality ... followed by a condition of exhaustion and the aspirant discontinues his efforts, his practice."2 Based on my own work on myself, as well as on my observation of others, I believe that it is only after many months (or even years) of progressive practice rooted in self-observation and self-awareness that most Westerners can experience the deep inner relaxation, the freedom from willfulness, needed to benefit in a lasting way from advanced breathing exercises-whether yogic, Taoist, or otherwise. Breathing exercises involving complicated counting schemes, alternate nostril breathing, reverse breathing, breath retention, hyperventilation,3 and so on make sense only for people who already breathe naturally, making use of their entire body in the breathing process. It is my experience that natural breathing is in itself a powerful form of self-healing. That is why The Tao of Natural Breathing explores this kind of breathing in so much depth, describing in detail some fundamental perspectives and practices that can, through increased inner awareness, help us see and transform our own personal obstacles to its manifestation in our lives.

One could say, of course, as some Taoist masters and other teachers have said, that since natural breathing is natural, any effort to breathe naturally both misses the point and is counterproductive. They maintain that when our mind becomes calm and empty, natural breathing will arise automatically.4 Accepting this a.s.sertion, however, does not solve the problem; it simply puts us in front of another question: what are the conditions that allow us to calm and empty our minds? What personal work is needed? It is no use to shift the problem from the body to the mind or from the mind to the body. Natural breathing involves the partic.i.p.ation of both.

The appearance of natural breathing in our lives is not just a matter of what we do, but also-and perhaps more importantly-of how we do it. If we approach the practices in this book as mere techniques to be manipulated by our so-called will, they will bring us nothing. If, however, we can approach them as natural vehicles to explore the physiological and psychological laws of our mind and body-through direct impressions coming from an inner clarity of awareness-we may in fact begin to learn what it means to calm and empty our minds. No matter how we live or what we do (or don't do), we are always doing something; we are always practicing something-if only mechanically repeating and further entrenching the narrow, often unhealthy, habits of mind, body, and perception that shape our lives. To gain real benefit from the practices in this book, then, we must approach them as consciously as possible, taking care to understand their aim, feel their spirit, and sense their effect on our entire being.

EXPANDING OUR NARROW SENSE OF SELF.

The real power of the ideas and practices described in this book is to help us first experience and then free ourselves from the many narrow, unconscious att.i.tudes we have about ourselves and the world-att.i.tudes that create stress and other problems for us in almost every area of our lives. It is often these very att.i.tudes-deeply entrenched in our minds, hearts, and bodies, and manifested through and supported by our breathing-that diminish our awareness, constrict our life force, and prevent us from living conscious, healthy lives in harmony with ourselves, with others, and with our environment.

Fortunately, we do not have to try to deal with each of these att.i.tudes individually-an impossible task in one lifetime. Like spokes radiating out from the central axle of a wheel, our att.i.tudes radiate out from the axle of our own particular self-image: the narrow, incomplete, yet strong image of self, of "I," that permeates almost everything that we think, feel, and do. According to Lao Tzu, if we can somehow expand this narrow image we have of ourselves and live from our wholeness, then many of our problems will disappear on their own: What is meant by saying that the greatest trouble

is the strong sense of individual self

that people carry in all circ.u.mstances?

People are beset with great trouble

because they define their lives so narrowly.

If they forsake their narrow sense of self

and live wholly, then what can they call trouble?5

To see and free ourselves from our own "narrow sense of self" is to begin to become open to the tremendous healing forces and energies that create and maintain our lives-to experience for ourselves how the alchemical substances of matter and the magical ideas of mind are linked in the unified, transformative dance of yin and yang-the dynamic polarity of opposites from which all life springs. It is also to experience here and now the return to the primal, expansive emptiness and silence of "wu chi," the all-inclusive wholeness that is the source of both our being and our well-being. It is our breath that can help guide us on this remarkable journey into ourselves.

1.

THE MECHANICS OF BREATHING.

The process of breathing,

if we can begin to understand it

in relation to the whole of life,

shows us the way to let go

of the old and open to the new.

The process of breathing is a living metaphor for understanding how to expand our narrow sense of ourselves and be present to the healing energies that are both in and around us. Every time we inhale we take in some 1022 atoms, including approximately one million of the same atoms of air inhaled by Lao Tzu, Buddha, Christ, and everyone else who has ever lived on this earth. Every time we exhale, we return these atoms to the atmosphere to be renewed for both present and future generations. Every time we inhale, we absorb oxygen expelled into the atmosphere as a "waste product" by the earth's plant life. Every time we exhale, we expel carbon dioxide as a "waste product" into the atmosphere where it can eventually be absorbed by this same plant life. In nature, nothing is wasted. Our breath is a link in the cosmic ecology-in the conservation, transformation, and exchange of substances in nature's complex metabolism. It connects our so-called inner world with the vast scale of the outer world-of the earth and its atmosphere, as well as of all organic life-through the perceptible alternation of yin and yang, of negative and positive, of emptying and filling. The process of breathing, if we can begin to understand it in relation to the whole of life, shows us the way to let go of the old and open to the new. It shows us the way to experience who and what we actually are. It shows us the way to wholeness and well-being.

SOME PERSONAL HISTORY.

In my own case, breathing took on a special, historical significance for me long before I understood why. As a child I had a tremendous fascination with holding my breath. Lying in bed, I would often hold my breath for two minutes or so before finding myself gasping for air. As a young adult, the moment I started wearing suits I realized that I was troubled by the sensation of a tight collar or a tie around my neck. It was only later, when I was in my early thirties, that my mother told me I had been a breech baby, and that the doctors had fully expected me to come into the world dead, strangled by the umbilical cord wrapped tightly around my neck. Indeed, it was wrapped around my neck, but I was still able to breathe, still able to take in the precious nectar that we call air.

It is obvious to me today, however, that my 30-hour struggle to reach light and take my first breath left deep impressions in my body and nervous system, and laid the foundation for some of the fundamental fears and insecurities that have often motivated my behavior as an adult. It is obvious to me today also that this deeply entrenched belief that only through persistence and struggle could I somehow find meaning and happiness in my life-a mode of behavior which served me well during birth, as well as during my childhood and teenage years-became an obstacle to my health and psychological growth as I grew older. All of this has become clearer as my breathing has begun to give up its restrictive hold on my sensory and emotional awareness, expanding into more of the whole of myself.

THE NEED FOR CLARITY AND MINDFULNESS.

What is the relationship of our breath to our experience of ourselves and to real health and well-being? What is the relationship of our breath to our quest for self-knowledge and inner growth? To begin to answer these questions in a way that can have a long-lasting, beneficial impact on our lives, it is not enough to go to a weekend rebirthing or breathing intensive, or to simply start doing exercises from a magazine or book. Because of the intimate relationship between mind and body-the many subtle yet powerful ways they influence each other-any lasting, effective work with our breath requires clear mental knowledge of the mechanics of natural breathing and its relationship to our muscles, our emotions, and our thoughts. The clarity of this picture in our mind will help us become more conscious of our own individual patterns of breathing. It is through being "mindful" of these patterns that we will begin to sense and feel the various psychophysical forces acting on our breath from both the past and the present. And it is through the actual observation of these forces in our own bodies that we will begin to see how we use our breathing to buffer ourselves from physical and psychological experiences and memories too difficult or painful to confront. And, finally, it is through this entire process-the integration of mental clarity with sensory and emotional awareness-that we will begin to experience the extraordinary power of "natural breathing" and its ability to support the process of healing and wholeness in our lives.

THE ANATOMY OF BREATHING.

For most of us, our cycle of inhalation and exhalation occurs at an average resting rate of 12 to 14 times a minute when we are awake, and six to eight times a minute when we are asleep. A baby breathes at about twice these rates. Our breathing rates can change dramatically in relation to what we are doing or experiencing. Under extreme physical activity or stress, for example, the rate can go up to 100 times a minute. For those who have worked seriously with their breath, the resting rate can go down to four to eight times a minute, since they take in more oxygen and expel more carbon dioxide with each inhalation and exhalation.

The Chest Cavity and Lungs The process of breathing takes place mainly in the chest cavity, the top and sides of which are bounded by the ribs (which slant downward and forward) and the attached intercostal muscles, and the bottom by the dome-shaped muscular part.i.tion of the diaphragm (Figure 1). Inside this cavity lie the heart and the two lungs. Shaped somewhat like pyramids, the lungs are divided into three lobes on the right and two on the left. The lobes are composed of a spongy labyrinth of sacs, which, if flattened out, would cover an area of approximately 100 square yards. The lungs are covered by the pleura, a double-layer membrane lining the inside of the ribs, and are supported by the diaphragm. Extremely elastic, the lungs are free to move in any direction except where they are attached through tubes and arteries to the trachea and heart. Though the lungs have a total air capacity of about 5,000 milliliters, the average breath is only about 500 milliliters. Though, as we shall see, we can learn to exhale much more air than we normally do, no matter how fully we may exhale, the lungs always hold a reserve of about 1,000 milliliters of air to keep them from becoming completely deflated. It is easy to see that most of us use a small percentage of our lungs' capacity.

Figure 1 We seldom pay attention to the breathing process in the course of our daily activities, but when we do we can sense the chest cavity expanding and contracting, somewhat like a bellows. During inhalation, the rib muscles (intercostals) expand and elevate the ribs, the sternum moves slightly upward, and the diaphragm flattens downward. The expanded s.p.a.ce creates a partial vacuum that sucks the lungs outward toward the walls of the chest and downward toward the diaphragm, thus increasing their volume as air is drawn in automatically from the outside (Figure 2). The air that we inhale is composed of about 20 percent oxygen and .03 percent carbon dioxide; the rest is nitrogen. During exhalation, the rib muscles relax, the sternum moves downward, the diaphragm relaxes upward (regaining its full dome-like curvature), and the old air is expelled upward through the trachea as the lungs recede from the walls of the chest and shrink back to their original size (Figure 3). The exhaled air consists of 16 percent oxygen and 4 percent carbon dioxide. It is saturated with water vapor produced by metabolic activity.

The Movement of Air through the Respiratory System As air enters our nose, particles of dust and dirt are filtered out by the hairs that line our nostrils. As the air continues on through the nasal pa.s.sages it is warmed and humidified by the mucous membranes of the septum, which divides the nose into two cavities. If too many particles acc.u.mulate on the membranes of the nose, we automatically secrete mucus to trap them or sneeze to expel them. In general, air does not move through the nasal pa.s.sages equally at the same time. Usually when the left nostril is more open, the right one is more congested and vice versa. This occurs because the flow of blood shifts back and forth between the nostrils in a rhythm that takes approximately one and a half to two hours.6 Figure 2 Figure 3 After pa.s.sing through the nose, the air then flows down past our pharynx, the cavity at the back of our mouth where the nose and mouth are connected, and where swallowing and breathing are coordinated by the pharyngeal plexus (under the control of the lower brain stem). Here the air pa.s.ses through the lymphoid tissue of the adenoids and tonsils at the back of the nose and throat, where bacteria and viruses are removed. The air then moves past the larynx, which helps the vocal cords use air to produce sound, and then continues downward into the tube of muscle called the trachea, which separates into two bronchi serving the lungs (Figure 4). The trachea and bronchi are lined with mucus-secreting cells that trap pollutants and bacteria. As the air flows through the bronchi, tiny hairlike lashes called cilia ma.s.sage the mucus and any remaining debris away from the lungs and upward toward the trachea, over the larynx, and finally into the esophagus. When too many particles, chemicals, or clumps of mucus acc.u.mulate in the bronchi, they trigger a coughing spasm-a powerful muscle contraction and bronchial constriction which can generate a wind force stronger than a tornado-to expel this toxic material.

In the lungs, the bronchi divide into smaller and smaller branches called bronchioles. The bronchioles, which have muscular walls that can constrict air flow through contraction, end in some 400 million bubble-like sacs called alveoli. It is in the alveoli that the life-giving exchange between oxygen and carbon dioxide occurs-where fresh oxygen enters the circulatory system to be carried throughout the body by hemoglobin molecules in the blood, and where gaseous waste products such as carbon dioxide are returned by the blood for elimination through exhalation.

THE PHASES OF BREATHING.

Depending on the demands of what we are doing at the moment (lying down, sitting, walking, running) and on our specific psychological state (peaceful, angry, stressed out, happy), our breath can range from fast to slow and from shallow to deep, emphasizing one or more of the three fundamental phases of the breathing process: diaphragmatic, thoracic, and clavicular. In deep breathing, for example-what is often referred to as "the yogic complete breath," all three phases come into play. According to Alan Hymes, M.D., a cardiovascular and thoracic surgeon who is a pioneer in the field of breath research, this form of breathing "is initiated by diaphragmatic contraction, resulting in a slight expansion of the lower ribs and protrusion of the upper abdomen, thus oxygenating the lower lung fields. Then the middle portions of the lungs expand, with outward chest movement, in the thoracic phase as inhalation proceeds further. At the very end of inhalation, still more air is admitted by slightly raising the clavicles, thereby expanding the uppermost tips of the lungs. In sequence, then, each phase of inhalation acts on one particular area of the lungs."7 As we shall see, no matter what state we may be in, most of us depend mainly on chest and clavicular breathing, and have little experience of diaphragmatic breathing. Thus, we seldom draw air into the deepest areas of our lungs, where most of our blood awaits oxygenation.