Listen Instead of Reading
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4 THOUGHTS
1. Improve Emotional Balance with the Breath-Wind-Mind Connection
“Each time a gust of wind blows over the ocean, ripples and waves cause movement and agitation on the water’s surface. However, when the air is calm, so is the water. It is just so with the mind. The more often we breathe, the more agitated the energy of body and mind becomes. By breathing less frequently, we begin to achieve elemental harmony.”
- Anyen Rinpoche & Allison Choying Zangmo, The Tibetan Yoga of Breath
This beautiful analogy reminds us that the calmer we breathe, the more peaceful our minds. For this reason, the authors also say:
“As the [breath] is brought into balance and becomes more stable, neurotic tendencies lessen and even begin to disappear.”
Balance our breath, and we balance our emotional states.
***
P.S. Ironically, I find not balancing my breath the most balancing. For example, I often use slightly longer exhales and left-nostril breathing to elicit emotional equanimity. So play with it and find what works for you 🙏
2. The Liberating Power of Breath Awareness
“Breathing awareness is not just about calming the mind—a common assumption among meditators not familiar with this method. Rather, the breath helps you maintain full attention, enabling you to see with greater clarity and accuracy the true nature of all forms: everything that arises passes away. The implications of such insightful seeing can be profound and liberating.”
- Larry Rosenberg, Three Steps to Awakening
Here’s an excellent reminder that breath awareness—the most foundational of all mindfulness techniques—can be used to go beyond just “calming the mind.” It can help us “to see with greater clarity and accuracy the true nature of all forms.”
That sounds like a worthy goal to me 🙏
3. Why Mindfulness is a Part of All Breathing Practices
Almost all breathing practices start with breath awareness (this usually annoys me because I just want to get to the “good stuff,” lol).
But here’s why it’s so important: Without mindfulness, the benefits of the breathing practice will be minimal at best.
We need mindfulness to notice when we actually need breathing.
We need it to observe how our breathing reflects our emotions.
We need it to notice if the practice is actually helping in our lives.
Embrace mindfulness, and watch the power of any breathing method you use grow exponentially.
4. Abraham Maslow’s Teaching Philosophy (how can you use it?)
“Maslow viewed the role of the teacher, therapist, and parent as horticulturists, whose task is to ‘enable people to become healthy and effective in their own style.’ To Maslow, this meant that ‘we try to make a rose into a good rose, rather than seek to change roses into lilies. . .It necessitates a pleasure in the self-actualization of a person who may be quite different from yourself. It even implies an ultimate respect and acknowledgement of the sacredness and uniqueness of each kind of person.’”
- Scott Barry Kaufman, Ph.D., Transcend
I absolutely love this, especially: “We try to make a rose into a good rose, rather than seek to change roses into lilies.” 👏👏👏
How might you apply this philosophy in your life, or in your role as a teacher or parent?
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1 Quote
“And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.””
1 Answer
Category: Breath Awareness
Answer: Bringing awareness to your breathing uses this sense, which means something like “sensing internal signals from your body.”
…
(Cue the Jeopardy! music.)
…
Question: What is interoception?
In good breath,
Nick Heath, T1D, PhD
“Breathing is the compound interest of health & wellness.”
* An asterisk by a quote indicates that I listened to this book on Audible. Therefore, the quotation might not be correct, but is my best attempt at reproducing the punctuation based on the narrator’s pace, tone, and pauses.
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Each Monday, I curate and synthesize information from scientific journals, books, articles, and podcasts to share 4 thoughts, 1 quote, and 1 answer (like "Jeopardy!") related to breathing. It’s a fun way to learn something new each week.
