BY: Anyen Rinpoche & Allison Choying Zangmo
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4 Thoughts
1. Why Breathing is the Best Tool for Healing and Transcending Suffering
“If we practice mindfulness and appreciate training in the breath, we have an incredible number of opportunities to balance the body and mind every day. When we recognize the opportunity that training in the breath provides, we give ourselves a gift: the opportunity to transcend ordinary suffering.
Working with the breath provides us with a unique opportunity for healing because the breath is something that is with us all the time, every moment. It does not matter whether we are awake or asleep, working or sitting, lying down or doing something active—the opportunity to train in and be mindful of the breath is always with us.”
A central theme of this book is that breathing is the most powerful tool we have, simply because it’s always there. Each of the 20,000+ breaths we take daily allows us to heal our bodies and minds and transcend suffering…sounds good to me.
But beyond just “being there all the time,” breathing is our best tool because it links our inner and outer experiences: “what is happening within our bodies and minds is channeled through our breathing.” Thus, mindful breathing helps us understand our state. Conversely, conscious breathing allows us to influence our bodies and minds for the better (more in Thought #3).
But perhaps what makes breathing the absolute best tool is that it’s available to everyone:
“The breath is something that is readily available to us simply because we are human beings. We do not need anything else to qualify. How marvelous!”
Marvelous, indeed.
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P.S. It’s not just available to everyone—it’s also useful for everyone: “Because the breath is such an excellent and abundant support for life and vitality for every being on the planet, everyone can benefit from training in the breath, working with the inhalation and exhalation.” 👏 Amen to that.
2. Rlung Sems: The Breath-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.”
This is such a good analogy. And this close connection between breathing and the mind is another predominant theme of the book. The Tibetan language even unites them with the compound word “rlung sems,” or “wind-mind.” (They use “wind energy” and “breath” interchangeably throughout the book, which we’ll cover in the 1 Life-Changing Idea.)
From this relationship, we see that breathing drives the mind and can thus be used to calm it:
“The wind energy is the root of all of our experience, since it provides energy for the mind’s movement. So, wind energy training is a powerful tool for purifying, calming, taming, and relaxing the wind energy to impact the expression of neurotic mind.”
So, from their perspective, a primary goal of breath training is steading our minds and reducing neurotic tendencies, such as anxiety, stress, depression, obsession, and so on:
“Of course, change will not happen immediately. But generally speaking, over a long period of time, working with the breath is effective at cutting through all types of neurotic tendencies, because it brings the wind energy into balance. As the wind energy is brought into balance and becomes more stable, neurotic tendencies lessen and even begin to disappear.”
Thus, because of the breath-mind connection—rlung sems—we have the power to change our breath and change our mindset. Let’s look at how we do that.
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P.S. Modern science agrees with this “breath-mind” perspective. Countless studies support the idea that the breath can directly influence the mind and reduce “neurotic tendencies,” namely stress, anxiety, and depression.
3. How We Should Breathe: Nasally and Abdominally
Let’s look at how we can practically use everything discussed in Thoughts #1 and #2. The two biggest things we can do to optimize our everyday breathing are to make it abdominal and nasal. Let’s look at some of the benefits of breathing like this:
“How does abdominal breathing benefit us? As we discussed previously, by breathing abdominally, we increase the oxygen available in the blood, and therefore the brain. But also, when we breathe deeply with prolonged nasal exhalation, this action enables the vagus nerve to reset itself. The vagus nerve is an aspect of our nervous system that brings equilibrium and balance to the whole. It either stimulates or calms the system, depending on what is needed. Therefore, working with wind energy training actually delivers the necessary antidote to everyone, no matter what type of stress imbalance we suffer from, despite differences in our state of mind and physical health.”
That last sentence is amazing and reminds me of this wisdom in Relaxation Revolution:
“In fact, any condition that is caused or exacerbated by stress can be helped by a well-designed mind body approach. Furthermore, because all health conditions have some stress component, it is no overstatement to say that virtually every single health problem and disease can be improved with a mind body approach.”
So, we breathe nasally and abdominally to trigger the relaxation response and deliver “the necessary antidote to everyone.”
Making these two changes to our default way of breathing is the best way to harness our “wind energy” for better mental and physical health. This is the essence of the whole book.
***
P.S. Here’s another excellent quote on nasal breathing: “As a general note, the teachings on wind energy training and Yantra Yoga emphasize breathing through the nostrils during the entire practice session. Unless we are given specific, personal instruction by a master on how and when to breathe through the mouth, we should always breathe through the nose when we practice wind energy training.”
4. The Basic Sequence of a Wind-Energy Training Session
There wasn’t any “breathwork” or secret Tibetan breathing exercises in this book. Instead, it focused on coupling the breath with contemplations and visualizations. They are rather lengthy and can’t fit here. However, from a practical perspective, I found the structure of a “wind-energy training” session useful:
“A typical session is structured like this: Begin with a short session of physical yoga. Practice for about fifteen to twenty minutes, or however long you wish.”
The type of yoga you start with doesn’t matter. What’s most important is doing some physical activity to open the body’s energy channels.
“Then take your seat on a cushion. Take a moment to reflect on your motivation, making sure that the wish to practice for the benefit of all beings is present in the mind.”
You can adopt this beautiful mindset for any wellness practice you do.
“Next, engage in the Nine-Cycles Breathing to dispel the karmic wind.”
This is essentially six alternate-nostril breaths followed by three breaths in and out of both nostrils. For ANB, one cycle is out-left, in-left, out-right, and in-right (the audio version of this 411 has more details). Make the inhales and exhales as long and deep as you comfortably can. There are also visualizations you can do with this practice—get the book for more.
After this short sequence, you go into a contemplative practice, such as meditating on impermanence with each in and out breath.
I’ve been trying out the Nine-Cycles Breathing and reflecting on my motivation to begin each breathing session, and I really enjoy it. If you feel inspired, give it a try, too 🙏
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P.S. They also have some neat info on posture. I shared it in TB1% #115, so check it out if you’re interested in becoming a “spiritual hero who works for the benefit of others.”
1 Life-Changing Idea
The Breath-Weather Connection
“Wind energy has the same relationship to our mental and emotional energy as it does to the environment and atmosphere. When the wind energy is wild, agitated, or imbalanced, it manifests as physical illness in the body or as mental suffering, neurosis, or any other extreme state in the mind.
We also know that when the air element is harmonious, calm, and in balance, we tend to feel happy. When the sun is shining, the weather is warm, and the air is calm, life feels abundant, and we feel comfortable. Harmony in the elements makes it easy to feel good.”
Viewing breath as wind was the most life-changing perspective shift from the book. Of course, I studied the weather for over 10 years, so it has a special place in my heart. But this viewpoint is genuinely something that can change your daily life in three ways:
1. Make the connection that “breath is wind.” We know when the wind is strong outside, it can cause destruction. Think of hurricanes, tornadoes, and damaging winds associated with thunderstorms. Now, realize something similar occurs with our internal wind, our breath. When it is strong, it causes physical and mental disturbances. So, when you walk outside, notice the wind, and use it as a reminder to observe your internal wind.
2. Realize that atmospheric wind is a balancing response. High- and low-pressure systems create wind in the atmosphere; air movement is a balancing response to these differing pressures. Similarly, our breath is a balancing response to our mental and physical states. A strong “breath-wind” is usually a sign of a physical or psychological imbalance. In contrast, calm breathing is a sign we are close to balance. THE KEY DIFFERENCE: We can control our breath and bring balance—that’s life-changing by itself.
3 Everywhere gets weather. Every place on Earth receives powerful winds or destructive weather from time to time. Similarly, if we’re alive, we’ll always have turbulent breathing from time to time. It’s part of life to have ups and downs and destructive weather now and then. There’s no need to beat ourselves up over it. It comes and goes, like clouds in the sky : )
1 Stack of Memorable Quotes
“Therefore, according to Tibetan medicine, the breath is part of an intricate system of wind energy that regulates and supports the body’s health. For this reason, we often use the words breath and wind energy interchangeably.”
“The breath is not only a source of support for the physical body; it is also a support for mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being.”
“This illustrates the most empowering point of all: the key to our own experience lies within our bodies all the time. We need not look outside of ourselves to find peace or to resolve conflicts. We have the power to do that within ourselves.”
“No matter how out of control we feel, how low our energy is, or how large our problems seem to loom, wind energy training is an effective intervention for all emotional imbalances. When we work with the breath, we work with the root of the problem.”
“It staves off physical and mental illnesses. It cultivates emotional stability. On a daily basis, it can bring us greater peace of mind because we carry the breath with us wherever we go.”
“The only thing that we can control and master is our own spiritual path.”
“All of us are equally capable of working with the inhalation and exhalation of the breath. After the lessons and insights of this book, we may see the practice of breath work as a wish-fulfilling gem that we never knew we carried until now.”
"Wind energy training represents complete abundance in our lives. There is no shortage of anything—we have all the support and opportunity we need to practice.”
“[I]t is no coincidence that the breath is the perfect tool to use on a moment-to-moment basis. Whether we are eating, sleeping, sitting, working, engaging with others, or driving, we can cultivate awareness of the breath throughout them all.”
“When the breath is calm and relaxed, we notice that the body’s energy is also calm, especially in the areas of the abdomen, lungs, and chest. As a result, the mind becomes clear and we feel relaxed and even-tempered.”
“At the end of the wind energy training session, spend a few moments using the breath to channel this attitude of rejoicing. As you inhale, you can think, ‘How fortunate! My life lasted long enough to take this breath.’ As you exhale, you can think, ‘May I use the remainder of my life wisely.’”