We listened to a presentation by Dr. Celine Kline on the subject of mindfulness. She is a local faculty member and also runs a yoga studio nearby. The ancients noticed millennia ago that one of the best connections between our conscious self and the many things that go on in us that are unconscious and not under our control is our breath. When we sleep and are in many other unconscious or semi-conscious states, we continue to breathe. However, when conscious, we can take over our breathing and breathe more deeply or rapidly. We can hold our breath.
We realize that breathing is important. We look for it in determining if a person is alive. We use our control of it to calm ourselves. When we are in need of a quick change, we may leave the room and step outside for a deep, satisfying breath. Dr. Kline pointed out that we may remember a great meal we had or anticipate what promises to be an excellent dinner. But you don't hear people say,"Next Thursday morning, I am going to take such a fine breath!" You don't hear reminiscence: "Boy, that day, I took such a lovely, satisfying breath!". But we could pay a bit more attention to very good breaths that we get for ourselves.
Becoming more aware of what we do with our minds can be trained into us. We can do the training ourselves. Ten minutes a day is a good period of training. Works better to get into the habit by using about the same time each day. If we try to put our mind, our concentration, our attention on something for the training time, we will often get caught up in other thoughts. Each time we notice we have moved our attention, we can move it back to the focus. The time between getting off the focus and moving back to it will shorten with training.
Both many of the ancients and many modern mind trainers use the breath as the focus. We can rest our eyes gently closed and still pay attention to each in-breath and each out-breath. We can pay attention to the delicious quality of our precious atmosphere as we pull some of it into our chests. The torture called "waterboarding", lung disease and other difficulties can show us how lovely it is to be able to breathe and how firmly our bodies are wired to resist not breathing.
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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
