Long breath, long life.
Short breath, short life.
No breath, death.
Since the practice of Qigong can be translated literally as Breath Work, the technic of breathing is an integral part of Qigong practice.
The history of working with the breath is
universal.
In Yoga, working with the rhythm of breathing is called Pranayama
and involves inhaling then pausing, exhaling and pausing.
In Kundalini Yoga, there is the Breath of Fire which involves
rapid breathing.
In Tibetan Yoga, there is a holding in of inhaled air, called the
Vase Breath, to create tremendous inner heat.
Breathing is our gateway to our voluntary and autonomic nervous systems. Respiration can be conscious or unconscious, as when you are asleep or have fainted. For Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, or Cot Death, there is very strong evidence that very small babies die from their bodies forgetting to breathe in their sleep. This is tragic and explains why in the Chinese culture one finds a family bed. Allowing the mother to sleep with the new-born baby can be one possible preventive measure against Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.
Since breathing involves both the voluntary and the involuntary nervous systems, Taoist masters shrewdly observed that our emotions influence the way we breathe. When we are angry our breathing becomes heavy. When we are sad our breathing becomes choked. When we are happy our breathing becomes fluid and smooth. When we are peaceful, our breaths become long and quiet.
In Taoist and Buddhist training, breath is divided into four levels:
In Taiji practice, the common state of breath is the Raspy breath or even the windy breath, only rarely do I encounter a practitioner who has the Qi breath. In my more than 30 years of practice and observation, I have met only a handful of masters with the ability to maintain a flowing state of Resting Breath while practicing Taiji or Qigong forms.
Resting Breath can be experienced more readily when one is doing seated meditation. Once one has reached the level of deep theta brain waves or the deep samadhi state the sound of one's own breathing disappears. At this point, one no longer notices whether one is breathing or not. The student will have very concrete physical manifestations to bring to her/is teacher for confirmation. Caution, one should not try to arrest one's breath deliberately. Attempting to do so can cause great harm to any novice.
The training of breathing involves a personal guide who has attained mastery of at least the fourth stage of breathing. It is no wonder that most students are given the simple advice in regards to breathing in Taiji -- " breathe naturally".
" Breathe naturally" is not bad advice but it is not good advice, either.
" Breathe naturally" to most beginners simply means that they continue to breathe according to their personal habits. To really begin breath training, one has to observe dysfunctional breathing habits inside oneself. Pay close attention to the upper torso, the shoulders, the upper back and neck region. The training of breathing does not involve artificially superimposed patterns from the outside. Even the esoteric master, G.I. Gurdjieff, was once told by his teacher that he should abandon all his learned breathing techniques; they do more harm than good. The different stages of breathing occur naturally as one gains awareness and mastery over one's Taiji movement and respiration.
The purpose of breathing is to bring vitality and oxygen into our blood stream. But there are also many other crucial aspects in breathing: such as assisting the heart's pumping action, the flow of endocrine hormonal emission from the organs as well as the movement of the cerebral spinal fluid in the spinal cord.
Uninhibited free breath is rare. If one has the good fortune to experience such free breathing, one feels deep, widening waves of joy spreading slowly over the whole body. This bliss of free breath is more intense than sexual orgasm. To free the breath involves retracing the trauma of our birth. For most of us our first breath was filled with pain and fear. Usually a doctor gives the baby a good wack on the back or bottom. Emerging from the warmth and darkness of the womb, we took our first breath out of shock and pain. No wonder so many of us gasp every inhalation as if it were our last breath. This conditioning alters and imprints the breathing pattern for the rest of our life. (Now, if you happen to be born in a swimming pool or come from Dr. Larma's clinic, you are one of the lucky few who were born and breathe without pain. Accordingly, babies who were born without pain and allowed to breathe their first few breaths on their mother's belly with the umbilical cord still attached tend to do better in life.)
Remember: before there is the
spoken word, a breath must be taken. So breathing even
comes before the act of creation. Truly then, breathing is
taking in the spirit of life, inspiration.
By Sat Chuen Hon
June 1, 1999
corrected by Donald White September, 1999