The Tao of Natural Breathing (23 page)

24
Andre van Lysebeth,
Pranayama: The Yoga of Breathing
(London: Unwin Paperbacks, 1983), p. 28.

25
Robert Ornstein and David Sobel,
The Healing Brain: Breakthrough Discoveries About How the Brain Keeps Us Healthy
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987), p. 207.

26
For more information on ions, see Fred Soyka with Alan Edmonds,
The Ion Effect: How Air Electricity Rules Your Life and Health
(New York: Bantam Books, 1977).

27
See
The Primordial Breath,
Volume 2, trans. Jane Huang (Torrance, Calif.: Original Books, 1990), p. 13, for a clear description of this very esoteric practice. I will not go into this practice since it is extremely advanced and I have little experience with it. I will, however, discuss in later chapters an associated practice, introduced to me by Mantak Chia, of breathing into and swallowing the saliva.

28
Mantak Chia and Maneewan Chia,
Awaken Healing Light of the Tao
(Huntington, N.Y.: Healing Tao Books, 1993), p. 41.

29
Awaken Healing Light,
pp. 41 ff.

30
Awaken Healing Light,
pp. 185-86.

31
Lao Tzu,
Tao Te Ching,
trans. Victor H. Mair (New York: Bantam Books, 1990), p. 69.

32
Taoist reverse breathing often occurs spontaneously for anyone making great physical effort, especially in sports, martial arts, and so on, since it can help to generate outward force through the various limbs. To intentionally activate this form of breathing is quite difficult, however, and can, if done prematurely, cause a great deal of tension and have ill effects on the organism. Before trying reverse breathing it is best to have worked with abdominal breathing for at least several months.

33
Tzu Kuo Shih,
Qi Gong Therapy: The Chinese Art of Healing with Energy
(Barrytown, N.Y.: Station Hill Press, 1994), p. 35.

34
Robert B. Livingston, in
Gentle Bridges: Conversations with the Dalai Lama on the Sciences of the Mind,
eds. Jeremy W. Hayward and Francisco J. Varela (Boston: Shambhala, 1992), p. 174.

35
See pp. 47-54 of
Qi Gong Therapy
for a further discussion of some of the physiological results of respiratory exercises.

36
Chuang Tzu,
Basic Writings,
trans. Burton Watson (New York: Columbia University Press, 1964), p. 74.

37
Alexander Lowen,
The Spirituality of the Body: Bioenergetics for Grace and Harmony
(New York: Macmillan, 1990), pp. 37-38.

38
Pranayama,
p. 31-32.

39
The Complete Works of Lao Tzu,
p. 12.

40
Basic Writings,
p. 138.

41
Tarthang Tulku,
Time, Space, and Knowledge: A New Vision of Reality
(Emeryville, Calif.: Dharma Publishing, 1977), p. 5.

42
The Perceptible Breath,
p. 32.

43
From an article by Magda Proskauer, “The Therapeutic Value of Certain Breathing Techniques,” in Charles Garfield, ed.,
Rediscovery of the Body: A Psychosomatic View of Life and Death
(New York: A Laurel Original, 1977), pp. 59-60.

44
Recent biomedical research, such as that reported in Moyers’s
Healing and the Mind,
makes it clear that what we think and feel can have an immediate positive or negative impact on our whole body, including our immune system. Of course, Taoism and other traditions have been aware of the influence of our thoughts and feelings on our health for thousands of years.

45
Norman Cousins,
Anatomy of an Illness
(New York: Bantam Books, 1979).

46
Mantak Chia,
Taoist Ways to Transform Stress into Vitality
(Huntington: N.Y.: Healing Tao Books, 1985), p. 33.

47
William James,
Psychology
(Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Publications, 1963), p. 335.

48
Moshe Feldenkrais,
The Elusive Obvious
(Cupertino, Calif.: Meta Publications, 1981), p. 61.

49
Paul Ekman and Richard J. Davidson, “Voluntary Smiling Changes Regional Brain Activity,”
Psychological Science: A Journal of the American Psychological Society,
Vol. 4, No. 5 (September 1993), p. 345.

50
Phone conversation with Candace Pert, May 9, 1995 (see also note 15).

51
Taoist Ways to Transform Stress,
p. 33.

52
For a contemporary, detailed description of scientific findings and Taoist beliefs regarding saliva, see the Winter 1993 issue of
The Healing Tao Journal,
Healing Tao Books, P.O. Box 1194, Huntington, NY 11743.

53
In Search of the Miraculous,
p. 181.

54
The Healing Brain,
p. 202.

55
From an article entitled “The Body’s Guards” in
Living Right
(Winter 1995), p. 23.

56
Master Mantak Chia writes extensively about the microcosmic orbit in his 1993 book
Awaken Healing Light,
and offers readers many practical techniques for opening the governor and functional channels.

57
Awaken Healing Light,
p. 170.

58
Awaken Healing Light,
p. 496.

59
See Mantak Chia’s book
Taoist Ways to Transform Stress
for the complete six healing sounds practice, including physical movements and postures.

60
My first experience with bellows breathing was highly instructive, since I had not yet understood how to breathe naturally. It took place during a spiritual retreat. On the first day, advanced breathing exercises were given to all of us, even beginners. To be sure, everyone at the retreat was told that these exercises should not be done from the ego or the will, but rather from a state of relaxation and exploration. But being instructed how to do something is not the same as being able to experience it. When we were asked, for example, to do bellows breathing (called
bastrika
in the various Indian traditions), the result for many people, including myself, was almost comical—frantic, spasmodic movements of various muscles all over the body, movements that seemed more willful than skillful for most of us there. Even many of the more senior students had trouble carrying out the exercise in a harmonious way. As I looked both at myself and those around me, I observed tense faces, necks, shoulders, chests, and arms—psychophysical manifestations of the “upward pull” referred to by Durckheim (see the Introduction)—as many of us tried to do these exercises without the inner relaxation, sensory awareness, and muscle control that are necessary. What was amazing to me was that no one came around to help or correct us. The upward pull became even more evident when the teacher asked us to do bellows breathing, first through one nostril and then through the other. As we continued these pranayama exercises over the course of the retreat, with little visible transformation of these tensions, I began to feel that the teacher had generously overestimated the ability of many of his students to put his teaching into practice. Today, I would simply say that he had not prepared his students properly to be able to carry out such exercises in a beneficial way; he had not taken the time necessary to help them learn natural breathing.

61
Awaken Healing Light,
pp. 173-74.

62
He discusses ways to shield the solar plexus on pp. 245-46 of
Awaken Healing Light.

PERMISSIONS

The translation from Lao Tsu on page 9 is reprinted from
Tao Te Ching
by Lao Tsu, trans., Feng/English, Copyright © 1972 by Gia-fu Feng and Jane English. Reprinted by permission of Alfred A Knopf Inc.

The translations from Lao Tzu on pages 21 and 113 are reprinted from
The Complete Works of Lao Tzu
by Ni, Hua Ching. Reprinted by permission of Seven Star Communications, 1996.

The translation from Lao Tzu on page 84 is reprinted from
Tao Te Ching
by Lao Tzu, trans., Victor H. Mair. Reprinted by permission of Bantam Books.

The passage by Tzu Kuo Shih on page 85 is reprinted from
Qi Gong Therapy: The Chinese Art of Healing with Energy
by Tzu Kuo Shih. Reprinted by permission of Station Hill Press.

The translations from Chuang Tzu on pages 99 and 113-14 are reprinted from
Basic Writings of Chuang Tzu
edited by Burton Watson, copyright 1964 by Columbia University Press. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.

INDEX

A

abdomen, energy center in.
See also
navel

abdominal breathing

normal

reverse (Taoist)

See also
natural breathing

abdominal distention

abdominal muscles

abundance

acceptance

acid/alkaline balance

acquired chi

acupuncture

adenoids

adenosine triphosphate (ATP)

adrenal center, of microcosmic orbit

adrenal glands

adrenaline

Advaita Vedanta

aging prematurely

air

components of

movement through respiratory system

quality of

alchemy, inner

alcohol

alkaline/acid balance

alternate nostril breathing

alternate nostril congestion

alveoli

amnesia, somatic and emotional

anatomy of breathing

anger

autonomic nervous system and

health and

organs and

quality of breathing and

self-sensing and

six healing exhalations and

spacious breathing and

survival value of

venting of

anorexia

anxiety

autoimmune diseases and

autonomic nervous system and

hyperventilation and

self-sensing and

six healing exhalations and

spaciousness and

survival value of

aorta

appetite loss

arrogance

arthritis

asthma

ATP (adenosine triphosphate)

attachment

attention

awakening

defined

relaxation response and

reverse abdominal breathing and

self-sensing and

shen and

stress and

See also
awareness; self sense

attitudes.
See also
self sense

autoimmune diseases

autonomic nervous system

awareness

attitudes and

clarity and mindfulness and

relaxation and

sensory/organic

awakening

defined

tension and

See also
attention; self sense; self- sensing; spiritual growth

B

babies.
See
infants

back pain

bacteria

bad habits

balance

breathing spaces and

energy centers and

healing and

health and

microcosmic orbit centers and

psychological states and

See also
harmony

balanced breath

baraka.
See also
chi

beauty, rate of breathing and

being, doing vs..
See also
will

bellows breathing

belly

opening the

outer breath and

birth process

bladder

Blake, William

blood

circulation of

hemoglobin

pH of

blood cells

blood pressure

body

historical

listening to the

as microcosm of universe

mind and

chemistry of connection

between

chi and

parasympathetic nervous system
and

sensation of

sensing from inside.

See
self-sensing

somatic amnesia

wisdom of

See also
organs/tissues

boredom

brain

breathing into

effort and

energy center in

massaging

opening the

rate of activity of

relaxation and

respiratory center of

self-sensing and

smiling into

stimulation of

excessive or inadequate

need for

tension and

See also
nervous system; neuropeptides;
specific parts of brain

brainstem, smiling into

breathing

attitudes and

bad habits of

as buffering mechanism

chest.
See also
shallow