Last night I had quite the dream. I was suffocating, and I wasn’t. The thrust of the dream was that I was suffocating. I could feel the air shutting off. And, at the same time, I was aware I was breathing. I’d dived into some liminal space between sleep and waking, where the dream was driven by the reality of my pneumonia, but another part, a “waking” part knew that I really was breathing, if not optimally…
Makes one appreciate taking a deep breath. Even if, as at the moment, it hurts a bit…
My brush with pneumonia is a brush, and hearing and reading stories of how serious it can be I am both grateful and treating this event with respect. I’ve had to cancel some very important meetings, and if I don’t see a steady enough improvement this coming Wednesday I’ll forgo a very important conference I’m supposed to attend, where I am on a panel, making a presentation and formally cycling onto the board. I hope to go, very much. And, I’m watching closely…
With bated breath, I guess one could say.
In the style of Zen which I practice the fundamental practice is just sitting. Just. Sitting.
However, as people discover that is a very hard thing to do, we have another practice called breath counting. For most it is a preliminary of sorts. One has to breathe, and if the breath is going in and out, it becomes a perfect place to hang one’s attention. It will go on whether one is noticing or not, and one can try and when one fails one can still return.
At least until one stops breathing.
Me, I’m not massively interested in what happens after I stop breathing, but I’m very interested in what happens while I am breathing. I’ve given it a lot of attention.
In my Zen community there is no attempt at controlling the breath. There are other communities that do. But, within ours, we just notice.
Just notice the breath.
And, often we don’t. So, we recommend hanging numbers on the breath. One for the first inhalation. Two, for that first exhalation. Take it up to ten, and start over. And if one doesn’t make it to ten, to notice and start over.
Actually this can be a life practice.
As it were…
Breathing.
We’re going to do it.
Until we don’t…
While the breathing flows in and out, whether we’re counting or not, we begin to notice things. We see the contours of our thoughts. Revelatory at first. Boring after a while. We kind of like to wallow in the same mess, slightly reframed, over and over for long periods of time. We’re angry. We want. We tell ourselves stories. Whatever.
Still we breathe.
And we return.
Over and over.
Then maybe something breaks out of this.
We notice we’re really noticing.
We notice the connections.
We notice the words we attach to the experience are just words that are attached to the experience.
We love the words.
We hate the words.
We love the experiences.
We hate the experiences.
And, all along we keep on breathing.
Old man river. Just rolling along.
In and out.
In and out.
Until we don’t…
In the meantime worlds emerge, flower, and fall away.
Empires are created. Love stories unfold. Fights. Flights.
The whole shebang plays out.
As we breathe.
In and out.
In and out.
Turns out it is a love song.
Just a love song.
In and out.
In and out.
Love.
Song.
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