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How to Breathe
lobster
Crusty Veteran
in Meditation
I like breathing. I have been doing it all my life. Mostly badly. 
My old breathing was stressed, stressful, strained, breath held, high breath - not healthy. Not good.
My breath in particular, is the key to my formal and informal practice. My body has learned to be soft. Not always but increasingly. 
How is your breath?
http://www.meditationoasis.com/how-to-meditate/simple-meditations/breathing-meditations/
2
Comments
As long as we all continue our job as atmospheric Terra formers, the overlords will leave us alone.
When I practice mindfulness of breathing, my breathing starts to feel like it is elastic, that is when i'm continuously mindful of my breath after a little while, my breath starts to expand and contract, like it is a single whole breath, then I notice breathing is happening on its own, without my control.
A little smelly.....I had a tuna roll for breakfast
I like to breath in strength and breath out Bullshit.
If I had to make a guess about what the next stage would be then I would say that I might have to make to breath so that it no longer contracts after it expands, and make the breath into a single beam of energy, i'm just speculating.
In the anapanasati sutta it gives me a clue, it says the feelings in the feelings is the breath. I haven't meditated in a while to find out if my theory is correct or not.
It does that anyway.
Have you considered a regular practice instead of trying to fathom and fulfill 'the stages'?
Breath is a great teacher. All of life is just like breath.
You can't have in breath without out breath.
You can't have birth without death.( can you imagine the population)
Light and dark
Also holding your breath is like clinging to life , you have to let go. Then it will come back to you. - Alan watts
It's important to be regular.
it is not our choice whether to like it or not, we got to breathe
Thanks guys
To have a very tight, constrained and shallow breath, even though I did yoga, exercise and so forth, was I feel learned in childhood. Inherited behavour based around fear, anxiety and such like. Yuk bad karma for cructaceans ...
In the past I despised mantra recitation as a lesser path. I now feel it is an excellent inroad to calm, health and breath softening. OM MANI PEME HUM
As I am a hard case or shell, the softening from mantra would have taken years but so it might. Dedicated mantra practice is perhaps the simplest way to focus, breath and calm that monkey mind/body complex ...
http://www.freemeditationinfo.com/meditation-instructions/buddhist-mantras.html
Breath mindfulness, return to the breath. Yeah! We haz health plan!
What's clear to me is that i'm aware of the entire cycle of breathing, in the breath the air traveling to my lungs, and in the out breath the air leaving my lungs, all in a single sweep.
Have been referred by shrink for "breathing lessons". Yikes! Thankfully teacher has so far cancelled so not started yet. Instead, son told me that when he started learning the trumpet, he was told to breathe the same way that he yawns. When I yawn, it's nothing like the breathing methods I have been told to follow in meditation sessions.
Think I am feeling benefits of following son's way already and only been doing it for a couple of weeks
There must be some reason that foetuses and other animals yawn ... besthealthmag.ca/best-you/health/why-do-we-yawn#MHZSEeGT71OevK5J.97
Yawning meditation anyone?
But can you actually feel the air moving through your lungs? I think the idea is to pay attention to what we actually feel, like the movement of the abdomen and chest and the air moving through our nostrils.
To me that settling, non control of the breath. Natural balanced, rhythmic breathing is a good sign.
It comes with practice. The breath awareness, counting, observing and above all accepting rather than constricting or controlling, lengthening etc all allow the body and mind ease.
Natural calm breath.
Some attention on the natural breathing process is just a practical way of curtailing our mind's stage hogging aria, so as to share life's play with the body & our other formally obscured sense gates.
Thanks everyone.
I feel returning attention to breath is very useful in mindfulness (Buddhism does mainstream).
Pranayama is also present in some of the wind channelling exercises of Buddhism. On the whole things like 'breathing through the feet' or tonglen is perhaps a little too spooky for some of us ...
I love breathing. It keeps me anchored in the present.
I make it a point to be even more aware of my breathing patterns in moments of stress, or when I'm about to react to some negative outside input.
I especially love to mentally go over any of Thich Nhat Hanh's gathas when I do some deep breathing. My favourite, the one I especially enjoy when I'm out on my walking meditation is:
"Breathing in, I calm my body.
Breathing out, I smile.
Dwelling in the present moment,
I know this is a wonderful moment."
Another short one is:
" With the in-breath, I smile.
With the out-breath, I release."
I have also downloaded an app called "Prana Breath," with different Pranayama breathing exercises for calming, anti-stress, harmony, etc.
I find it a nice way to start the day.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.abdula.pranabreath
Relax - Breathe in - Breathe out.. repeat....
I likes it!
Can we patent and market it?
I think the patent has long since expired.
Glad to hear that....@DhammaDragon so do I