Author Archives: Garnet David

The Cycle of Breathing

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Breath HemispheresAs I lay in bed one night, unable to sleep, I decided to watch my breath as a mediation. Not only is breathing vital to living, it holds the path to relaxation and ultimately can help us gain control over our lives. Symbolically, it represents various cycles of life: birth-death, day-night, Summer-Winter.

The delicate complexity of natural breathing is easily flummoxed by attention from the breather. It needs to be observed rather passively. It’s like looking for a star in the night sky which can only be seen by gazing slightly away from the actual object of attention.

If you wish to observe your own breathing cycle, you first need to be “in the room”, completely relaxed, present in the space you fill. Be aware of the parts of the room you cannot see, to the sides and behind you. Now you can sense the three-dimensionality of your breath from the breath and body itself, rather than from any “ideas” you read in this post. Keep your mind out of your body’s way while you observe it.

While lying in bed, I relax my awareness into the room (with eyes open). I allow my body to soften to the point I feel I am melting into the mattress. I feel heavy. My mind stops thinking, and I allow my body to do its own thing. My eyes, nose, sinuses, throat, chest and abdomen relax deeply, sinking into the bed. All my limbs follow suit. (It is possible to do this sitting in a chair or standing, but it’s harder to allow the body to relax as deeply.)

I take a huge breath and sigh out. Near the end of this exhale, the breath seems to stop for a few seconds. It does not, in fact, stop. The breath naturally lingers at its end. The exhale slows dramatically, but continues almost imperceptibly for a number of seconds. So there is no “end” of the breath, really. It just slows to a dead calm as the body prepares for the next inhalation. Be gently aware of this beautiful sighing diminuendo and enjoy it. Let it linger as long as it needs to build the energy for the next inhalation. It may be surprisingly long, anywhere from one or two seconds to 20 seconds or more, depending on how relaxed you are and how deeply you are breathing.

Before the inhalation begins, there is a desire, a warm yearning behind the heart. This “need” is a wonderful, deep and satisfying feeling, especially just before the inhalation beings. It’s impending fulfillment gives it a glowing anticipation. As this need begins to fulfill itself, the breath will appear to fill from the inside out, as if by itself. The reason for this feeling is that the body and mind are not interfering with the process. The muscles are working naturally. When this happened to me, I felt giddy, as if witnessing some rare, shy bird emerge from hiding within a tree.

The breath will fill effortlessly. Give in to it. Relax into it. This is tricky during observation. Depending on how relaxed and calm you are, the back will expand and fill along with the stomach and pelvis. The breath will fill under the arms and up into the tops of the shoulders. Remember to “let” this happen, don’t interfere. It’s amazing how much the body can expand and open to accommodate a full, deep breath. You may notice the neck and spine “gathering”, shortening. If lying on a bed, your head will slide down the pillow as the body expands.

Remember, don’t “make” anything happen. Just notice. Keep the attention in the room as this miraculous process of breathing happens. Keep the chattering, possessing mind from scaring the shy bird away. If it does interfere, that’s OK. There are more breaths to come. Look forward, not back. This is a wonderful process. Enjoy it. There’s plenty of air to go around, at least for awhile longer.

Now we are at the top of the breath. The inhalation can take anywhere from 2 to 15 seconds. As with the out breath, it will slow as the lungs fill. What happens now?

The turn from inhale to exhale is subtle. It is merely a change of angle, not backtracking the path of inhalation. Again, the breath never stops, anytime. It moves in a circle, or perhaps a wave. Try not to hold the breath at the top. I think of this part of the breath as being at the top of a slow motion roller coaster ride. There’s a moment where you feel weightless. It’s fleeting but unmistakable. The greatest “lift” is right after the top. So it is with the breath. There will be a floating sensation at the curve from inhale toward exhale, and before you know it, you are deflating. Here again, the feeling will come from behind the heart, as if the air is just disappearing from inside you. There is no pushing, no effort.

As you ride the breath down again to the bottom curve, your may notice your body elongating as it closes into the next cycle. This is natural and normal. The speed of exhale will slow gradually as the lungs empty. We are again at the bottom of the breath, the sweet diminuendo before the next cycle turns.

There is no beginning, no end. The breath is like a wave, or a turning wheel. Learning to be aware of something so intrinsic to who we are can engender a calm attitude and deep satisfaction. From there we can direct ourselves almost anywhere.

May you Breathe Deeply and Live Deeply.

Anti-Valentines Day Celebration

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White Bleeding Heart FlowersWatching some “boob tube” (as my mother calls it) on Valentine’s Day, I couldn’t help but notice the most common themes on sitcoms were pitiful rejections and absurd self-deprecation glorified by favorite characters on Will and Grace, Becker and Scrubs.

Though I have trouble understanding the comedy of some of those characters, I can relate to the anti Valentine’s sentiments. Valentine’s Day is perfect for lovers, who already have something wonderful in their lives, to masturbate the genie bottle some more, and for the greeting card and flower business to suck up love’s dysfunctional dollars. Love is often based on co-dependency, on passion rather than committment or understanding. Bottom line; Valentine’s Day crates a lot of pressure to love someone now, or else.

So what does it mean to “love” someone? Do you have to love them all the time, unconditionally, for it to be real love? Should you fake it when they need it and you don’t feel it?

Those who have read my two most recent posts know I was in a very passionate love affair which blew up, for good reasons, in the end. The passion was there, full Valentine’s force, 24 hours a day for two months; then, poof, it wasn’t. End of story. You can’t turn love on and off like a spigot. It comes and it goes on its on.

Last summer, I had lunch with a long time friend/acquaintance who was born on the same day and year as me. Through Junior and High School she was a steady soul in my often turbulent psychic life. Even at 15 or 16, she could look me in the eye and care deeply for me without expectation. No wonder she ended up becoming a psychologist.

Seeing her again after a space of 20 years was like coming home to an old, comfy home I had forgotten about. The same steadiness was there. I felt a natural trust I rarely feel with anyone.

At one point in our mellow conversation about our lives, I blurted out that I think I’m incapable of feeling love for someone. I really do feel this way, always at a deficit compared to the love I am given by so many close friends and family. I’ve been called all sorts of names: selfish, self-indulgent, petty, uncaring, unaware of others feeling, etc. Perhaps these are true at times, but it doesn’t make me an unloving person.

Her answer changed how I feel about love. She said something to the effect of, “Of course you are capable of loving. But no one feels love for someone all the time. I don’t feel it for my husband all the time, but I know I love him none the less. Just because you don’t feel it when you’re “supposed to” doesn’t mean you don’t love them in your own way“.

Feeling love and/or caring for someone has to come naturally, unforced. Over the years of feeling guilty for not feeling love when I was supposed to, I had lost touch with the times I really felt something for someone. Someone once told me that saying “I love you” to a person is like holding a gun to their head. Well, maybe it’s not quite that drastic, but it can feel forced.

So let’s call all the days of the year other than Valentines Day the “Show Love when EVER you feel it” Days.

Happy Show Love when you Feel it Days, all 364 of them.

Balance, Balance, Balance

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Lovers Mouths Laughing
There’s really only one rule in life: balance. Think of the common image indicating Taoist thought, a circle with joined black and white “tadpoles” chasing each other. The whole is made of balanced opposites. Unbalance in one part affects the whole, no exceptions.

The past few months I’ve been tipping slowly off balance toward a slippery slope: addiction. Sexual addiction, in this case. I’ve always liked to play with fire. I knew what I was doing, but lost perspective in the heat of attraction. Lots of movies and operas feature this theme.

Sensual chemistry between two people creates a mystical bond which seems to blur the boundaries we all feel between ourselves and the world. We base our lives on protecting our bodies as separate from the world, feeding them, making them stronger, and finding pleasure with them. Civilization is based on these patterns of self protection. Rarely do we break free of this illusion of separateness, of “me” finding the way in a hard world, “fitting in”. To truly understand that we are not separate takes patience, forgiveness, self-understanding, letting go and proper knowledge of the truth.

One of the tools to learn this truth is love. Love brings us out of our shell and into the world. Caring for others and for life outside “ourselves” is the first step on the path to enlightenment. But sensual “love” is just as valid as a key to transformation, if more rare and dangerous. I felt physical magic, “Kama Sutra” love, for the partner in my affair. (I am reminded of Marvin Gaye’s song, Sexual Healing) But our lives had nothing else in common. So that’s all we did: too much of a wonderful thing. So much for balance.

From the inside, the healing pleasure of sensual love seemed to balance the risks. But my life became lopsided to maintain the amazing sensual stimulations I experienced. Using the image of riding a bicycle for balance, I was leaning to one side, not enough to fall over, but enough to spin in smaller and smaller circles. Being dizzy never felt so good! The funny thing about sex is that it’s natural. Such an ancient and primal drug is easy to justify with fuzzy logic. I forged ahead with my beautiful experiment.

Unfortunately, as much as I like to deny it, being a musician is more than a full time job. It’s a whole life style, a way of living, like being a monk. We are hothouse tomatoes. We are married to our instruments. Balance is crucial. My musical abilities flourished at first on the “affair”, stimulated by my flushed and vibrant mental and physical state. Little by little, however, concentration and composure at work slipped. The foundation of a delicate artistic state was eroding. But I couldn’t see the signs. Or didn’t want to.

In the end, some friends noticed my subtle decline. But this wasn’t enough to stop me. I’ve always been stubborn and independent. I tend to do things at a thousand miles an hour until I peter out or hit a wall. (gardening and blogging are other obsessions of mine) I was confident I could balance both worlds. It finally took a fluke, some food poisoning, to snap me out my my reverie life. (never eat salads at cheap restaurants) I got horribly sick for 24 hours, and had plenty of time to reflect on my ultimately foolish behavior. My career is the most precious gift I have, by far. Jeopardizing that for the continuing ecstasy of certain sensual pleasures would have been suicide.

Ultimately, I have no regrets. I am fortunate to have fate on my side, and a handful of forgiving friends who love me no matter what! My life is richer for having had the experience. I appreciate what I do have all the more. I am now more ready than ever to face my middle age (I’m 47) with grace and balance.

At least until the NASA Space Shuttle has an opening for a trip to the moon!

The Spirit’s Sensual Doors

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I was about to scribble a post about the importance of sensing life with our bodies rather than our minds. I decided to first pop over to a blog or two. At Songs of Unforgetting, I found a post called “When Matter Matters” about a similar subject. Synchronicity.

For the past 6 weeks I’ve been having a major love “affair”. (Hence the lack of consistent posting here.) Though I’m not in a full time relationship with anyone else, this feels like an affair because our interactions are so passionate, so intimate and intense. It’s more than a fling, but it probably won’t lead to a long term relationship. Yet I feel a strong desire to meld our bodies together and become one physical entity.

There are so many subtle sensations going on in our bodies all the time. Acknowledging them can take time, often accomplishes little except the experience itself, and can become addictive for their primary nature. Though most religions disdain sensuality for its pitfalls, the sensuous stimulation of our bodies holds incredible treasures. True, those same desires can torture us with yearning when the stimulation ceases; they can rage into our conscious thoughts until we lose both mind and body trying to obtain an unfulfillable desire. But, like any other gift, there are two sides to how it may be used.

No matter how much philosophy or spirituality you study or apply in your life, you are primarily a sensual creature. Aldous Huxley hit the nail on the head with the title to his book, “The Doors of Perception”, the five “doors” being the senses. If someone exists sans any senses, they are not living. Spirituality cannot save someone who does not exist.

Taste brings us to the joy of food, or the disaster of gluttony. Smell stimulates deep memories and emotions, and is under-rated as a tool for living fully. I can sit outside during a breezy Summer day and experience dozens of smells. It accomplishes nothing, but fills out life. Hearing brings us to music, with its fountains of meaning and feeling. As a musician I sometimes forget how much my personality has been formed by the both the tearful drama of Puccini and the crystalline intellectual structures of Bach. (and each also has the attributes of the other; Puccini has structure and Bach has drama) For me, the timbre and intonation of someone’s voice can be as subtle and beautiful as music. Sight is primary to our existence. Besides its functional uses, it allows us to connect with the beauty of gardens, the power of art, the smile on a friend’s face. Touch is another under-appreciated tool for deepening our experience of the world. Sadly, most of us are touch starved. Descriptions of any of these will never replace their direct experience.

All five senses come together through intimate connections with another person. Taste, smell, sight, hearing and touch become vivid ties between our inner and outer selves. We can literally turn inside out and become defined by our interactions with the beloved. Naturally, this is playing with fire. Passionate intimacy is very, very addictive. Lives are often ruined over this kind of love. Yet it’s value is self-evident.

To the touch-starved person, skin to skin contact is like breathing air for the first time. The fire of touch cleans the soul, brings billions of cells to passionate awakening. It shows our bodies we are not alone. Different parts of the body hold different secrets. One of my favorites is the insides of joints: behind the knee, inside the elbow joint, behind the neck, inside the thighs.

The smells of the beloveds hair and skin imprints on the brain, never to be forgotten. Yet the memory of a smell is not enough. One cannot get enough fresh doses of the lover’s pheromone concoction. Again, the present moment expands to become whole countries of sensual delicacy. The vibrations of the lover’s cooing voice may unlock layers of stress and invite one to sink deeply into the present moment. Seeing the beloveds dreamy gray eyes, tomato red lips or wisps of nearly invisible hair on the earlobes is an exploration of uncharted worlds, territories which will one day fade into oblivion, yet which now careen perfectly into this reality through our own eyes, ears, nose. The salty taste of the other’s skin is unique recipe, yours to drink to satisfaction.

The goal of many spiritual practices is to overcome desire. Desire is dangerous if uncontrolled or unbalanced in one’s life. A monk may spend his life avoiding sensual attachment; yet, that solitary monk is sensually aware of his breathing, the air on his skin, them smells of the flowers nearby. We all occasionally succumb to the excesses of the senses. Should their potentially dangerous temptations make them off limits? Or should they be used as spiritual gifts, with great care and respect? I prefer the second choice.

The secret to balance is to avoid becoming attached to the pleasures of sensual stimulation. Detachment does not mean being cold or avoiding pleasure, just accepting that all this passes. Enjoy and let it pass.

Thinking Spiritually Outside the Self

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One of the most difficult aspects of spiritual thinking, (thinking which reaches beyond the small, petty self) is grasping how that self is an illusion.

The real Self, with a capital “S”, is the whole world, for our skin is only a thin membrane connecting our inner “self” with our outer “Self”. Yet most of us live our lives basing decisions on that small, illusory sense of lonely, separate, finite existence. No spiritual practice is worth anything without this important premise in its teaching.

For now, I would like to explore how this idea affects our thinking about world problems. We, myself included, tend to be satisfied with accomplishing the tasks set before us to achieve our daily goals, ideally to obtain and maintain health, security, community, career, relaxation and some kind of spiritual practice.

I don’t know about you, but I find myself worn out after doing what’s necessary to maintain my life. I don’t like to face too many new tasks, or at least not ones which seem altruistic, reaching for some “unobtainable” or far distant goal. Yet we have no choice but to commit any extra time and resources to alleviating issues such as hunger, disease, genocide, or extreme poverty.

Of course, there are really no specific consequences to ignoring this truth. We can live our lives, as many do, striving only to better ourselves, regardless of how it affects others. Nothing really bad will happen to us, except we will be ignoring our most precious gift, our compassion, our conscience. After long enough, we forget what it feels like to feel for others. We can rationalize that it was just meant to be that way. Tough cookies. Perhaps this is why religion is still useful in a way. It keeps people guessing as to what their punishment will be if they don’t at least try to act toward some altruistic ideas.

We cannot claim to live fully conscious and ignore those issues on a daily basis. That would mean living in denial, a kind of zombie trance, an illusion of happiness. There’s a hollowness to this kind of living. Often, we try to fill this “hollow leg” with more things, more food, more business, new improved living, even a kind of endless searching for a spiritual practice which “fits” us.

Ultimately, the answer is simple. Take daily time to feel and nourish the deep pain of admitting how others suffer. This could be in the form of prayer or contemplation. There are specific practices in Buddhism which offer a structured building of compassion, starting with sending compassionate, loving thoughts to those you love, then to those you don’t love, then to strangers you know, and on to all sentient beings. It’s very healing.

Then, give what you can financially. Be really honest with yourself. Do you need that new CD? Can you spare that money for someone more needy?

When reading Sam Harris’ book, The End of Faith, I was amazed to find out that secular societies, particularly those from Northern Europe, give by far the most generous support toward relieving the suffering known to exist in so much of the world. Food for thought.