Breathe with all of your being

Warren River, Warren Rhode Island. Looking south. Photo by the author

We spend far too much of our lives and far too many of our breaths without any awareness that we are breathing, the most basic and essential part of life. We are often lost. But we can be found. And each time we are found, each time we see even a glimpse of something like home, each time our hearts open and our minds are calm, we are found. We discover that we can be awake and the knowledge can transform us.

Stop. Relax your body. Take a breath or two.

Now breathe again with focus and intent. Breathe as though your life depends on it. Breathe with all of your heart and mind. Breathe with all of your available effort, with a smile, with a wide-open heart, with love for yourself. Don’t analyze it or control it, just fill your lungs, pause and then exhale.

Your life does depend on it.

We aren’t aiming for a specific kind of breath. Long or short, nose or mouth, deep or shallow, loud or quiet, from the diaphragm or not. A big sigh on exhale is fine. We just want to direct our full attention to our breath and nothing else. Keep going until all you are thinking about is your breath. Close your eyes. Reduce any distractions that you can. We aren’t trying to count breaths, just notice.

Whenever we are able to breathe and just breathe, we have arrived at the present. For this moment right now, for…