A Therapist, A Buddhist, and You
A Therapist, A Buddhist, and You
The Knowing Breath: A Theravada Buddhist's Path to Inner Peace and Wellness
Are you ready to unlock the secrets of the breath and its path to self-discovery? Prepare to be captivated as we navigate the potent power of breath awareness and its profound impact on mental well-being; we delve into the enigma of mindfulness and stillness, unraveling the oft-used phrase 'letting go'. As we attune to the subtle dance of inhaling and exhaling, we begin to understand what 'letting go' truly means.
We further traverse the paradox of control and participation in relation to breathing. By actively observing our breath, we open the doorway to deeper understanding and freedom. Interestingly, we discuss that the only effort in breathing is when we exhale. Wondering how that works? Tune in and find out. We also touch upon surrendering to the breath, a metaphor for surrendering to the present moment - the embodiment of life itself.
In our final segment, we delve into the true essence of the term "Buddha" and the role of breath as a unifying force. We explore techniques for developing greater awareness of our breath and share insights on the transformative potential of breath awareness. We also discuss the power of prayer and how it can unlock numerous doors in our life when combined with breath awareness.
Zaw's Article:
The Knowing Breath — Recovery Collective — Annapolis, MD (recoverycollectivemd.com)
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Welcome to A Therapist of Buddhist annual, brought to you by the Recovery Collective in Annapolis, maryland. Today, we are exploring the transformative power of breath awareness and its profound impact on our mental well-being. Here on this podcast, we journey through self-discovery and a collective solution to all things health and wellness. My name is Luke Duboy, who happens to be a therapist, and joining me on this enlightening adventure is my co-host, theravada Buddhist Meditation and Life Coach, zaw Maul.
Speaker 2:Hello everyone. Here's Zaw. What's up, luke?
Speaker 1:Hey, zaw, things are good, and thanks for all of you for tuning in and joining our collective community. As always, like, comment, share, do all that good stuff. We do greatly appreciate your support. We like to call it our handshake agreement. We provide you with these deep dives of valuable information and you leave a like, comment, subscribe and, of course, most importantly, share our podcast with others. If you'd like to monetarily thank us, we, of course, will welcome that too, as we now have a donate button. Remember it's through our collective efforts that we can uncover solutions to all things related to health and wellness. So, zaw, and our busy lives, it's so easy to overlook the significance of something as simple and fundamental as our breath that the breath holds incredible wisdom, serving as a gateway to understanding the nature of our minds and finding inner peace, well potentially so inspired by the teaching of Buddhism. Today's discussion revolves around the enlightening article that you wrote, zaw how about that.
Speaker 1:So, zaw, you wrote an article or blog, whatever you want to call it some time ago, and I think we talked about doing this on a podcast before and try to how arisen ways. That it's obviously an awesome topic, but how do we simplify it and make sense, not just for the listeners, but me too? You can check out all of Zaw's writing on our website, the Recovery Collective, and that's recoverycollectivemdcom. We'll share that in the episode link, but, yeah, so what I want to do, zaw, let's have you read it's about the breath and breath awareness and we'll have you read two of the paragraphs. I'll ask you some questions about it, we'll talk about it and then we'll read the last two paragraphs and have an awesome episode about breath awareness. How does that sound?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that sounds good. It'll be interesting and fun and I'm curious how it's going to unfold, because I don't think we've ever done it and also it's a strange thing to read my own writing. You know, writing is just like a different realm. But I do want to say some disclaimer about breath. You know that first of all, my background is Teda Vada Buddhism, the breath work. They are yoga related breath work and then the breathing.
Speaker 2:I just wanted to mention that this has more to do with the meditative practice, specifically Teda Vada practice, and there is a concept of three characteristics of existence impermanent, unsatisfactory and the absence of self. So that's the framework that I'm looking at, although I do have Buddhist background. I'm not like technically advanced or monastically advanced, but I do have the backbone, which I'm always going to be a lifelong learner, student of, and Buddha deliver this thing called Anapana Sati Sutta, which is translated as the mindfulness of the breathing discourse, and there are 16 steps in that very specific. So that's my backbone and it's like a ongoing, for the rest of my life kind of learning. That's my reference. So I just wanted to clarify that when I see about breathing, it's not about fire breath or box breathing or controlling the breathing and you know all these things, but it's more about finding the true nature of the way things are through breath.
Speaker 1:Yeah, great setup, and this is titled Knowing Breath and you can check all of Zhaal's reading. Once again, we have blog section, but you can also check all his readings through his about us on the recovery collective website as well. So all yours all.
Speaker 2:So this is how it begins. Breath is always a good place to start when learning about the nature of the mind. Breathing is an interesting phenomena because it can easily switch between there is the one who is doing the breathing and there is an activity of breathing without the one doing it. In other words, one can jump in and take charge of the breathing in a way that he or she wishes at any given moment, or one can be busy doing other daily things and the breathing takes care of his own thing and does all the work by itself to sustain life. Realistically speaking, however, if one were to be fully in charge and where require to consciously breathe every single moment to stay alive, he or she wouldn't have time or attention to do anything else during the day. It is quite a serious and demanding task to sustain life after all. Nevertheless, the subtlety of the mindfulness practice of sitting in silence and in stillness is that the practice is not about taking full control over the breathing, but only knowing or being aware that there is an activity of breathing going on at the present moment. This awareness can provide us with the anchor we need for observing the mind.
Speaker 2:The phrase letting go is used too often these days, almost to the point that we don't know what it really means anymore, or the phrase goes into one ear and leaves out of the other ear right away without having any significant effect on our way of thinking.
Speaker 2:It is either because we don't actually know how to let go or we just don't want to.
Speaker 2:In any case, paying curious attention to the breath can give us a glimpse of what it feels like to learn to let go. While breathing in, do we notice that there is a slightly cool sensation at the tip of our nose? And while breathing out, is there a slightly warm sensation at the tip of the nose that we feel? If and when we are truly present with these sensations, we get a transient understanding of what it means to let go. In a sense, our ability to observe our breaths, even if it's temporary, makes us to be in tune and question who it is that is actually doing all the breathing. Without a question, we know that we are in charge when we choose to pause our breathing. We also know we are in charge when we choose to breathe in or out, intentionally, long or short, but when we just watch the process of breathing and rest our attention on the awareness of the breath. We are letting go Because, in a way, we're just letting the breath breathe and we're just allowing the breathing to happen naturally as it is.
Speaker 1:Thank you. So that's the first half. It's so compact, full of a relationship with the breath. That's one of the things that really jumped out at me of just how much we do it all the time, but I've never in your writing style. It's like, oh, you're getting to know this relationship, this awareness of this thing that we do all the time. But how come I've never looked at my breath in this way, but I'm glad that you have. So let's talk about that. You mentioned that the breath is related to the mind and I know mindfulness can do that. But can you expand on that a little bit? You really jumped in that early on in the article of how there's a relationship with breath in the mind.
Speaker 2:Yes, you're talking. The word allow come to mind, because that's how I'm equating or drawing the parallel between the breathing and the mind, because I cannot stop my mind. It goes on anyway and it's nothing personal and same thing with the breathing. So that's the framework and the parallel that I'm drawing.
Speaker 1:So when you say that I might have thousands of thoughts a day and I might not be conscious of every thought that I had, it can be just as fleeting as it is coming in where some of my thoughts might be so intrusive and I perseverate or obsess about the same thing with the breath.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's neat. In your article you mentioned that the breath can be seen as an activity happening on its own without anyone consciously doing it. Can you elaborate on the idea of how it relates to our understanding of the mind?
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is a difficult topic, but my intention, as I mentioned to you before we start this recording, is to simplify it, to make it more practical. So it's all about freedom. It's all about being free of unnecessary suffering. So that's what observing the breath carefully has afforded me. So when I say attaining or getting to the mindset of this is an activity that is happening with or without my permission. That gives me so much freedom.
Speaker 2:One quick, simplified example would be the fact that, let's say, I'm talking to you, luke, and if I'm trying to control everything that you're saying to me, that's too much work. So I say something to you, luke, and I ask you a question and before you say anything, I have to control everything that you say back to me. That's just too much work. Same thing with the mind and the breath that it takes so much pressure off when I just like oh okay, I'm paying attention to what my breath is doing, as if I'm listening to you talking, luke, and it just helps me to see things as they are. I hope that's helpful as a simplification, and that's what I mean by watching it as an activity, nothing personal. It goes on as if I'm observing someone else doing their own thing.
Speaker 1:How do you balance that?
Speaker 2:Good question. Can you expand more on your question?
Speaker 1:It's like the paradox of control, no control. We can hold our breath, and I don't mean to be morbid, but if I hold my breath underwater and if I don't come up eventually, my breath is going to go. Nope, it's time for a breath. There's this complete control, or really no control. I can pay attention to it or I don't. It's going to happen, Like, how do you find that balance? It's something we do every day, so it just happens naturally in one sense. But this consciousness of this breath that you have, how do you balance it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a really good question. It got me thinking too about my experience as a Buddhist is kind of colored for lack of a better word because I've been living here and then I have involved with 12-step fellowship and then learning about some of the teachers from the American society of American Buddhism and stuff. So yeah, my thinking is always evolving. But the thing about the word balance, as you were saying, is that I'm at a point where it's not about letting go and then attaining full enlightenment, but it's more about participation. The thing about the breath to answer your question about the balance is that I can participate. It's not like being passive and then don't do anything about it, but it's more about I can ask, I ask and I listen, kind of like the 12 step version of prayer and meditation, and I find that to be kind of a playful activity with the breath and with the universe in a way.
Speaker 2:There are also some teachings where you ask your mind that, well, I breathe in, but what's the comfortable way of breathing? You ask and then you listen. So is this long breath comfortable or is the short breath better for this moment, for my mind activity and for my body right now? And then it's more about like give and take kind of thing. So that, to me, is a balance. It's an activity in the breath every time, but our life is different every time. Asking my mind. Well, I'm feeling anxious right now, so what's the good? Breathing that I should do and then letting the breath respond to that?
Speaker 1:Once again, I just think of it as paradoxical, for lack of a better word, that if I pay attention to the sensations of the breath, it can help me cultivate a sense of letting go.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's the second paragraph that we were reading, right, the idea of letting go, observing the breath being present with it. So, yeah, that's entirely related to the three characteristics that I was mentioning in the beginning the impermanent nature of it. That letting go is accepting that things are impermanent, and that's what I mean by the breath. My inability to let go comes from the fact that things are permanent. I have this thing that will live like this forever. But the more we are careful with the detailed sensation of the breath, the more we become aware that things are always changing, even the in breath and the out breath each time is so different. Things are always in flux. So when I accept that, it gives me that ability to let go, not to get fixed on a particular point.
Speaker 1:So it's as much as it is your letting go your breath when it happens, your being with the breath as it goes. It's as much metaphoric, symbolic as it is real life letting go.
Speaker 2:And to be more practical too, this is very applicable to any kind of negative thoughts or anxiety, depression, resentment, any feelings that comes up when I become fully present with it, not in a way of like I'm so tangled by it, but it's just the fact that, oh, this is happening and it gives me that ability to let go, because I prolong it by oh, let me just pretend that this is not happening or this should not be happening, and I prolong it by not accepting it. I don't know if it's just my perception, but this conversation is quite meditative in a way. I feel like we're at this zone where, I don't know, maybe it's the effect produced by talking about breathing. You know, that is insightful and kind of calming for me, I guess.
Speaker 1:one more question on the concept of letting go. It's often used but not always fully understood, and we're trying to articulate that right now. How does this practice of observing the breath help us gain a deeper understanding of letting go and how does it connect to finding a sense of freedom? Because your acknowledgement and your explanation that you just gave letting the breath go I hear a sense of freedom in that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, you know it's more of a. That's why I encourage people to meditate, even if you feel like you are not good at it or whatever. It's just to start right away. That's the best way because when it comes to these practices, it's more everything is all experiential. So otherwise we're just using words and all, like you know, abstract. But when you have the experience of watching the breath and being present with it, it becomes more substantial and also experiential. The concept that is equivalent to letting go is a thing about surrendering. That's also a pretty powerful term, you know surrendering. So if we apply that to breathing, how does it maybe I'll ask this to the listener that when you surrender to the activity of breathing, how does it feel like surrendering to your breath? You're just allowing it because life is going to exist. So that's what I mean by the freedom, that's, surrendering to the fact that I'm breathing.
Speaker 1:Can you talk very briefly before we started recording, on what you learned about I don't know if it was in your yoga practice or not about the inhale of the breath.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm new to yoga, so I got a little too excited about all these new things that I'm learning about yoga, which is that I just read it somewhere or maybe a yoga teacher explained it to me that when we think about the activity of breathing, the effort that we're putting in is only when we breathe out, but when we breathe in we're not actually breathing in, we're just creating space in the lungs for the air to come in. Because of the atmosphere, there's already a pressure, that's air is ready to come in, I just have to allow it. I'm actually putting more effort by not allowing it to come in, so when I let go air comes in, and the effort that requires is to push it out.
Speaker 1:So my upbringing is like oh yes, so the ribcage and the muscles are just opening up and then the atmospheric pressure is going in. It's so bizarre to think of it that way, because I've always assumed it like a suction of sucking it in. But no, we're not doing that. It's kind of creating a cavity and the pressure goes in. It's so wild to think of it that way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I think, to be precise, I think we also have that ability to do that too.
Speaker 1:Sure, we just breathe it all in. Yeah, suck in air, literally.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Interesting. Well, why don't you read the last two paragraphs of the article you wrote on the knowing breath?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So the next part is that, as we already know, even if it is only in theory, there is freedom in letting go. But how far are we willing to let go? How badly do we want to be free? In a conventional sense, however, letting go implies a feeling of a loss. For example, we let go of a marriage and we lost it. We let go of a house and the house is gone. But in the grand scheme of letting go, these examples are just the tip of an iceberg.
Speaker 2:The difference can be pointed out if we apply the letting go idea to the process of breathing here. Quite obviously, when we let go of breathing, it's not like we lose our breaths and we die. It's not a loss, but it is not a gain either. It just is Only breathing. We do not lose anything, we're only letting it all happen the way it is meant to be. Wow, I went pretty far out there.
Speaker 2:I feel like I don't know if people get it. It is not the world's most exciting thing for us to sit in stillness and in silence. Not only is it counterintuitive, but it also does sound quite boring, doesn't it? But as we anchor ourselves in the awareness of breathing, we get to know the true nature of the mind. And as we get to know the true nature of the mind, we get to let go and connect with the world in a way we've never known possible, because the truth of our existence is embedded in each moment of intuitive awareness, and in that awareness is where we truly know the peace and happiness we deserve and have been longing for.
Speaker 1:The end Anything you'd like to expand on based on what you just read. You read yourself.
Speaker 2:I mean the power of the present moment essentially, is what stood out to me from that reading and reflection about just the fact that, yeah, like surrendering again, surrendering to the breath, is also surrendering to the present moment.
Speaker 1:And accepting, surrendering and accepting. You said you feel like you got a little out there with that last piece. When we lose our breath, we die. It is not a loss, but it's not a gain either. That's just pure acceptance. That's what I read from that. How symbolic is that for everything in life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sometimes, like when I meditate, I have these visual of this. You know, sometimes I have these experience of being able to look at me as an outsider. So if I think about it, when I'm breathing, it's like this individual on this earth who is given this task to observe the breathing. It's like a gift already, but also like a. It's almost like a mystery, something that I. But the cool thing about breathing is that it's a very ancient activity. Right, if you think about it, it's been with us since the beginning of life. For any kind of animal or any breathing animal. You know, there's that respiration, taking and giving back, renewing.
Speaker 2:I have these images sometimes of like, oh, this is a good task that I am given, you know which is available. And there's that like peace and the freedom when we observe it that way that, oh, yeah, there's this breathing that I am assigned to. And I guess you know, in other traditions of like, believing in a creator of God, breathing is a very godly thing because it's part of the creation. So when you are in tune with that creation, you're actually in tune with the original creator of who you are. That that's how I. I'm not, you know, a Christian or anything but like. That's a model that I think of when I think about staying in tune with the breath. It's also staying in tune with God, in a way, because this is what's creating us in each moment.
Speaker 1:What do you think of the? There's a few languages that all have this parallel that the Latin word for breath is spiritus or spirit. The literal word for breath is spirit. What are your?
Speaker 2:thoughts on that. Yeah, there's also a term, life force, which is also translated in the yoga or Hindu, maybe even Buddhism as well. That, that wording of Anna Banna Banna is Bali, I think, but the yoga term is prana, p-r-a-n-a, pranayama, it's the yoga practice of in and out breath you know, so maybe that's something equivalent to that of spirit, because, yeah, breath is energetic, like I'm allowing the life force to come in, you know.
Speaker 1:Well it's, I don't know your experience and you talked about a little bit about we lose our breaths when we die and a lot of us has been by our family members bedside during their last breaths and it's quite a visible experience to see someone go from conscious to subconscious and their physical body change and then the intensity of the breath that you see a person taking, and then people talk about the rattle breath right before someone dies and so many people tell their loved ones and they've accepted it's okay, you can go, you can move on now, whether it's God, heaven, afterlife or whatever you want to believe, whether it's religiously or spiritually or personally. And I can't help but to think of the intensity of the breath of my grandmother during her last breaths. And then you know my dad and aunts and uncles. It's okay to go, and as soon as we leave, as soon as we leave, we go.
Speaker 1:Okay, you guys have visited and she left, but it's just the why that comes to my mind. It's like, oh, we don't lose anything. Yes, a physical being, a physical person, but we're only letting it all happen the way it is meant to be the breath was there during the time it was meant to be and whether the spirit moves on is just for me a truly an accepting, almost comforting thing that, as she expires physically in this human form, that maybe the spirit and the breath went to where it needs to be, and I accept it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, this is just me thinking out loud in this moment and I haven't fully processed it, but I'm going to try to spell it out anyway which is that the breath and the consciousness. No, I wasn't mean to be polite. The breathing activity is creating a soil or a ground for the consciousness to come in. I see that in reflection to what I've experienced recently. You know I have to follow HIPAA professionally for my interpretation, but I can still share it without breaking any PHI personal health information.
Speaker 2:I was helping a really big family with their grandfather I think. He was in a car accident. They were trying really hard to sustain his life, but his brain was so damaged already that he's gone. But then there's a breathing machine that is sustaining his life, so he was still alive, but his consciousness is gone. So the family had to make a decision to unplug it. So it's almost like a mechanical thing he's still breathing and he's still alive, but consciousness is gone. So it just makes me think of that, because the other way around, the breathing comes in, you're alive, and then it creates a soil for the consciousness to come, and then the consciousness goes away and then breathing still exists, but it's just a mechanical thing for him. He's still alive, but the spirit is not there anymore.
Speaker 1:So when we lose the control of that, it's a mechanical thing. But then during meditation, it can be mechanical or it can be a higher level of consciousness. Potentially You're making me think deep. Another question or two for you. Sitting in stillness and silence may seem boring or even counterintuitive to some. How does anchoring ourselves in the awareness of breathing help us discover that true nature of the mind?
Speaker 2:Yeah, again, it is experiential. I don't promote stillness and silence, but if you feel moved to do it, do it and you'll feel the benefit. But, like, sitting in stillness and silence help me to remember what is available. And I think this nurse can relate to that, because the opposite is true. Like when I'm busy, feeling anxious, worried, not having enough time to get everything done that I'm supposed to be doing, rushing, or I should be somewhere else already I'm late.
Speaker 2:Whenever I'm in that moment I don't feel anchor and the stillness and the silence is what I crave for. So like, for me, it's a contrast to a busy life. So that's what I mean by the anchor that it is available and it's my true nature that I can always go back to. And it's also the Sometimes I think of. Just like with this podcast, right, we can put the recording on and it will be capturing the silence, but then we fill that in with a voice, so there can be an hour-long recording without no voice. So it's like that with the day two, that when I'm sitting in silence, it's that recording that is creating space, that is always available and I'm just adding worries and anxieties to it, which is by my choice. So like it's like a background, a contrast to what we are capable of and what we have access to. That's what I mean, yeah.
Speaker 1:Beautiful. Well said, I guess I'll close with this question. In your article you mentioned that through intuitive awareness we can find peace and happiness that we deserve and have been longing for. Can you elaborate on how the practice of breath awareness can lead to a deeper sense of peace and happiness in our lives? I think you kind of touched upon that. But for the new meditator, the one that has only had you know, guided meditations and not really really focused on all things breath.
Speaker 1:How can it lead to a deeper sense of awareness, whether it's pace and happiness or not?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I guess the term intuitive awareness is interesting and we can unpack that. But what I was referencing to is pretty much the meaning of the word Buddha. There is a tradition, I'm not sure in Burmese tradition, but in Thai forest tradition there's a practice where you meditate on the word Buddha, which is a variation of the word Buddha, so you can just repeat that and Buddha means I mean it can mean to the historical Buddha. But the true meaning of Buddha is the one who knows the knowing. That's also why I titled it as the knowing breath. Is that it's the true? I guess some Zen tradition or some Mahayana or you know some modern trans Buddhism referred to as a Buddha nature that is within all of us, which is that intuitive awareness you know.
Speaker 2:So, like again, this is experiential you know, so when you get tapped into it almost I guess the westernized equivalent term is that God consciousness in a way, that's what I mean by that intuitive awareness where peace, heaven on the earth kind of thing is right here in this moment.
Speaker 1:When I get tapped into that intuitive awareness, which is the knowing, the one who knows, and sometimes tell my clients our feet are Smartest wise, this body part, because they always know where they're at. But maybe I should start incorporating the wisdom of the breath and what that can tell us. You know, the feet can ground us, but, boy, that breath can ground us too. Is there any practical tips or techniques that the listeners can incorporate into their daily lives to develop a greater awareness of the breath and cultivate a sense of letting go Would you recommend for them?
Speaker 2:Yeah, in this moment, the thought that comes to mind is a sense of belonging. That which is where, like the pieces, sometimes so like, if you practice breathing, you're the one who's breathing, but it's also something universal. That's also the beauty of the breath is that it's the most present thing that every living beings on this earth, right now, in this moment Although we're recording it, but like whoever is listening to later, this truth is true that is an activity that is happening as long as we're alive, you know. So it's a very uniting, practical Way of looking at my existence, right, because that otherness is gone when I am able to bring my mindfulness to that, that, oh, this is an activity that I'm doing and everybody else is doing, and it gives Me that connection with other living beings in that way.
Speaker 1:I think there's a thousand different techniques, but any that you you can want to that you can share with us. Yeah, just for awareness of the breath.
Speaker 2:Yeah, paying attention, bringing your awareness, just like it says in the reading to about paying attention to that cooling and the warm sensation, breathing in being aware of that cool sensation, breathing out being aware of that warm sensation.
Speaker 1:Another one I learned from you. I had a doing a group and started the group with a mindful breathing technique and one gentleman, um Said luke. I've never been able to meditate my life. I got the worst 80d, 80 hd You've ever seen your life. I can't sit still, let alone my leg shakes all the time.
Speaker 1:So I just gave him a breathing techniques technique where when he did an inhale he focused on the lower part of the lungs and it filled up to the middle and notice, when he inhaled from the top, of his lung being full. When he exhaled from the top of the lung and felt it to the middle and Down to this deepest bronchial tubes at the very base of his lungs and make this felt the air escaping that and held it and did it again lower, middle upper. Just do that for 10 breaths, in and out, just lower, middle, upper, upper, middle, lower and just focus on those three Stages of the inhale and exhale. So we did that for a handful of minutes and I certainly didn't hear him scuffling or leg shaking. But afterwards, uh, as he was just being aware of his breath and he uh, I worked in her drug and alcohol rehab facility at the time and After I processed that with the group and he looked at me and he said, luke, I feel like I'm stoned.
Speaker 1:But the way I took that and the group you know shared their experiences and what they thought of his is he was able to be aware and conscious of his breath and, as a result, it sounded like his brain waves or his it was racing mine Certainly was Not as racing and it sounds like his stress levels went down and he had some good um, you know neurotransmitters and feel good chemicals release as a secondary result of just having awareness of his breath. And this was someone that said there's no way I'll be able to quote unquote meditate or have breath awareness. And that was just a really powerful Story I'll never forget in my life. So when everyone says I can't meditate, I can't sit, still, I said let's just try a technique.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's your go-to example.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I do have one concluding thought, uh, which is, again, this is a fun part for me because I feel like I'm not limited to Theda Vada Buddhism, although that's my background, um, but like the thing with because, you know, I've been in trust, a fellowship and, uh, living here and all these things, the thing about prayer, you know, because in the trust, that God of your understanding right, and I do have that, and it's been just really fun Because if I really believe in the concept of prayer, there is no shortage of that. So if I don't, you know, they say, if you don't have the willingness, you can pray for willingness. And, uh, if you don't know how to pray for willingness, ask for the instruction how to pray, like there is nothing that you cannot pray about. You know which which opens so many doors, so like to connect that with the breathing, to that again, asking and paying attention.
Speaker 2:So, like, the thing about breathing is that if I believe in a higher power, upon a God of my understanding, I can petition to that power, help me bring my attention, or in equivalent terms in Buddhism, that Mine is an organ, mine is a thing and I can even treat my mind as a friend. So, hey, mine, can you give attention to my breathing right now, and then asking and then listening or paying attention to what happens. So it's a fun, fun, uh, exercise for people, um, who believes in God or who are more used to that kind of like prayer and meditation, that like ask your mind to pray, attention, to pay attention to your breathing and see what happens.
Speaker 1:I think you explained it perfectly but expand on the mind as an organ, so people can understand exactly what you mean by that. Yeah, so I'll use the same example. Right, luke, right in front of me. I'm a large organ, yeah, and you respond when I say things to you because you are Ascentian being and you hear me and you respond.
Speaker 2:So mine is like that too. That um, it is an entity of his own. It has causes and conditions From my childhood, growing up, my beliefs, things that I've seen input, output. So there's already Uh an organ that's what I mean by organ, that they are Uh mechanism in there that just happens without my permission. So it is on its own in a way, and I can step out of it almost like a friend or a trusted friend. I wanted to use that word. After I've trained the mind, it becomes like a trusted friend, so I can interact with that Um, which is also like for some people. They even like when they forget something. They ask their mind.
Speaker 2:Can you bring to my attention the thing that I forgot about. You know or some people would ask their mind that I need to get up at five in the morning tomorrow. Can you remind me? It's almost like a computer.
Speaker 1:It's like your smartphone. Yeah, yeah, so that's what I mean. Yeah, well, as we wrap up. So thank you for sharing about this article that you wrote and the knowing breath. Is there anything else that you'd like to mention before we Close?
Speaker 2:this up. No, that's, that covers it all. I hope, uh, yeah, I hope you practice. Whoever is listening sit and pay attention.
Speaker 1:Yeah, your mind can be an organ. You can even tell that smartphone to Help you with your daily routine of breath awareness. Well, today we explored the profound practice of breath awareness and its transformative potential. As reflect on our conversation, we are reminded of the inherent wisdom embedded within the breath. The breath serves as a powerful tool for self Exploration, allowing us to observe the interplay between conscious control and the natural rhythm of our own breath. Through the practice of breath awareness, we gain a glimpse of what it means to let go. By simply observing the breath, we surrender to its natural flow, experiencing a profound sense of freedom and connecting with the present moment. In the stillness and silence of breath awareness, we can even tap into the true nature of our minds. Potentially, we encourage you, our listeners, to embark on your own journey of breath awareness. Take moments throughout your day to anchor yourself in the rhythm of your breath, to fully experience the sensations and Presence that arise with each inhale and exhale. Allow the breath to be your guide, leading you to a deeper understanding of yourself and the world around you. Remember, the practice of breath awareness is a timeless tool, always available to you. Embrace the power of the breath as a getaway to inner peace, clarity and mindfulness.
Speaker 1:I like to express my gratitude to you all for sharing the wisdom and insights on the breath, just like you do every weekend in this podcast. But Thanks for sharing your reading today. Thanks for allowing me to. Your words have provided us with a profound understanding of the transformative potential within each breath we take, and If you want to read it again, I'll make sure I'll have a link on there for you guys to check it out. And thank you, guys, the listeners, for joining us on this journey into the depths of breath.
Speaker 1:If you found value in this episode, we invite you to share it with others whom may benefit from the profound wisdom of knowing breath. Don't forget to subscribe to our podcast and leave us a review, as your support and feedback Seriously seriously means a lot and can help us continue to explore Meaningful topics and bringing you inspired content. If you're listening these last 30 seconds, then you can spend another minute or two for liking and commenting. Sharing that mean a lot to us. So until next time, may the knowing breath guide you to replace presence, peace and self-discovery. My name is Luke. This is all. See you next time, see you.