How the air we breathe can teach us about our environment
During a workshop, I heard a woman say, “Breath is exciting.” She spoke with the delight a person would reserve for talking about a delicious and slightly dangerous love affair. Victoria (not her real name) continued, “Ever since I was a little girl, I have known this. I grew up in Australia, in a wild area on the northeast coast. Starting when I was about seven years old, a group of us girls would go for long walks in the wilderness. One of my friends was Aboriginal and she was a little older, maybe eight. She was completely at home in the wilderness. We learned by walking behind and beside her, doing what she did. We would walk for hours in silence through the forest, sniffing the air, listening to the sounds of nature. I learned that every footstep is quietly thrilling. And when you breathe in, the air teaches you about everything around—what kind of plants and animals are there surrounding you.”
The group wanted to hear more, so she added, “When you walk in nature with your senses open, every step is full-body sensuality; you feel electricity everywhere. Your skin wakes up and you can feel the life around you in all directions. It’s almost sexual. You greedily sniff the air, and you really use your nose as you smell the scent of the trees and plants and animals. Your eyes open in a new way as you see each leaf, bug, and bird. The light and sky, how they change every moment. If you are trying to walk quietly, you feel the ground as you gently place each foot.”
The Radiance Sutras, Marut, and the Breath
In the workshop, we had been reading The Radiance Sutras, and one of the words used to describe breath is marut. It has many meanings: “Lightning and thunderbolts, roaring like lions. The flashing ones, shining ones, storm gods, Indra’s companions, children of heaven or of the ocean, armed with golden weapons. Wind, air, breath, and the five winds, or pranas, in the body. The god of the wind, father of Hanuman.” (The Monier-Williams Sanskrit-English Dictionary, p. 790).
Victoria read this definition to the group and added, “This is why I have never understood why meditation teachers are always talking about breathing to calm down. They make it so boring. Who wants to calm down? I want to be thrilled to be alive. I want to feel connected to nature. I want to feel how exciting it is when storms blow in off the ocean.” We all just sat there in stunned silence, because we knew we were hearing something fresh and real.
Practice with the Breath
The many meanings of the word marut suggest that breath is wild and magical, like lightning. When you pay attention to the breath, feel free to let go of your civilized self and welcome your wildness, your storms. You are part of nature, part of the Earth, you are a dynamic and self-sustaining little system within the larger ecosphere. The electrifying magnificent heavenly breath, marut, keeps on quickening the life-force, rolling on, rotating between an inward and outward flow.
When you are meditating with the breath you can do nothing. Take an attitude of ease and simply enjoy the show as this magic stuff flows inward, turns, and then flows outward and turns again. You can luxuriate in the flow and welcome the flash of ever-changing sensations, emotions, and thoughts. Breath is self-propelling, and you breathe just fine even when you are not aware at all—when you are sleeping. If you make an effort to pay attention to breath, you may miss out on experiencing its magic.
Marut suggests that lightning is flashing in the body. Breath is moved by sparks of electricity in the muscles of respiration. All these pulsating tissues that work to welcome each breath into the body and then push it out. Even our thoughts are waves of subtle electricity blinking on and off through your body and brain. Your heart beats every second or so, and each pulsing of the heart is incited by a little spark of electricity. Welcome it all. Revel in it as you would the rain if the land is dry. Breathing is part of nature.
Surprisingly, one of the common reasons people feel they are “failing at meditation” is because when they close their eyes they immediately begin to feel something akin to little tiny electrical shocks. Nothing has prepared them to welcome the dynamic electricity of the life force that is showing up in every moment of breathing, feeling, and thinking. The peace is there inside the electricity. Breath is exciting, and it propels itself. It’s a charging, dynamic process of life, roaring along. If you want to know peace, let breath excite you.
If you want to explore your relationship with the electricity inside each breath, you might whisper one of these thoughts to yourself:
I am awake to the electricity of life.
The dynamic power of breath is renewing me
moment by moment by moment.
Nature is wild and serene, and so am I.
When you use a phrase such as one of these as a tool of thought in meditation, pulsate with it. Whisper or think the phrase, very lightly. Then notice whatever feelings, sensations, or images the phrase evokes. Enjoy the sensations of breathing for a few moments. Then gently think the phrase again. Welcome all random thoughts, and don’t judge your experience. Anything you are tempted to try to block out is actually some part of your own life’s electricity and wildness—your marut energy—that needs your attention.
We human beings sometimes have a better intuitive grasp of our tools and gadgets than we do of our own bodies. We know our electronics run on electricity and our phones need charging. As you explore the sensations that are flowing in your body right now as you are breathing right now, welcome all the sensations, whether they be of tension or delight, as manifestations of the ongoing flash of lightning that is life itself.
Dr. Lorin Roche began practicing with the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra in 1968 as part of scientific research on the physiology of meditation. He has a PhD from the University of California at Irvine, where his research focused on the language meditators generate to describe their inner experiences. He is the author of The Radiance Sutras and Meditation Made Easy. With his wife, Camille Maurine, he wrote Meditation Secrets for Women. A teacher of meditation for 46 years, Lorin’s approach centers on how to customize the practices to suit one’s individual nature. Lorin leads the Radiance Sutras Meditation Teacher Training, a 200 hour certification program registered with Yoga Alliance. Lorin teaches regularly at the Esalen Institute and around the world.