This is the second of a two-part piece on Breath. Part I can be found here.
Breath is always with us. Are we always with it? It is a process that occurs as long as we live. While there are other perennial processes, we are not consciously aware of them. This is promised to us just by one, the act of breathing: inhaling, exhaling, and the cessation of both.
The chitta or consciousness is dotted with droplets of thoughts. Are thoughts feel like surging waves in a great sea. Sometimes, they are like tiny ripples, while other times they crash like giant waves into the precincts of our foreheads.
Dots, ripples, waves. One or the other is always rising, cresting, or waning.
Breath keeps us in the present by dropping an anchor deep into our minds. Try it now, if you may. Switch attention to the nostrils and the flow of air from them. As you watch, your breath will start growing, becoming fuller. So immersive is this process of sustained focus that the mind too is harnessed.
An Ocean of Awareness
Now pause, and then watch the breath. Ebbing and filling, emptying and gathering. In the mundane and taken-for-granted process of breathing, the breath lives a life of ever-changing vibrance.
Pause once more and watch. The expanding shores of your breath invigorate your senses. Your skin is rejuvenated with its gentle caress. Hear it soar between your ear drums, this cosmic music: anhad naad. Your eyes feel your breath slide past the eyebrow center as the nostrils flare to contain its growing, odorless volume. Your mouth rejoices with a soft tongue and gentling saliva tasting the emptiness, shoonya.
The breath brings coherence to the brain, heart and lungs; and the mind becomes restful. The true nature of the mind lies not in its modifications or movements, but in the brimming depths of our breaths. By diving deep into the breath, the mind is unveiled and we reach the ocean of its potential.
This is the sea of mirth. And it lives in our breath.
