In the time when vessels were blown across the seven seas, a boat was said to be becalmed if it was deprived of the wind needed to move it. Without the wind, the boat had to just be. This experience of just being, not doing, occasionally happens in yoga or meditation. I had a profound sense of it this weekend when I took a yoga workshop with a senior Iyengar teacher, Dean Lerner. Ironically, it was through an intense focus on our wind, our breath, that engendered my own personal becalming!
Saturday afternoon focused on the breath and breath practices of Pranayama. Pranayama has an entire limb dedicated to it – it is considered to be such an important part of the path of yoga. Prana means breath or energy. Ayama means creation, maintenance and distribution. Pranayama is the practice of learning how to manipulate and direct the energy, manifested as breath. Breath is interesting to yogis because whilst it is ordered by the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS), without much thought, unlike other ANS functions, like pupil dilation, we are still able to control our breath. Two weeks ago, I wrote about the sheaths of the body, the Pranamayakosha and how directing its flow is an important part of learning how to manage our energy, which also affects our mental attitudes. I have also described it here.
We started our Pranayama practice with poses to open our side body and chest, and spent a long time (re)learning how to sit. Then, we started consciously breathing. Focusing on our inhales. Focusing on our exhales. Focusing on where in the body the breath was moving, and moving it to different places on our inhales versus our exhales. Consciously dividing our breath up on the inhales or exhales and working with different images, for example, the Trident. A trident is like a pitchfork with three curved and barbed tines: a center one, which extends down into the handle and one on either side. We imagined that the center was the spine and the two side tines were the lungs and bronchioles. We did this in a variety of positions – sitting, cross-legged with jalandhara bandha (a “lock” in which the chin is drawn down to sternum, sternum drawn up to chin), and reclining over stair-stepped blankets.
Dean explained to us that the practice of Pranayama is a technique to draw our focus inwards. We focus on the breath as a tool to quiet the mind, as a tool to focus on the inner world, to withdraw from the sense organs and contemplate our inner landscape. For most of us, this is a very difficult process – we are constantly drawn to the external world through our senses. We want to react and interact. However, if we are to learn how to focus our attention (sixth limb of yoga) and meditate (seventh limb of yoga) successfully, Patanjali says that we must practice Pranayama, so that our mind is pacified and ready for the concentration that is a necessary pre-cursor to meditation.
What astonishes me every time I practice Pranayama, is how incredibly calm I feel after practicing and how long this peace remains. At the end of this practice, I realized I was becalmed. I was pacified and energized and completely present. One expends a huge amount of attention on breathing in a controlled and specific manner during Pranayama practice and this results in an extraordinarily relaxed and focused presence.
We are Human Beings, Not Human Doings.
Pranayama 101:
Sit with hips elevated on a blanket or two or in a chair. Relax your palms face up on your thighs. Close your eyes. Notice the breath coming in and out of your nose. Notice the way the belly moves with the breath. Direct the breath up and down the spine. Inhaling from the pelvic floor (your south pole) to the crown of the head (your north pole). For five breaths balance the inhale and exhale. For five breaths make the exhale twice the length of the inhales. For five breaths make the inhale twice the length of the exhales. For five breaths equalize the inhales and exhales again. Return to normal. Start exploring! Start noticing! For more practices – see my videos/podcasts.
Tamsin Astor-Jack, PhD writes at www.YogaBrained.com/blog
©Tamsin Astor-Jack, Yoga Brained LLC