Mini-Lessons on Contemplative Practice, Breath

Perhaps the most important thing we discussed in the workshop on the neuroscience of contemplative practice was the importance of the breath. First, before we delve in, a disclaimer: if the focusing on the breath is triggering for you in any way, practice with a different sensory anchor for your awareness. Struggling against a nervous system in fight, flight, or freeze mode is not a useful way to spend your time on the mat or cushion if you can avoid it. But, if the breath works for you, it is the best tool you have for developing embodied awareness and bringing balance to the systems of your body and your entire being. If the breath doesn't work, other sensory anchors will work, too - sounds, sensations in the body during body scans, or mantra, just to name a few.

Using a sensory anchor like the breath or sound just means that the mind is asked to attend to that channel of input for the duration of the practice. If it's the breath, you turn to the breath channel in your brain TV and do your best to pay attention. The mind will wander to a different channel, because that is it's job. And you will catch it and gently but firmly change the channel back to your sensory anchor again. I find the TV imagery useful. It's like you are watching your favorite show on your TV but your beloved young child keeps wandering in and putting the TV on Dora the Explorer instead. My brain is a lot like that. No need to get angry or feel disappointed or judgy, just change the channel again.

Over time, this practice actually rewires your brain. The pathways for interoception are strengthened and the work will get easier. The only way to do this is to practice. A little bit every day. Your brain wants to do the least amount of work, to spend the least amount of energy to do the things you ask it to do, so, after a while, it will make improvements to the connection to awareness of the breath. You'll go from a rough hiking path to a paved superhighway with dedication and practice.

This work will make the contemplative practices more comfortable over time, and you also tend to find greater ease and spaciousness off the mat/cushion as well. You will find that, in general, you are better able to focus when you would like to both in your practice and in your daily life interactions and work. You will build resilience, regulated empathy and compassion, and spaciousness, to name a just a few of the benefits.