Lesson 10 Lower Back and Kidney Breathing Breathing from your kidneys will be harder than breathing from your front and sides.
Initially it helps to lie down on the floor,
Knees up in the air,
Soles of the feet on the floor,
With the lower part of your back firmly pressing the floor.
The pressure of your body pressing into the floor on the inhale and the release of the pressure on the exhale will make it easy to feel inside your body.
Breathing with the kidneys is considered very important in Taoist practices.
In traditional Chinese medicine,
The kidneys are held to be the source of a human's overall vitality and sexual percutive capacity.
Energizing the kidneys is of particularly significant importance in terms of developing a healthy body and clear mind.
Chronic exhaustion,
Often called chronic fatigue,
Reflects weakness in the kidneys.
Concentrate on the inhale,
Expanding from your center line to your spine and backwards to your skin,
Lower back muscles and all the way up to your kidneys.
Return to your original position on the exhale.
Breathing in from the center line of your belly,
Breathing backwards,
Feeling the tissue move all the way back to your spine and then further back to the muscles and kidneys and skin which is touching the floor.
On the inhale,
Press into the floor.
On the exhale,
Return to a relaxed position.
Neither contract your muscles or your mind.
Become aware of what you feel in your kidneys.
Kidneys from the Taoist point of view and Chinese medicine's point of view are where the fear of the body is held.
It is also where the awareness of the body is generated.
Feel your kidneys.
Breathe into them.
Relax back to a natural position.
Does breathing into your kidneys make you more aware or does it make you fearful?
What are you afraid of?
Relax that fear,
Knowing that what you are doing now,
Whatever fear you have,
Is not going to happen while you're breathing.
What does that fear feel like?
Release its tension and as you release the tension,
Release the emotion.
Put your hand again,
One hand on your chest and one hand on your belly,
So that you will be sure you're not breathing with your chest and that your belly is breathing as well as your kidneys.
So now,
Using all parts of your abdominal cavity simultaneously rather than sequentially,
On the inhale,
Expand from the center line of your belly to the front,
Side and back,
Your kidneys simultaneously.
Let your cylinder expand on the inhale and on the exhale,
Return to your original position,
Letting the front,
Side and back of your belly return to the center line in a relaxed fashion.
Inhaling,
Letting your abdominal cavity expand in all directions,
Exhale,
Letting it come back to its original position.
Continuing this breathing,
What inside your belly,
What inside your sides,
What inside your kidneys,
Feels as though it is not expanding and returning in the same degree.
What spot is tight?
What spot seems to be dead or numb?
Use your breath now to let that which is tight stretch ever so slightly,
Remembering the 70% rule,
Not causing pain or discomfort,
But simply letting your body expand and come back to its original position.
As you do this,
When you inhale,
Breathe down from your nose down your central channel as your cylinder expands.
As you exhale,
Let the cylinder return to its original position as your breath goes up your central channel and out your nose.
This method of breathing will provide a wonderful massage for your internal organs.
You can breathe in this manner 24 hours a day once this new physical breathing method becomes a comfortable habit.
You can become aware through this breathing method of what your emotions are doing if you only take the time to tune in and pay attention.
Just as massaging your muscles adds tone to their overall functioning,
So will this breathing method benefit your internal organs.
In terms of your health,
Massaging your internal organs is more important than toning your external muscles.
Just as massaging your muscles increases your overall blood circulation,
This breathing method increases the blood circulation in those deeper blood vessels that nourish your internal organs,
Your vital organs.
This type of breathing may increase the mass of your stomach muscles.
However,
It will definitely make your stomach muscles stronger.
Make sure you breathe to only 70% of your capacity.
Do not expand your breath to more than is comfortable.
You want to introduce an effortlessness into your breathing by both taking less air with each breath than you can and simultaneously relaxing your nerves with each inhale and exhale.
Regardless of how much time you take to complete one inhale and exhale,
Be it seconds to minutes,
This effortlessness in the physical act of breathing is of tremendous benefit.
It continuously reduces your stress as well as it strengthens your internal organs,
Overall body vitality and mental clarity.
Effortlessness is also critical in developing continuous awareness of your mind without mental tension.
Mental tension saps your mental and physical stamina and ability to concentrate continuously for long periods of time without becoming tired or distracted.
The tension in the kidneys,
Constriction in the kidneys,
Increases our fear and makes us less able to deal with life in a joyful manner.
