Every Breath a Prayer We talk a lot about breath in Taoist meditation and Qigong practice.
It is the breath that anchors our practice.
It is the breath that is the doorway between realms.
It is the breath that keeps us grounded and connected to our inner core.
It is the breath that in deep meditation breathes us.
We use breath when we recite invocations or Taoist texts such as Tao Te Ching or other spiritual texts.
In this way,
The practice of recitation becomes a form of Qigong.
Indeed,
Taoism is wonderful in its ability to interweave various practices such as movement,
Visualization,
Breathwork,
And chant into one seamless whole.
Most internal alchemical practices use breath,
Both symbolically as a bellows for firing up the inner cauldron and as a way to calm and center our own energy system.
One of the Taoist invocations that I do each morning contains the line,
I touch this invocation with my voice.
It is another way to say that I am connecting with the invocation with my whole heart and being.
So,
Let's do a little simple breathwork here.
One of the ways that we do work with breath is what we call natural breathing,
Which means as we breathe in our abdomen,
Which contains our lower dantian or field of elixir,
Expands and when we breathe out our abdomen contracts.
And of course we are breathing in and out of our nose in this practice.
And the tip of our tongue is to the roof of our mouth,
Which connects the giant super highway of qi that goes up the back called the dumai and then the super highway of qi that goes down the front called the renmai.
So let's just take a few deep,
Slow,
Gentle breaths,
Expanding our sense of self and our lower dantian.
Now let's add a little bit extra.
When you're breathing in,
Imagine you're feeling the solidity of the tiger.
And when you breathe out,
Imagine you're connecting with the fluidity of the dragon.
So breathe in tiger,
Breathe out dragon.
Another way we can use breath is in prayer.
By turning each breath into a prayer,
We can become human prayer wheels.
In Tibet,
The devout walk along the road or street spinning their prayer wheels.
Each one filled with many slips of paper,
Most commonly consisting of om mani padme hum,
The invocation to the bodhisattva of wisdom and compassion.
It is believed that each time the prayer wheel is turned,
It releases the prayer into the atmosphere.
In each temple,
There is often a whole line of large prayer wheels the pilgrims turn as they walk along.
So then,
This practice of turning each breath into a prayer.
To begin,
Set your intention.
This means that each time you breathe in or breathe out,
Decide what you want to send out into the world or what you want to take in.
This can be things like sending out peace and healing into the world,
Taking in the sorrows and the sufferings of the world in order to transform them into peace and healing.
You can pray for the good health of your loved ones,
Even yourself.
You can pray that humans will not destroy themselves as it seems to be doing.
Or you can just hold yourself in a field of light and healing chi.
You can feel deep in your heart gratitude for each day of your life,
Each moment on your journey back to Source.
Remember,
With gratitude comes grace.
Really spend some time setting this intent because it is from this that your whole practice will arise.
You can always change it at a later date,
But at first it is important to really lay a strong foundation for your practice.
So let's spend a few moments coming up with an intention that you can use in this time.
Of course,
You can change it any time you wish.
You can add or subtract,
But let's just spend a few moments connecting with intent that you would like to use right now.
Now take some deep,
Gentle breaths and send out the message,
Intent,
Vibration,
Or whatever it is you have decided upon.
See that intent really spreading out into the world from deep inside you.
Then,
Concentrating on the inhalation,
Really feel in your energy body whatever it is that you are breathing in.
Feel it fill your energy body once again where it can be transformed and sent back out again.
Or you may decide to breathe peace and healing both on the out-breath as well as the in-breath.
This is entirely up to you.
The next step is to pay attention as you go about your day to your breath and what the prayer is that you are sending out and breathing back in.
From here,
It is all a matter of gently bringing yourself back to your breath at various times and remember that you are also sending out a prayer with each breath.
You don't need to think of the message itself,
But just remind yourself that each of your breaths is a prayer going out into the world.
As we breathe thousands of times a day,
Our prayers go out continually over and over again.
This way,
We have become a living prayer wheel turning for the highest good of all.
