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| Stillness... |
Dedicated to Shreya, my patient wise young teacher
Fully living and experiencing this well-known poem of Li Po has always remained an aspiration. Though I am very comfortable with silence, love walking alone for hours, and can relate to this poem very deeply - I knew that the quality of absolute stillness and weightlessness - as if I don't exist at all - I had not really achieved.
And now I am learning Praanayaama (Yogic breathing) from a young friend, an excellent teacher who is correcting all the mistakes I had made earlier when I had attempted to learn. Which led to this mind-blowing experience, literally.
At the end of each round of Kapaalbaadhi (one deep inhalation followed by multiple rapid exhalations - I can do up to 60 now, and increasing) there is that magical thing that happens.
For a few seconds you are not breathing. At all. You would think that after not having inhaled for a full one minute, your body would be rushing to inhale, deeply. But no, it doesn't. It pauses. And for a few seconds you are absolutely still. You are not inhaling. You have no thoughts. Yes, that practically impossible thing - to not have thoughts at all - I am experiencing it for the first time in my life.
I am finally beginning to know what this is really supposed to be - prana (prāṇa), breath, + āyāma (stopping, controlling, restraining) - literally the suspension of breath.
And then you slowly start breathing again, like the body is just easing back into it, like it just remembered it has to do it, but there is no hurry. And then your breathing throughout the day becomes slower and deeper. Which evidently makes you calmer. A few weeks of practice, my no-breathing pause has grown significantly. I don't know by how much. I am not counting - because I am not thinking. :)
It is absolutely exhilarating, wondrous, magical, life-changing. I have hope now that maybe one day I can sit with a mountain like Li Po, until only the mountain remains....
Zazen on Ching-t’ing Mountain
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