Here:
1/31/2021
Tom, up from meditation, says, I've been watching the breath from the other side.
A friend says, You should write about that.
Here, then:
Breath is voluntary but also involuntary. So train your volition to be compatible with the involuntary. Do by allowing. Then explore, be with, the unfolding flow, calmly watch the center acting, pulsing, expanding. I can't do it on purpose but when it happens I can try to stay with it. It's a skill that many days of meditating on it slowly brings to possibility. Breath-synchronized mantra helps, is an initial aid on the path and a reminder after falling into oblivion and wandering, but the effective inner drive comes from mumukshutva, the desire for liberation. Waking up with it, dreaming watching it. Volition becomes surrender and being occurs. Especially, in the flow of the initiation of breath. Such a rich and mysteried place. So simple, so central. People spend lifetimes running around, slaves of their id learnings from childhood. This is the place that deep learning suddenly and powerfully occurs, that can calm and still an echoing life, where authenticity pervades. It's all talk until you do it. Do you want it? Sit comfortably and breathe.