 February, 2021
Dear Friends,
With my social life in a near-catatonic state these days, I've had plenty of time to explore some new directions in my spiritual life. Let me tell you about one that I never dreamed could be so powerful: breathing.
Now I don't mean just the regular old in-and-out, but instead some of the breathing techniques practiced by a wide variety of religious traditions.
Even a brief introduction to these techniques has made me realize that the counting of breaths I've been doing in meditation is the equivalent of riding a tricycle. I’ve gotten complacent about my practice, I must admit, proud of the fact that on most days I can meditate for twenty minutes. But from the viewpoint of the Hindus practicing pranayama, the Taoists using breath to build chi, and the Tibetan Buddhists doing tummo, I'm a rank amateur.
Take tummo, for instance, which in Tibetan means inner fire. It was developed by Buddhist monks living high in the Himalayas to both propel them to a higher level of consciousness and to keep warm, which is a good thing if you’re living in a frigid, drafty monastery. Tummo practitioners generate so much heat that they can dry wet sheets wrapped around them in freezing weather and melt the snow around them when they are sleeping. That may sound like metaphysical hype, but researchers who have studied practitioners have found that they can raise their body temperature up to 101 degrees Fahrenheit.
Learning about tummo led me to Wim Hoff, who in 1995 started investigating esoteric spiritual disciplines and the benefits of cold exposure as a way to deal with his grief after his wife’s suicide. Tummo was one of his inspirations, though he has developed his own unique version of the practice.
Also known as the Iceman, Hoff has an almost unbelievable record of physical feats, most of them relating to cold. As I started researching breathing techniques, I was fascinated by the videos I saw online of a bearded, preternaturally hardy man bounding across glaciers in shorts, swimming underneath sheets of ice, meditating on the side of snowy mountains, and doing yoga poses on the edge of cliffs. Whatever his method was, it certainly seemed to be working for him.
While my own motivation to try his cold exposure therapy evaporated after my first cold shower, his breathing method was another matter. Here was something I could do at my leisure, something that had the potential to improve my physical, mental, and spiritual wellbeing. And how hard could breathing be?
Well, pretty darn hard, actually. First you do rapid breathing for thirty breaths, exhale, then hold it for as long as you can, followed by an inhale and then another breath hold for fifteen seconds. That’s it. Over and over. If you think that sounds easy, try it. The stress of not being able to breathe is immediate and real.
But something started to happen as I practiced the breathing method each morning before my usual meditation session. I can't say I've grown to enjoy the technique, but during the breath-holding phase of the exercise I often experience a laser-like focus that is startling in its clarity. When you desperately need to breathe, everything else gets stripped away, short-circuiting all the hamster-wheel concerns that normally race through your mind. When the exercise is over, I find that I can turn to my regular meditation with a sense of relief and even joy, reveling in the ease of simple respiration.
Now I realize this may sound like a high-falutin’ version of banging your head against a wall so you can feel how good it is to stop. But the more I practice the Hoff method, the more I've gained a sense for the deep wisdom built into these seemingly simple breathing methods. My modern variation of tummo is helping me cope with the anxiety of living in an age of political, societal, and personal turmoil.
Even more, it's helped me understand at a visceral level that each breath is connected to spirit. Huffing and puffing each morning, I feel a kinship to those Hindu yogis and Chinese Taoists, as well as the Tibetan monks melting snow with their meditative skills. The physical benefits of improving one’s breathing are valuable, to be certain, but I can see that the real goal in all of this is something much bigger.
If you're interested, read James Nestor's splendid new book (see below) for an introduction to the importance of breathing to our physical, emotional, and spiritual lives. Then close your eyes and breathe. You'll be glad you did.
Blessings,
Lori
(image: an illustration of the practice of tummo from an ancient Tibetan text)
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