Breathing as a tool to tune in to the present.

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FROM DENNIS LEWIS (July 14, 2006)Back from Esalen: Check In On Your Breathing NowI just returned two weeks ago from my annual five-day "Free YourBreath, Free Your Life" retreat at Esalen Institute in Big Sur CA,where I also gave a 90-minute talk and mini-workshop to the entireEsalen community. I was greatly helped in these events by my wonderfulteaching assistant Esther 'Joy' van der Werf, who is planning toassist me again at Esalen in May 2007. You can learn more about her at:http://www.VisionsOfJoy.orgDuring the retreat, one of the burning questions that arose among theparticipants was the question of awakening to our real nature, ofbeing present to who and what we really are.To understand the implications of this question it is imperative tosee that so many of us live our lives in a fast-forward

mode,attempting to escape the pain, discomfort, uncertainty, or boredom ofthe present moment by dwelling on something in the future that webelieve will bring us meaning and make us happy. Of course, when weare honest with ourselves, we see that the future always arrives Now,which we are constantly trying to escape, and so much of our life isspent fast-forwarding and never really being where we actually are. Inthe midst of this process the question "Who am I?" sometimes awakensin us. It can come in moments of great shock or suffering; it can alsocome in moments of true wonder and joy; or it can arise as a result ofthe conscious efforts we make in our lives to live more honestly.Sometimes it just seems to arise by itself, as a gift from the unknown.When the question does arise in a serious way, one way to support itsflowering is to check in on your breathing and allow your awareness tomove inward with your

breath--to begin to experience yourself as abreathing being. For the process of breathing is a living metaphor forunderstanding how to expand our narrow sense of ourselves and bepresent not just to the miraculous energies of life that are both inand around us but also to the deep silence and spaciousness out ofwhich these energies arise. By checking in on your breathing you areactually getting in touch with a deeper, more-conscious dimension ofyour own being.Allowing your breath to take you deeper inside yourself, however,takes practice (I show many approaches to this in my recent book "FreeYour Breath, Free Your Life). So check in on your breathing right now.Allow all the sensations of your breath, all the internal and externalmovements related to how you are breathing now, to enter yourawareness. See if you can discover a quiet, non-judgmental place inyourself from which you can discern which parts of your body

yourbreathing engages. Just be aware, without any attempt to manipulateyour breathing, of what your breath feels like and how this awarenessinfluences your sensation of yourself. How do you feel right now?What, if any, new perceptions are arising? Without coming to anyconclusions, what does this experience tell you about who you are?And, perhaps even more important, who or what is aware of all this?Who or what is able to see and listen to what is actually happening?As you continue to explore yourself in this way, you may notice,though it will probably seem somewhat uncomfortable at the beginning,that the question "Who am I," a heart-felt question that opens you tothe unknown, releases, at least temporarily, the constricting egoicprison of habitual thoughts, beliefs, feelings, perceptions, andsensations that you identify with and take to be yourself. And, if youremain quietly alert, simply following the many

movements of yourbreath, you may notice the precise moment when identification withyour ego consciousness--your self-image--returns again,instantaneously shutting out any sense of the unknown. It usuallycomes in the form of mental or emotional judgments, such as "I've donethis long enough,I think this is silly,I'm not learning anythingnew,I've got something very important to do now," and so on. In thename of what you refer to as "I," all exploration ceases, and youbegin the fast-forwarding process again. Catching a glimpse of thisprocess of identification (or attachment) is a moment of real freedom.And once you have seen your own form of identification clearly, andallowed the significance of your inner slavery to your thoughts andemotions to penetrate into your consciousness, you will begin tonotice "identification" more and more often in your life. It is this"noticing" that will help you awaken to

your real nature--purewelcoming awareness. It is this awareness that will bring you into themiracle of Now, where you can experience the full miraculous breadthof the breath of life moving through you.Copyright 2006 by Dennis Lewis============================RESEARCH ALERT: BREATHING & BLOOD PRESSURE RESEARCHhttp://www.shareasale.com/r.cfm?B=29497 & U=135642 & M=6845Studies Shows Device-Guided Paced Breathing Lowers Blood Pressure & Peripheral ResistanceRESPeRATE demonstrates sustained effect on blood vesselsNEW YORK, N.Y. -- May 26, 2006 -- American Society ofHypertension--Booth #2412 -- May 16, 2006 -- InterCure, Ltd., todayannounced new findings demonstrating the mechanism of action of itsFDA-cleared hypertension treatment

device, RESPeRATE.Details from four new studies were presented here at the AmericanSociety of Hypertension's 21st Annual Scientific Meeting (ASH 2006) inNew York.The studies directly showed a reduction in the resistance of narrowedblood vessels to blood flow (peripheral resistance) and lower bloodpressure.The mechanism study, led by Dr. Kyung-Hoon Choe, from Wonju College ofMedicine in South Korea, measured Systemic Vascular Resistance Index[sVRI] and other hemodynamic parameters, heart rate, and bloodpressure of 22 hypertensive patients.The patient group was part of a 70-patient multi-center study usingRESPeRATE for fifteen minutes a day throughout an eight week period.Overall, patients experienced a significant blood pressure reduction(average) of 12.6/5.3 mm Hg (P <.001) without a change in heart rate.Furthermore, peripheral resistance as measured by SVRI in the subgrouptested was

significantly reduced from the baseline to end values, 3309� 702 vs. 2898 � 621 dyne sec m2/cm5, respectively (P <.001)."The practical implication of our findings is significant," said Dr.Choe. "This direct physiological evidence gives us further confidencethat the device lowers blood pressure and treats one of its mostsignificant contributing factors." Narrowed small blood vessels are aprimary factor in elevated blood pressure, as they increase theresistance to the body's blood flow and make the heart pump harder.Over time, this overloading of the heart and higher blood pressure canlead to heart failure, rupture of the vessel walls in the brain(stroke), eye damage, kidney failure and other life threateningconditions.A separate study presented at the conference evaluated the bloodpressure lowering effect of RESPeRATE in the diabetic population. Thestudy is a randomized controlled study of

non-insulin dependentdiabetics with uncontrolled systolic blood pressure.The interim analysis of 60 patients demonstrates a significantdifference in systolic BP change between the treatment and controlgroups (-9.5 � 1.9 vs. +2.1 � 2.4 mm Hg, P =.0002). Reduction of pulsepressure was significantly higher in the treatment group compared tocontrol (V5.9 vs. +3.6 mm Hg, P =.0007). Greater systolic BP reductionwas found to be significantly correlated with the total time spent inslow breathing guided by the device (P =.01) and no side effects wereobserved. Diastolic BP, initially controlled in both groups, wasfurther decreased.SOURCE: InterCure, Inc.http://www.docguide.com/news/content.nsf/news/852571020057CCF68525717A0060A380 "Our ideal is not the spirituality that withdraws from life but the conquest of life by the power of the spirit." - Aurobindo.

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