A lot has been written and said about breathing.  Here’s some more of that.

Most people it seems to me breathe pretty high in their chest.  This makes some sense because your lungs are up there somewhere.  However, I’ve long thought this was basically wrong.  When someone says, “take a deep breath,” well, deep implies lower down.  And, meditators, who know something about the topic, sort of breathe with their belly.  That’s why they get a little fat there–a little buddha belly.  Breathing in the belly centers us and calms us down.  It’s also a pretty cool motion.

Recently though, I realized that I have been over-modeling meditation breathing at the expense of breathing in my chest.  I went from one extreme to the other, failing to remember the middle way principal.  Do you know the middle way principal?  It’s pretty easy to remember.  The middle way principal is simply: “just split the difference, dude.”

So that’s what I’m working on.  Breathing in the chest upward with vigor–that brings inspiration and good upstairs action.  And, breathing in the belly, making a little balloon there at the same time.  This feels good.  Like a middle way.

No one really teaches you these things, or at least they didn’t me.  If this makes sense to you in any way, maybe tell someone about it.