Week of

The Out-Breath in Meditation

In meditation practice, you are in the process of developing action along with non-action as you begin to touch the world. In our tradition, when you meditate, you have mindfulness of the breathing going out, and then you cut that. In other words, you go out with the outbreath as your transport—and suddenly you have no transport! Then you start again. In that way, the gap of the inbreath becomes extremely spacious. By focusing on the outbreath, your practice is not based on the ongoing speed of out-and-in, out-and-in, all the time. Instead, a leap is involved, a miniature leap. It takes a little effort, but you could feel very refreshed.

The out-breath is connected with the idea of letting go. You are always breathing out. When you talk, you breathe out; when you eat, you breathe out. Breathing out is not gymnastics, but simply learning how to let go. And you develop mindfulness as you let go.

From The Path of Individual Liberation, pages 202 to 203.

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