I find my breath is very helpful. Besides keeping me alive, breath is a central tool in my experience of mindfulness. Actually, it is not so much the physicality of my breath that is helpful, but it is the awareness of my breath that is central to my ushering in concentration. The awareness of my breath focuses my attention, and after that I relax in an interior atmosphere of ease.
Breathing is such a natural and regular event that I normally don’t notice it. Still it occurs about 11 times a minute, day and night. My breath constantly nourishes me with oxygen. In addition, my breath helps me focus my mind, bringing it to a state of sustained concentration, allowing me to experience the bliss of a relaxed and focused mind. But of the time, I am unaware that I am breathing.
I am also typically unaware that all around me, the same breathing is constantly occurring. Wherever there is life, some kind of breathing occurs. And I am totally surrounded by living organisms.
Some breath brings oxygen to living cells, as in animals and insects. Sometimes oxygen is given up in a reverse kind of breathing, as it is with plants. Where there is life, there is breath in some form. It is not always a complicated and sophisticated process as it is in large animals. But the breath occurs throughout the living world that surrounds me. The grass, the dirt, the birds, people. All are routinely breathing as we continue to live.
Today I am aware not only of my own breath, but also the breath that occurs all around me. The world surrounding me is breathing constantly, and for once I am aware of that breath as well as my own. The invitation to awareness presented by these living beings is huge, so huge I can scarcely grasp it. To be aware of breath is so much more than being aware of the breath that happens in my body. It is happening all around me, constantly.
It is perhaps only humans for whom breathing is an aid for mental focus and can stir the bliss of a focused mind. For all living organisms, however, breath is an exchange with the environment that constantly sustains our life. For humans like me, it is also breath that sustains concentration and bliss as well.