Every moment, I am moving in a sea of air, and yet I am scarcely aware of its presence. I cannot see air, and I am about as aware of air as a fish is aware it lives in water. I become aware of air when it moves across my skin, but I typically ignore its reliable presence. I may see the effects of air, but I never see air.
I know air when I feel its movement or when its warmth or chill contacts my skin. I know in my head that I do not live in a vacuum but in a sea of air no less real than a sea of liquid water. However, this reality is easy to be as invisible to me as the unseen realities that exist altogether outside my senses.
I depend on the substance of the air to supply my body constantly with the oxygen it needs to survive. I rely on the movement of air to carry wastes from my body, otherwise I would quickly die.
I cannot see the air, but it makes its presence felt in ways I only occasionally notice. I am convinced it has substance because birds and airplanes can use it to move through space. Unlike me, they can tread on the buoyant substance of air.
Air obviously rushes around because trees respond it it by waving their leaves. I turn my face to air or away from it depending on whether I find its presence pleasant or not. I sometimes bundle up to shield my body from the chill of air. Other times I bask in the warmth of air against my bare skin. In these moments I have a glimmer of awareness of the sea of air in which I live.
It must have weight because if I move outside of my heavy atmosphere, my body would expand and explode because of the unfettered air trapped inside. If air were compressed into a liquid or solid, as people sometimes do, I would be able to see it. As it exists around me, it is totally transparent except for particles it carries. It can make its presence known to my eyes by air bending light to color the sky blue or create a rose sunset.
Air is such a common, natural part of my living that I hardly notice it. However, there are times I become focused on air passing through the ends of my nostrils. In those moments, the awareness of air becomes for me a door to deep concentration.
What is typically so elusive in my ordinary experience becomes a means for the most extraordinary experience of concentration. Having experienced the air in my nostrils, I am truly able to leave the experience of air and become aware of my world in a more exciting way. Even as much as I need and rely on air, there are these moments I deliberately leave air behind.