Breath is the Center

Breathing plays a central role in our lives. It is directly responsible for keeping us alive. Without breathing, our lives would very quickly come to an end. We would not be able to sleep at night if we had to constantly check that we were still breathing. Even a brief pause in breathing immediately triggers fears for our survival.

As soon as we become aware of the life-sustaining function of breathing by noticing our own breathing, our ego, which otherwise feels responsible for our survival, recedes. We realize that we owe everything that makes us who we are—our talents, our strengths, our potential—to a greater power. With this realization, our ego immediately becomes less important, and its impatience, neediness, and reactivity fade into the background. Almost without our doing anything, it is replaced by an attitude of gratitude, contentment, and devotion.

In the immediate awareness of our breath, everything that is right now seems good to us just as it is. For nothing stands between us and the present unfolding of events. We are inside of what is happening right now, and what is happening right now is inside of us. So in these experiences, the difference between inside and outside disappears.

Goodness, Truth, and Beauty

In the consciousness of acceptance and being in harmony with reality, we are connected to the eminent qualities of goodness, truth, and beauty, not in an abstract way, but as an implicit experience, as something inherent in the experience of breathing. For when we dwell in the moment, everything we need is there—inhaling, exhaling. It becomes intuitively clear to us what is good, true, and beautiful. In reflection, we can see that evil, falsehood, and ugliness can only take space in our consciousness when we fall out of this unity with the moment.

Through breath awareness, we know how to interact with other people so that we can feel comfortable and secure while also giving them a sense of security and trust. We know what is necessary and how we must behave so that people can live together in respect, dignity, and peace. It is evident to us what is good and what is evil, what benefits us and what causes harm. We understand intuitively that doing evil causes us the most harm. We recognize that acting morally is exactly what we want to do. We see that good action is the simplest and gives us the greatest joy.

In breath awareness, we are directly connected to the truth. For the breath in the moment is the true reality of that moment. There is nothing untrue about a breath. We understand that it is our duty to stand up for the truth again and again. Truth holds the community together, which can agree on a common interpretation of reality in its light. Spreading untruths, for example to gain personal advantage, is damaging to the community and therefore also self-damaging.

There is something beautiful in every breath if we consciously perceive it. It offers us the chance to discover the beauty of this very moment in life by accepting it as it is. Then it reveals itself in its uniqueness and fullness. By taking a step further, we become aware of the beauty in all people and things. Art begins with inhalation. Our first breath was the first intake of information from a world that was still completely foreign to us, through which we became part of it. Since that event, we have had the opportunity to find in every breath the desire for new things and the readiness for surprises, the basis for science and art. Thanks to our breath, we are all potential scientists and artists.

Confidence in Life

Breathing gives us confidence in life. When we surrender to it, we notice that it continues to flow, whatever external and internal challenges life throws at us. Sometimes it may falter when we are in shock. But eventually the blockage dissolves and the breath continues to flow, leading us out of the frightening situation and then onward, from one moment to the next, continuously and tirelessly. It contains the message that life always goes on, even when situations sometimes seem hopeless. It whispers to us to keep going instead of giving up when things seem difficult or uncomfortable. And it gives us a feeling of liberation when we return to calmer waters.

Connection between Inside and Outside

Breathing connects us with reality inside and outside ourselves. With breath awareness, we are automatically in touch with our inner perception and feel ourselves. We perceive how we are feeling at the moment, what emotions are present, and what mood prevails. Breathing also informs us about the reality around us. We take in the temperature, and smells give us an impression of the state and mood of external reality. When we are aware of our breathing, we are always in the present reality and not in thoughts that have to do with either the past or the future.

The Time of Breathing

In connection with the flow of breath, we are therefore in the present moment. Breathing shows us a completely different experience of time than thinking, which meanders and oscillates between the past and the future on a linear timeline. The experience of time through breathing is one that has more to do with eternity and timelessness than with linearity. For it is the direct experience of change itself, without a variable content.

We grow with time. Every breath makes us richer, richer in experience and insight. We realize that life is a continuous process of learning and expanding, that we have the opportunity to get to know and understand more and more aspects of reality. So we come closer and closer to reality when we seize these opportunities: to be inspired by reality, when we breathe it in with curiosity.

The Path to Simplicity

The breath leads us to simplicity. It is thinking that creates complexity. When it becomes too much for us, simply focusing on the breath is enough to recognize what is important and what is unimportant, what to do and what not to do. The truth of the breath is always simple and at the same time obvious. Where thinking creates doubt, the breath shows us clarity. Where thinking becomes confused, the breath opens our eyes. By breathing consciously, we interrupt our wild thoughts and find our way back to ourselves.

Integration on All Levels

The breath integrates us on all levels of our being. It is involved in all the life-sustaining functions of our body. It keeps processes running, not only by constantly supplying the necessary oxygen, but also by keeping the body moving, day and night. Even when life retreats to its absolute minimum during deep sleep, breathing continues. Even when the body (with the exception of eye movements) freezes during the REM phases of sleep, the respiratory muscles continue to work. We can use the voluntary control of breathing to strengthen our health. This is because “proper” breathing is the guarantee of a sustainably healthy organism.

Breathing accompanies and supports our emotional life. Every emotion has its own breathing pattern with which it can shape its course. Emotions therefore use breathing to unfold and find expression. We can also regulate our emotions through our breathing. On the one hand, breathing helps us to calm emotions that trouble us because of their intensity; on the other hand, it helps us to access emotions that are locked away inside us but still weigh heavily on us. For some, it is important to find access to their anger so that they no longer have to put up with everything in their lives. For others, access to feelings of grief and emotional pain is blocked, and they fall into sorrow and depression; breathing can help them to let their feelings of grief flow, thereby providing relief and regaining vitality.

The First Gateway to the Spiritual World

The breath is the first gateway to the spiritual world. Every meditation is conscious breathing, and conscious breathing is meditation. Focusing on the breath is focusing on what constitutes our inner self, on the spiritual within us. We discover who we are in the breath, again and again, as soon as we become aware of our breath.

Breath itself is not a thing, nor is it a process, but rather that which manifests itself in breathing. Just as the spirit manifests itself in the processes of reality, breath takes shape in every breath. Without “the breath,” breathing is a purely mechanical process. However, this view is only possible for an uninvolved observer. For the person breathing, it is always the breath that is activated by breathing. This also applies to the breath of an observing person.

Just as there is no matter without immateriality, there is no breathing without breath. More precisely, materiality presents itself only in abstract form, that is, as something extracted, something torn from a whole for specific purposes. When we observe breathing from an external point of view, we separate the spiritual aspect of it in order to gain insights or make interventions that we would not otherwise be able to achieve. Free from any purpose, it is solely the breath that flows in every act of breathing and that fills every act of breathing.

Breathing therefore plays a leading role at all levels of our being. It also constantly connects these levels so that they do not appear as distinguishable aspects of our being, but are experienced as a whole. Every breath is simultaneously and inseparably physical, emotional, and spiritual. Breath awareness is therefore always physical, mental, and spiritual. In it, there is no distinction between these aspects; they are one in the breath, which means that we are one with ourselves in the breath. In it, there is also no distinction between the inner world and the outer world, so we are one with the world as a whole.

Further reading:
Respiratory Philosophy in Brief

Depth as a dimension of man

There are people who impress us with a special quality that has nothing to do with intelligence, communication skills, craftsmanship or spirituality, but with a peculiar quality of being human in the sense of wisdom and mature understanding of the human soul. According to Hanzi Freinacht, this dimension can be described as "depth".

"States" and "Depth“

The scale of differing states makes a distinction between lower and higher states in which humans find themselves: Sometimes you're in a good mood, sometimes less. Some people grumble day by day on their emotional minimum, others are always in a good mood, and some are more or less permanently in the higher spheres of bliss. This is the scale of inner states between hell and heaven, with many gradations in between. These states are volatile and can change quickly, but most people live within a certain range of moods. Through meditation and other inner practices more permanent higher states can be reached and maintained.

This scale of states, which is described in other models as well, e.g. by Ken Wilber, is not the dimension of depth, which is explained in more detail below.

"Depth" in the sense of Freinacht is a relationship of the individual to reality as a whole, an inner quality that is often associated with wisdom. It is the ability to embrace the manifold aspects of life. The more inner states, emotions and moods someone has experienced, pleasant and unpleasant, high and low, the more depth there is.

Getting to know means not only being shaken by violent emotions or life crises, but also the conscious experience of going through such processes, in certain forms of processing. "Deep" people are therefore not those, who are always in a good mood and who can think of a joke for every situation, but people who have experienced highs and lows in the course of their lives, who have gone through and grown through crises, who have met challenges they could master.

Such experiences give rise to a profound relationship to fundamental aspects of reality in subjective experience. "Depth is the number of states that have become inseparable parts of us; integrated into our memories and personalities" (p. 282). The range of this dimension includes agony, the state of despair and hopelessness and ecstasy, the emergence from all limiting habits, and the celebration of the fullness of life, and all facets between these extremes of human existence. "Depth is a person’s innermost recognition of the greatness and/or seriousness of reality.“ (p. 283) The development of depth changes the relationship to the world and existence as a whole in the form of an "implicit knowledge", a form of wisdom that speaks from the recognition of the moment rather than from knowledge acquired from books.

This dimension of depth can be divided into three aspects, according to the classical trinity of truth (the mystery), justice (the tragedy) and beauty.

Beauty

The experience of beauty is about depth in complete subjectivity: beauty is always bound to the eye of the beholder. It is a first-person relationship to reality. The gaze that focuses on beauty is in a very deep, unique way in contact with reality, ready to appreciate all its richness. It exposes the individual which, in all its variations and forms, deserves admiration as soon as the gaze on beauty brings it out of the uniformity of appearances. This gaze is the highest form of appreciation possible.

The perspective of beauty reveals insights into reality that add an invaluable quality to the experience of being human. It always sees more than the surface, even if there are apparently only surfaces to see; this special view goes into depth and recognizes the whole in detail. An image of Van Gogh or Picasso that we see in a museum can be an overwhelming experience if we engage with the profound dimension of beauty.

Not only art, but also the realm of nature and of human experience - in interpersonal and self-encounter relationships - offer access to the quality of beauty and thus to the depth of experience. Without beauty, life would be an error, to paraphrase a sentence by Nietzsche.

Truth

The search for the truth leads to mystery. There is a special sublimity in the encounter with reality created by the drive to gaining knowledge - the will to decipher the fundamental mystery of reality. The mystery is only "unveiled" in its greatness if it is a search for truth for the sake of truth.

Here the ego refers to reality as an impersonal "it" - as a third person, as an object, whose essence, however, is respected in a special way: It should not primarily serve a human purpose, but should be recognized as it works inwardly for its own sake.

Truth seekers do not necessarily need a degree or a scientific qualification. For the determination to acquire knowledge is first and foremost an existential and spiritual undertaking in which every human being can take part. Scientists and researchers are only professionals and specialists in this broad field of human mysticism.

Justice

The question of what is good inevitably confronts us with the tragedy of human existence. Human life never proceeds according to plan, in a premeditated order, but takes unpredictable and surprising, sometimes overwhelming turns every day. At times, we have the impression that we have everything under control and everything resides inside the green zone, and then it throws us around again so heavily that we hardly can find support.

This brings us to the fact of universal suffering: "There is a fundamental and logically necessary brokenness of reality itself. And before you know it, you start falling apart as you get assigned to a crash course for death. All that blooms, including childhood, love relationships and friendships (especially those), must either rot or wither away to be lost and forever forgotten." (p. 292)

Life is not a gimmick, it contains an essential dimension of seriousness that we cannot eliminate by discussion or meditation. This is the aspect of tragedy, and according to Hanzi it is precisely from this point that the impulse to take action for solidarity and shared humanity arises. From the clear realization of the tragedy of existence he concludes that there is a need for “surrender to the primacy of the ‘thou’, the you-ness of reality; the ‘youniverse’”. “Being you“ shows itself as a genuine reality in the second person: "I am nothing without you. I am born through you, and I must live, ultimately, in service of you".

Facing tragedy, then, we should enter into active charity and solidary orientation , which can never come to an end with its work, but which in every act is worthwhile and profitable for the giving and receiving part. Where there is tragedy, happiness is to grow through actions of love thus multiplying the good qualities in the world.
I would add, that acting for the higher good can also flow from states of inner freedom, as a special form of self-expression, not only from the experience of tragedy. If we are free of fear, we are not only not mean to our fellow human beings, but we help them gladly and with joy.

Freinacht closes this chapter of his book with the following sentences: "Only a sense of tragedy can drive us to work for the wretched of the earth: Loving until it hurts. ... that only broken hearts can save the world. Only broken hearts can save the world." (p. 293) Certainly it is not the one-dimensional administrators of power who, with their polished egos, can steer human destiny towards a constructive direction, but people with depth and maturity. But it will probably take some time before this insight has seeped into the depths of the souls of a sufficiently large number of citizens and voters.
Hanzi Freinacht: The Listening Society. Metamodern Guide to Politics. Book One. Metamoderna 2017