Momful Mindfulness

Ujjayi Breath : “Victorious” Breath – Ocean Breath

With my spiritual practice, much of it centers around my breath.  Spearmint is better than pizza with the aromatherapy of this practice, so I do try to keep mints around while I practice this meditation as a personal preference.  The breath is our life force so controlling this force gives rise to control the mind – body connection.  

3-Dimensional Lungs

Our lungs are three dimensional.  During very stressful times, I catch myself breathing short, shallow breaths.  This breathing can actually contribute to, as well as perpetuate, the stressful feeling or mood and is also associated with the flight-or-fight state of being.  Controlling the breath is an essential part of the mindful process.

Focus On The Breath : Visualization

Breath Creates Life

Or with each inhale the wave rolls back and with each exhale the wave rolls forward.  What does that wave look like?  What does the air smell like?  Like salt or ocean or sweet?  Can I feel the water and sand in between my toes as my mind walks between inhale and exhale?  Is there laughing in the distance or is it just me alone, alone back with my breath, and exhale.  I breathe in this way for roughly five breaths.  I create a world within these first breaths.

Time to relax and breathe again but this time let go of the imagination.  I just want to focus on one sense, like sound for one round.  The practice is only focusing on one sense.  If the mind tries to “create” something, I pull back and refocus on the sound element in as much detail as possible.  How does the sound change?  Stay with the sound and only the sound for the next five breaths.  The same technique could be done with the feel of the breath throughout the body.

So why first create a world and then destroy it?  The first goal is to activate the imagination.  The second goal is to activate focus-concentration.  By activating the imagination and then focus-concentration, I find the third goal of a mindful moment is more easily obtained.  For me I found imagination was a stepping stone in developing focus and concentration.

Time to relax and breathe again and this time let go of as much of the sense as possible.  The breath is needed and the senses are there but the focus is as absent as possible.  If the focus sharpens on one of the senses, I pull back, the reverse of what was just practiced with the second set of breaths, pull back.  

There is a pause between the inhale and exhale.  A lull of a moment that is its own ocean.  At the space, or lull, or pause between breaths, the ocean broadens and deepens.  The rest of the mind into mindfulness occurs at this lull, or pause.  The goal is to float within this ocean for as long as possible, or perhaps for only just a moment.