Gimme Room To Breathe an interview with Dennis Lewis by Empty Vessel Part II

This interview with Dennis Lewis was first published in the Fall 2000 issue of The Empty Vessel, A Journal of Contemporary Taoism.

Empty Vessel: Once you have become convinced, can you then use the breath to clear or balance these states?

Dennis Lewis: Well, first of all, the process of being convinced is a lifelong one, because our tendency is to confuse knowing with understanding. But yes, you can begin to work with the breath in such a way that it brings a new sense of internal balance. You don't need work with the breath all the time, day in and day out. Even if it were possible, that would just add to your tension. But if you spend 20 or 30 minutes a day sensing and observing your breath, your tensions, and your emotions, you will begin to become ever more increasingly convinced that something is not quite right, that all of these tensions and constrictions and negative emotions disharmonize the flow of energy and keep you from living as a whole being in harmony with yourself. So you continue the work of self-observation, you continue the work of following the breath toward the unconscious aspects of yourself, to make them more conscious. As you continue this work, you begin to discover that, from a physical standpoint, the breath can be understood as taking place in various spaces of your body, which can be called "breathing spaces." Let's, for the moment, assume the body has three major breathing spaces, although it has more. The first breathing space is from above the navel on down to the feet. The second breathing space is from just above the navel to the top of the diaphragm. The third breathing space is from the top of the diaphragm up to the head. Now in many of us, one or more of these spaces are constricted or clogged up. So not only is there no complete resonance possible in that space, but by clogging up that space, as Chuang Tzu would say, I'm restricting the movement of energy in that particular area through the energy channels to my vital organs, including my brain.

Is one or another of these breathing spaces more likely to become clogged?

Most of us have problems in all the spaces, but the lower breathing space, whose center is in the area of the lower tan tien, as well as the lower part of the middle space, is often the most constricted. There are many reasons for this, including the goal of maintaining a hard, flat belly, but one of the most obvious is that this is where we often experience and store our negative emotions, especially those that we have a difficult time digesting. With natural, authentic breathing the belly wants to expand on inhalation and retract on exhalation. Among many other things, this movement of the belly helps promote diaphragmatic breathing and a healthy immune system. But if my belly is locked up in tension, the movement doesn't take place. This makes my breathing inefficient and robs me of my vitality.

So what can I do if I'm in that situation?

There are many approaches to opening up the breathing spaces of the body. Yoga, qigong, tai chi, dance, body work, and so on can all help. We must remember, however, that we're dealing here with both physical and energetic habits and patterns. Opening up these areas physically and energetically is just the beginning. It is also important to become aware, to sense and observe, the roots of these disharmonies, what's maintaining them in the first place. If I am habitually angry, for example, and that anger is affecting the whole area around my liver, I will most likely have a lot of tensions and blockages in my liver area, of which I may be totally unaware. But if I begin to breathe into that area, if I learn how to allow my breath into that area, these emotions will begin to become more visible to me, and instead of either suppressing them or expressing them in inappropriate, unhealthy ways, I will begin to discover that they can be transformed. But there is still much more to explore. Where is my anger coming from, for instance? What restrictions and constrictions in my perceptions and self-image are producing this anger? What is keeping me from the experience of my own wholeness? Lao Tzu says, if people "can forsake their narrow sense of self and live wholly, then what can they call trouble?".

If people do qigong and tai chi from a narrow self-image, the practices are unlikely to have much transformative power. I often hear people talking in a fuzzy, vain way about their energies, their chi, forgetting that what is really at stake is not just some feeling of energy someplace in the body, but rather a true opening into the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual dimensions of ourselves a real sense of wholeness. But by learning to follow movements and energies of our breath and by working with the various breathing spaces of the body, we can begin to support this opening, this movement toward wholeness and integrity.

How do you work with breath? What do you teach people who come to you?

Many people today have a narrow understanding of what work with breathing is all about. They think first of breath holding, breath counting, alternate nostril breathing, and so on. But this kind of work, what is usually called pranayama, is only one tiny aspect of breathwork. So perhaps the first step is to understand what is actually possible. I have come up with a categorization of breathing work which I think not only helps to clarify certain things which are often confused both in our thinking and practice, but also makes it possible for people to work with their own breathing in a safe, effective way. I teach various practices within each of these seven categories. By the way, except for category number one, there is no particular priority in the way I have ordered these approaches.

The first category is what I would call conscious breathing, learning how to follow your breath, which we have already talked about. This is the foundation of all the other approaches.

The second category is focused breathing. Focused breathing is especially useful when you realize that you have a problem in a particular area or a particular organ. The essence of focused breathing is directing the movement and energy of your breath there into that particular area. You do not use force or willpower to accomplish this, but rather simply your attention and intention.

It's important to understand that when I say breath what I'm really talking about is the movement and energy of breathing. Breath is movement. Life is movement. Breath is life. While the oxygen from the breath always goes into the lungs, the energetic movement of the breath can go anyplace in the body and needs eventually to encompass the whole body.

The third category is what is called controlled breathing. Controlled breathing is classically what is known as pranayama, and often involves breath holding, breath counting, alternate nostril breathing, fast breathing, and so on in order to facilitate some chemical, emotional, or spiritual change. There are many beneficial practices in pranayama or controlled breathing, but people who don't breathe in a natural, harmonious way and do a lot of pranayama can hurt themselves, sometimes very badly. If they don't hurt themselves physically or emotionally they can also mess up their energies. So for beginners I only recommend controlled breathing for very special kinds of issues, such as excessive tension or high blood pressure problem. Most controlled breathing exercises are therapeutic in nature and don't really transform the breathing for the long haul.

This copyright interview has been republished with the permission of Dennis Lewis. You can find more essays and articles by him on his website: http://www.dennislewis.org

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