Breathing

It is commonly heard that zazen is a simple practice that consists merely of following breathing. This matter of following breathing is in fact full of important implications.

For one thing, it is not we who breathe. As we go about our daily lives, we are not usually aware of breathing, and yet we breathe. As I sit in zazen, if I feel that I am taking breaths myself, I recognize that as a distortion of the truth. When I become aware of efforting like this, I try to back off from deliberate breathing and just watch the breath. I try to back out of breathing and just watch.

It takes some practice to do this. However, I recognize that backing myself out like this may eventually bring the realization, stressed especially by teachers from Hinduism such as Nisargadatta and Ramana Maharshi, that I am not the mover of myself but the moved.   



Also, backing myself out like this is the essence of zazen, which is to render self less important in my life or to drop it completely. When the self abates or vanishes, who we truly are emerges. Our real personality comes to the fore, and we become truly ourselves. We become full human beings.