Staying with the Breathe

Concentration without Tension

Making time to stop, pause and breathe, is crucial to our wellbeing. Without a practice of pausing from our habit of hyperactivity, we are unlikely to be calm, centred and aware to respond and not simply react to what is happening around us.

A story from the Zen Buddhist tradition about a man and his horse makes this point beautifully. The horse is galloping quickly, and it appears that the man on the horse is going somewhere very important. He’s flying along, his gaze in front. A person alongside the road shouts, ‘where are you going?’ and the man calls back ‘I don’t know! Ask the horse!’

He is unskilled – not holding the reigns with enough presence to guide the horse in an appropriate direction. This can often be our story. We are riding our 'mind-horse', urged along by the momentum of thoughts and emotions; lost in thought, we don’t know where we are going or what skills to apply to direct our attention. It is our habit pulling us along, and we can find ourselves powerless. Always running is so exhausting.