• Explores the culminating instruction of the Buddha in the Satipatthana Sutta to breathe through the whole body
• Teaches you how to alter your physiology to move beyond the static consciousness of mindfulness to a natural, spontaneous state of embodied awareness
• Provides instruction and somatic koans for practicing the core principles of radiant mindfulness-awakening the body, liberating the breath, and opening up to vision and sound
Drawing on the Buddha's teachings, Will Johnson provides a daily practice that moves beyond the static consciousness of mindfulness to a natural, spontaneous state of embodied awareness. Acknowledging the foundational importance and structural limitations of mindfulness practice, he explores the often overlooked culminating instruction of the Buddha in the Satipatthana Sutta to breathe through the whole body.
Through somatic reflections and meditations, Johnson shows you how to alter your physiology to change consciousness. He explains how to move through levels of conscious awareness, from the passive observation of the breath and the reality of this present moment to radiant mindfulness-an awakening of the body, liberation of breath, and opening up to vision and sound. In this state, the "I" disappears but awareness becomes heightened and unfiltered, allowing a direct experience of unity with the world and within oneself.
This book offers ways to spontaneously achieve the enlightened state beyond the mind that the Buddha taught as the true goal of meditation. The simple yet profound practice of radiant mindfulness can transform everyday life into a path of spiritual awakening. Will Johnson is the director of the Institute for Embodiment Training and the founder of Bambu Hueco, a retreat center in Costa Rica that views the body as the doorway to spiritual growth and transformation. The author of several books, including Breathing through the Whole Body, The Radical Path of Somatic Dharma, Breathing as Spiritual Practice, and Eyes Wide Open, he teaches a deeply body-oriented approach to sitting meditation at Buddhist centers around the world. He lives in Costa Rica. You Are How You Breathe
How are you breathing? Right now. In this very moment as you're reading these words on a page or screen. Don't change a thing. Just stay in the headspace that you're in and take a moment to tune in to how you're breathing before reading any further . . .
The quality of your breath is a mirrored reflection of your state of being in this moment. How you breathe creates who you are.
one kind of breath
raises you up in the radiance of love
another kind of breath
gossips and starts wars
Rumi
What kind of breath breathes you when you're absorbed in language or thinking, either creatively or subconsciously, when you're centered in the mind of words? How much oxygen is entering your body on your inhalation as you read these words? How much used air leaves your body as you exhale?
The all too obvious answer is . . . not very much. Lost in thought or engrossed in language, very little breath goes in and out of your body. You breathe enough to keep the body alive but not enough to liberate its innate radiance.
Most of the time when you're fully engaged in whatever you're doing and suddenly think to turn your attention to how you're breathing, you quickly realize that there's really not much breath happening at all. What breath there is, is shallow, slight, faint, with only a very small amount of air entering and leaving your body. And the body hardly moves. The diminished breath that creates the consciousness that passes as normal in the world is dependent on imposing stillness onto your body. The rib cage hardly moves. Neither does the spine. The head sits still atop the rest of the body. The consciousness that passes as normal in the world at large holds back the breath, and the way you hold back on anything is to freeze and become still.
The stilln
