“All we need to do to make use of it is to deepen our attentional skills and…”

“It’s quite amazing: we can control our breath, which means we can control the state of our autonomic nervous system…”

“This is the real benefit of doing yoga practices, and the primary reason for doing them.”

Don’t forget your corrective lenses.

“Today, we flip that. We start with the breath.”

“It anchors us in the body. It allows us to experience the body sensations that are unfolding in real time as we breathe…”

“…not of their business, not of their riches or poverty, their pains or their pleasures…”

“…as a crucial link between the material world, the human body, the psyche, and…”

“In this work, we have demonstrated that nasal breathing counteracts the effects of gravity on pulmonary blood flow in the upright position by redistribution of blood to the nondependent lung regions.”

Of course, there are many powerful nervous system and brain changes going on, but this is the true real-world power of contemplative practices involving breathing. 

What better way to appreciate again and again, freshly and naively, this most basic good of life?

“Doing this …will gradually change your brain, and how you feel and act, in far-reaching ways.”

Rather than being something that needs to be “suppressed” or “changed,” let’s view them as…

“But with breathing techniques, it is possible…”

“…because everything is pulling you to be more and more…”

“What if learning how to inhabit silence and stillness and awareness—especially when you do so with kindness, with patience, and with self-compassion—is itself healing?”

“In some cases, they can radically transform lives.”

It’s an interesting idea to contemplate…

It is the tip of the iceberg, so to speak, with the remaining 70 percent…

“As we see it, the most compelling impacts of meditation are…”