Pranayama is a practice of slowing down the breathing—while in a simple yoga posture. It’s a discreet breathing practice that often gets overlooked in the popular world of yoga.

When beginning any practice, it’s natural to aim for results. If you are new to yoga, you might seek perfected postures or peace of mind, because this is what we are often promised. After practicing yoga for a while, you start to realize that goals are elusive. When you finally achieve these goals, you see that awareness of the process itself—rather than the result-- is the most important thing.

You may achieve a posture and lose it due to injury. Or a loved one dies and your peace of mind get shattered. Perhaps your career was just coming together and a global pandemic hit. Poof! Goals are impermanent and elusive. What you thought would be a prize is not a prize at all, but just a new vantage point.

The Path Is The Goal

An evolving yoga practice will shift focus over the years and reveal new insights. Goals that brought you to yoga in the first place might be replaced by new motivations as you deepen your awareness.

As Buddhist meditation master Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche said, the path is the goal.

The goal, if there is one, is to be right where you are.

Focusing On The Breath

The breath is the most convenient tool for getting into the present moment. It is always with us, and is a direct mirror of your state of mind. Steady your breath, and you automatically steady your mind.

In order to steady the breath, you need to align your posture, which is the benefit of yoga asana. When you start aligning the posture, the subtle channels (nadis) start to clear, allowing the inner winds (prana) to flow without obstruction. Once the prana is flowing, the mind naturally settles.

When you stop to observe the breath, another part of the brain engages, letting you drop conceptual mind and enter into another, subtler state of awareness. “Getting into your body” is just another way of saying focusing on the breath.

This naturally takes you out of your thinking mind.

Observing the breath will:

• slow you down to pay better attention

• help you develop awareness

• immediately bring you into the present

• relax and de-stress you

• show you where you might be holding tension

• engender a sense of ease

• bring you into the body, to alert you to any insights or warning signs that might be unconscious

Pranayama: Breathing Practice

The art of breathing is a practice in itself. Nowhere else is such untapped power to be found within our reach, literally right under your nose. This is where to begin and is also the foundation for the subtlest and most advanced practices.

The formal technique of breathing practice is called pranayama. Prana is sometimes translated as “life force.” Prana rides the breath, and since it is otherwise impossible to measure prana, the breath is the only manifest indicator we have to observe the flow of prana. Pranayama practice consists of different ways of manipulating or “stretching” (ayama) the breath in order to move the prana.

When we have blockages in our system, due to injury, illness or years of patterned behavior, prana can stagnate, and in essence, boycott certain areas of the body and mind. Working with the breath in pranayama practice can dissolve these obstacles and create clear pathways in the subtle energy channels of the body. Then the life force can flow freely, unobstructed. The results are sometimes intangible, but clearly noticeable. When someone radiates good health, prana is thriving.

A Simple Breathing Technique

The simplest way to begin is to:

• Lie on the floor with the feet flat on the floor, up by the hips, knees toward the ceiling. Separate the feet. Alternatively, lie down with your legs up the wall.

• Place the fingers on the low belly, about four inches below the navel. Notice the movement of the belly, or the lack of it as you breathe. Spend a few minutes just watching the relationship between the movement of the belly and the breath.

• Relax the muscles of the face; relax the jaw and tongue. Gradually slow down and deepen the breath so that the belly rises and falls with each inhale and exhale, respectively. Spend a few moments just observing the breath without trying to do anything particular with it. Just watch.

• Let the lungs expand against the ribcage on the inhale. As you exhale, try to keep the ribcage expanding. Keep the seed or physical memory of the inhale as you exhale, and vice versa. On inhaling, the tendency is to float up and lose your ground. So during inhale, make an effort to stay grounded, keeping in contact with the pelvic floor, and engaging the muscles of the very low belly. As you exhale, the tendency is to collapse the heart and give in to gravity. Here the instruction is to remember to be uplifted and light. So keep lightness in the exhale, and ground in the inhale

• At any point on the spectrum of the breath cycle, maintain the awareness of the opposing force. If you favor the inhale over the exhale, you might take on too many projects. If you favor the exhale, you might prefer the release of freedom and fear commitment. Becoming aware of these preferences can change your life: by helping you become aware of where you are out of balance.

Listen to a guided pranayama practice here:

Breath and mind are intimately linked. The quality of breath gives you clues about your state of mind. Learn to read the breath so that you can maintain harmony in the mind and body. Breath generally avoids tight spots; so try extending an invitation to the breath to help soften those areas.

Like any aspect of the yoga practice, there are two ways to approach things: too tight and too loose. Look for the balance between the two poles.

The one thing advanced yoga practitioners know?

The breath is the most powerful tool to access awareness and realize that there is no goal.

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