Last month a young woman came to my breath session for the first time. We began with stroking along the body walls which she found almost immediately emotionally challenging. Touching her own body, getting in touch with herself, triggered sensations akin to a centrifugal trauma. When I asked her if she felt a movement impulse, she said „I want to leave“. I asked her what the next best alternative – provided she wanted to continue the session – would be. She said „to leave the room“. „Ok, let‘s try that“, I said. „You leave the room and when you feel ready, you come back in.“ When she came back after some minutes we continued stroking along the body walls, trying out different areas of the body, until she felt the impulse to leave again. We spent the whole session like this, touching, her walking out, coming back in. The last time she came back into the room, I looked at her and suddenly realized „She is breathing. This is her way of breathing. Opening, closing, going out, waiting, coming in. It’s symbolic and physical at the same time. By creating a distance, she is bridging the gap.“
Being able to follow her movement impulse, the opening and closing of the door became a door to herself. This way she was able to get in touch with her body at her own pace, which is the prerequisite for getting in touch with the breath. The experience reminded me of the quote from Zen teacher Shunryu Suzuki: „What we call ’I’ is just a swinging door, which moves when we inhale and when we exhale.“
It’s a brave thing to allow oneself to sense one’s own alienation with one’s body, to allow the feelings and thoughts associated with it and to act on them, instead of giving in to them or pushing them away. It takes courage and honesty to embark on this kind of journey to ourselves, to what we call “I”. The body and the breath are our possibilities of transport.
PS I have the young woman‘s permission to write about our session.
Source: Shunryu Suzuki, “Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind: Informal Talks on Zen Meditation and Practice“, Shambhala, 2011