I hope you're able to spend some time (awake) lying on your bed or somewhere alone, just slowing down your breath, following as many small details of the breathing process as possible: how cool the air crossing your nostrils compared to the warmth on its way out; how your belly swells as the diaphram drops, enlarging the lungs, pulling in air; how a fuller breath swells the chest, perhaps even the upper chest, reversing in that order on exhalation.   Gently lengthen the exhalation by engaging a slight contraction of  muscles at the base of the throat, producing the sound of the waves washing in and out with each breath.  This mild resistance slows the exhalation and enriches the cells with oxygen.  By satisfying your attention with these details; content with the slowing rate of breathing; your innate capacity for what may be called blissfulness comes forward.

    By this practice, over time, we learn to distract ourselves from the stress of life, by finding this inner peacefulness. This peaceful refuge is grounded in our physical senses, and does not originate in our rationality. We're prevented from living within this peacefulness all of the time by our inability to focus our attention steadily on it.  This is the goal of practice: to live moment to moment within the feeling tone of deep relaxation.

    The Sanskrit word, "yoga," is defined as "yoking the mind to the body." One would yoke the mind to the body in order to enjoy the fruits of an integrated organism, good health, understanding and well-being.  Learning to keep the mind focused on the body is the first step.   As we begin the practice, it is the passage of the breath within the body itself that is our focus.  As our inner eye improves, it is the ever-changing inner life of sensory information that we witness, becoming increasingly able to specifically monitor and influence how we feel moment to moment.  In theory, the process of yoking the mind to the body is complex; but in practice, it is natural and easily accessible to our own experience provided a person is ready for practice.

    During my dear friend’s illness, we spent time together practicing our conscious breath attention, but it was so difficult for him to find his inner peacefulness at that point. Morphine was required for pain control and became a substitute for his inner capacities. I learned again how important it is to start early and develop this attentive skill before it is sorely needed. What is subtle at first, becomes self-evident with practice, but is difficult to find in deeply medicated states.  We each have the capacity for deep relaxation and self-repair, but we each also must apply ourself to these ends in a timely fashion if we are to learn how to use them.

I'm hoping you can find the time to practice just a little today....