For the past 4 months I am practicing the hong sau technique(not regularly) but I am continuously facing a problem. Each time I concentrate on my breath I become very restless. I have to force air to get in my lungs I feels as if something inside me is resisting the flow of air & as soon as I start concentrating on other thing other than breathing my breath automatically calm down. I observed that during meditation I unknowingly do upperchest breathing rather than abdominal breathing.Please help
—Prashant Malik, India
Dear Prashant,
What is it that frightens us when watching the breath? Tension keeps us from relaxing and enjoying the breath as it goes in and out. Why the tension?
Just saying, relax, won’t necessarily make it happen. Therefore, you need to trick yourself into relaxing and in time you will enjoy watching the breath. As you say when you are concentrating on other things, you relax. Of course, you don’t want to have your mind wander on other things while doing this wonderful centering meditation technique.
Try to use the words, therefore, themselves — Hong on the incoming breath and then Sau on the outgoing breath — as your focus, rather than the breath itself. See if this would work. The meaning behind Hong Sau is, in itself, very inspiring: “I am He”. This phrase will help you to keep your attention on main reason for meditation, to find the divine self within. Let us know how this works for you.
Joy to you, Seva
