I became completely dedicated to this breathing—I still am. This became a lifestyle.
By Angel Roberto Puente
Before I knew anything about Buddhism or Zen, I learned how to breathe from the Hara.
This was part of my martial arts training. There were two cryptic main instructions: breath down and squeeze the kidneys. Trial and error supplied the rest.
It would take decades for me to work out the details of what this entailed anatomically and psychologically. Volumes have been written about the method since the 60s, when I learned it. It still requires dedicated practice but the underlying mechanism is now much better understood
No theoretical or philosophical background was given at the time about this kind of breathing. Only to locate the breathing three inches below the belly button and that the abdomen remained relaxed and filled with air during inhalation, and exhalation was accomplished by squeezing the “kidneys,” not the muscles at the front of the abdomen (actually it’s the transverse abdominis muscle that is engaged).
I became completely dedicated to this breathing—I still am. This became a lifestyle.
The effects of this breathing were awe inspiring. Especially because it wasn’t colored by any concepts. The first big experience came out of the blue. One night I was waiting on the corner after class for my ride home. As always, I was doing my breathing. Suddenly everything disappeared except a vast silent clear space. When I returned to normality the first thought that came to mind was; this is the way my mind should be. All my former worries disappeared and never came back. I was 17 years old.
The other effect was that I would “disappear” into the forms we practiced in the martial art school. I would become the movements. While sparring, which was very rough, I would merge with the opponent.
I didn’t give the experience any color, I just continued my practice. But something had permanently changed, thoughts were just thoughts, I could let them go by returning to my breathing. Habits, bad experiences, fears and worries succumbed to a deep breath. That silent clear space was always near.
I learned about zazen a few years after my first experience, when a Zen Roshi came to the school in New York and taught us to sit.
I started sitting by myself. For me it was Hara breathing on a cushion. Decades later I joined a Rinzai Zen Center and practiced there for six years. Mostly I wanted to see if the experience I had, which repeated itself, measured up to the Zen experience. It did.
I now know that in some schools of Rinzai Zen this breathing is emphasized. In the center, where I practiced for six years, it wasn’t talked about. When I initially mentioned it to the abbot he didn’t seem to know the specifics. My experience has convinced me that zazen, the kind of meditation that I learned almost 60 years ago, needs no previous view or background. Done well, it is self explanatory. Hara breathing adds a much needed dimension.
There is only one simple rule: give no importance to whatever you “see” or think you understand. Just continue practicing; sitting, standing, in movement, laying down, awake or sleeping.
That vast silent clear space is there. You don’t have to look for it. You don’t have to explain it. You can’t.
Angel Roberto Puente‘s love of investigation started in his infancy when he would take apart the toys he received at Christmas. Erector sets were all he got afterwards. An early experience of the non conceptual set him on a voyage to reconcile a Christian upbringing with Zazen practice and studies in Psychology. Having achieved a comfortable solution he now sits with Morning Star Zendo. A zen group led by a Jesuit Priest/Roshi. As a mature introvert, he still takes things, and now concepts and held beliefs, apart.
Photo: Pixabay
Editor: Dana Gornall
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