The Tao of Natural Breathing_ For Health, Well-Being, and Inner Growth - Dennis Lewis [60]
30 Awaken Healing Light, pp. 185-86.
31 Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, trans. Victor H. Mair (New York: Bantam Books, 1990), p. 69.
32 Taoist reverse breathing often occurs spontaneously for anyone making great physical effort, especially in sports, martial arts, and so on, since it can help to generate outward force through the various limbs. To intentionally activate this form of breathing is quite difficult, however, and can, if done prematurely, cause a great deal of tension and have ill effects on the organism. Before trying reverse breathing it is best to have worked with abdominal breathing for at least several months.
33 Tzu Kuo Shih, Qi Gong Therapy: The Chinese Art of Healing with Energy (Barrytown, N.Y.: Station Hill Press, 1994), p. 35.
34 Robert B. Livingston, in Gentle Bridges: Conversations with the Dalai Lama on the Sciences of the Mind, eds. Jeremy W. Hayward and Francisco J. Varela (Boston: Shambhala, 1992), p. 174.
35 See pp. 47-54 of Qi Gong Therapy for a further discussion of some of the physiological results of respiratory exercises.
36 Chuang Tzu, Basic Writings, trans. Burton Watson (New York: Columbia University Press, 1964), p. 74.
37 Alexander Lowen, The Spirituality of the Body: Bioenergetics for Grace and Harmony (New York: Macmillan, 1990), pp. 37-38.
38 Pranayama, p. 31-32.
39 The Complete Works of Lao Tzu, p. 12.
40 Basic Writings, p. 138.
41 Tarthang Tulku, Time, Space, and Knowledge: A New Vision of Reality (Emeryville, Calif.: Dharma Publishing, 1977), p. 5.
42 The Perceptible Breath, p. 32.
43 From an article by Magda Proskauer, “The Therapeutic Value of Certain Breathing Techniques,” in Charles Garfield, ed., Rediscovery of the Body: A Psychosomatic View of Life and Death (New York: A Laurel Original, 1977), pp. 59-60.
44 Recent biomedical research, such as that reported in Moyers’s Healing and the Mind, makes it clear that what we think and feel can have an immediate positive or negative impact on our whole body, including our immune system. Of course, Taoism and other traditions have been aware of the influence of our thoughts and feelings on our health for thousands of years.
45 Norman Cousins, Anatomy of an Illness (New York: Bantam Books, 1979).
46 Mantak Chia, Taoist Ways to Transform Stress into Vitality (Huntington: N.Y.: Healing Tao Books, 1985), p. 33.
47 William James, Psychology (Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Publications, 1963), p. 335.
48 Moshe Feldenkrais, The Elusive Obvious (Cupertino, Calif.: Meta Publications, 1981), p. 61.
49 Paul Ekman and Richard J. Davidson, “Voluntary Smiling Changes Regional Brain Activity,” Psychological Science: A Journal of the American Psychological Society, Vol. 4, No. 5 (September 1993), p. 345.
50 Phone conversation with Candace Pert, May 9, 1995 (see also note 15).
51 Taoist Ways to Transform Stress, p. 33.
52 For a contemporary, detailed description of scientific findings and Taoist beliefs regarding saliva, see the Winter 1993 issue of The Healing Tao Journal, Healing Tao Books, P.O. Box 1194, Huntington, NY 11743.
53 In Search of the Miraculous, p. 181.
54 The Healing Brain, p. 202.
55 From an article entitled “The Body’s Guards” in Living Right (Winter 1995), p. 23.
56 Master Mantak Chia writes extensively about the microcosmic orbit in his 1993 book Awaken Healing Light, and offers readers many practical techniques for opening the governor and functional channels.
57 Awaken Healing Light, p. 170.
58 Awaken Healing Light, p. 496.
59 See Mantak Chia’s book Taoist Ways to Transform Stress for the complete six healing sounds practice, including physical movements and postures.
60 My first experience with bellows breathing was highly instructive, since I had not yet understood how to breathe naturally. It took place during a spiritual retreat. On the first day, advanced breathing exercises were given to all of us, even beginners. To be sure, everyone at the retreat was told that these exercises should not be done from the ego or the will, but rather from a state of relaxation and exploration. But being instructed how