Complete Breath — Pranayama

Comlete Breath

Please be sure that you are comfortable and confident in practicing Abdominal Breath and Ujjayi Breath before trying Complete Breath.

You can think of Complete Breath as a relaxed, quiet variant of long, deep breathing. It is an excellent breath for meditation. Essentially, we try to make the breath cycle into one continuous flow. Imagine the breath as an old, meandering river. To accomplish this, we smooth out the transitions between inhale and exhale, and vice versa, by eliminating any pause.

Let’s break it down.

Inhalation:
Fill your lungs as much as possible and as slowly as possible, starting from the bottom of your belly and expanding up to just under your shoulders. Expand all the way around your torso as you inhale. Imagine a curve of the acceleration of your inhale. Here, we would want this curve to be as flat as possible — very gentle increase through the mid-point of inhalation, and equally gentle de-acceleration.

Exhalation:
We do the same thing in reverse as we exhale. Empty your lungs as much as possible and as slowly as possible. Exhale with very gentle acceleration and de-acceleration of the breath. Also, exhale gradually from the top of your lungs through to the bottom of your belly.

Eliminating Transitions:
Eliminate any pause between segments of the breath. For most people, this is relatively easy when going from inhale to exhale. The gentlest de-acceleration of inhale leads immediately into the gentlest beginning of your exhalation. The transition from exhale to inhale can be much more difficult to smooth out. The trick is to slightly contract your abdomen towards the end of exhale, and hold this slight contraction into the beginning of your inhale. If you do, you should be able eliminate any disruption to the slow, gentle flow of air.

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Pranayama Articles:

Pranayama Practices:

Complete Breath as a Beginning Meditation

As mentioned, this is an excellent breath for meditation. To start, try to sit with it for at least three minutes. Gradually, sit for longer periods, 15 – 20 minutes or longer. While you sit and breathe, try to focus your thoughts on one or more of the following:

The feeling of your body on the ground
The feeling of your spine expanding gently upwards from your tailbone through to the crown of your head
The sensations created by the breath
A mantra — you can use Sa-Ta-Na-Ma. It’s the root form of Sat Nam, or “truth is all.” Intone it silently and very slowly, perhaps twice through on each inhale and three to four times through on each exhale. Adjust to pace for your current practice

Notice what other thoughts come up. Don’t push them away, but don’t get into a dialogue with them either. Just watch them come, let them go, and return to your point(s) of focus. If thoughts recur frequently when you are sitting to meditate, it often indicates unresolved issues, which it may be beneficial to address.

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