Use code SUMMERPRACTICE for a 25% discount on all On Demand Courses through August 31.

Whole body breathing to regulate your mind and body

With Vidyamala Burch recorded on April 2, 2023.

Found our teachings useful? Help us continue our work and support your teachers with a donation. Here’s how.

In this session Vidyamala introduces key areas of body awareness where mindful breathing can help to bring about regulation and calm in the body/heart/mind. She calls these the 5 B’s of the breath: Buttocks, Belly, Back, Back of the throat and Brain.

She introduces the physiology of these areas and then leads a guided meditation.

Click here to download the session slides.

Video about the four diaphragms.

Listen to the audio version below, or click here to download the mp3.

Discussion

Leave a Reply

Discover more from the Dharma Library

  • The Energy of Presence

    This session explores ways that qigong, a Chinese energy cultivation practice, can deepen our embodied presence. There is discussion, intention-led movement and meditation to help ground our awareness, free up blockages and discover ways to open to our natural vitality. All levels of experience and abilities welcome, and options for limited mobility and seated qigong are shared.

    Read More

  • How to Find Equanimity Amidst Upheaval

    We are deeply habituated to seek equanimity as if it’s a state to be found. In times of crisis, stakes are high. We try harder. The more desperate we feel, the more effort we put in. In this striving, we forget to ask: “Who is it that’s striving?” This question isn’t about finding the right…

    Read More

  • Daily Meditation Recordings, with Christopher Titmuss – Week of 06 January, 2025

    We are grateful to have Christopher Titmuss guiding our Daily Meditation sessions this week. May these sessions support and deepen your practice.

    This week’s theme is: Each Moment, New Moment

    A week of practice to begin the year, with reflections on beginnings, commitments and a free attitude to life.

    Our Dharma Library thrives through collective generosity. Your donation helps sustain this offering for our entire community.

    Read More

  • Scott Tusa

    Our Struggles Are the Path

    This session will explore how our struggles can become stepping stones on our path to growth. By learning to meet difficulties with openness and compassion, we can transform obstacles into opportunities. The session will draw upon Buddhist teachings and include guided meditation, a dharma talk, and some time for Q&A. Participants are encouraged to bring…

    Read More

  • Nicola Redfern

    Not Knowing is Most Intimate

    The Buddha spoke often about the danger of clinging to views and opinions. He recommended we avoid clinging, even to the dharma and to “right view.” In a world increasingly torn apart by our adherence to differing viewpoints, how do we navigate the tension between knowing and not knowing? Our exploration will draw from the…

    Read More

  • Vimalasara Mason-John

    Breath as Medicine

    Join us for our first Sunday Sangha session of the year on January 5th with Vimalasara Mason-John, inviting us to breathe into the new year with equanimity. It was through the potency of the breath that Prince Siddhartha became awake. It’s said that at the time of enlightenment, the Buddha was practicing anapanasati, the mindfulness…

    Read More

  • photo of Martin Aylward smiling

    An Open Heart in Hell

    After a summer of extreme heat, drought and fire, we may well enter the autumn wondering how to manage the grief at our fragile and collapsing ecology. Taking the title An Open Heart in Hell from Nick Mulvey’s recent song “Prayer of my Own“, we’ll use this session to honour the pains of the heart without getting…

    Read More

  • Liberation Now: From the Progressive Path to Direct Experience

    In a progressive path approach to practice, we sometimes fall for the idea that liberation is in the future. We are conditioned to believe that we must end thinking, master practices, meditate for years, and purify our minds. Without realizing it, our beliefs can maintain the conditioning that stands in the way of our direct…

    Read More