MY CHILDHOOD EXPERIENCES

And The Sidetracks

Parent Page : Body and Breathing Awareness

These experiences are so very valuable to me now, because they developed naturally, without any abstract thought or learning. They were naive and pure.

The basics are described in Body and Breathing Awareness.
My experiences started when i was very young. It was normal and habitual, at nights before sleep, i would breathe and feel my whole body expanding and contracting.

I thought that i breathed into and out of my belly, and this somehow caused the whole body to expand and contract.

The feeling of expansion and contraction would regularly lead to a loss of spacial sense, i would feel as big as the room or very very small; often as well, with a floating feeling. This was happening from at least age 10 or 11.

There are two other memories i have, which will also seem highly suspicious to the sceptical mind; but they come from a time when i didn't even know what a sceptic was. They developed naturally in a child's mind, they must have some value. One is the x-ray vision. The other is the little people.

I must have been a teenager when i started talking with my Mum about my experiences. She couldn't relate to most of it.

But i learnt that my Mum had a very nervous first pregnancy. And so for me, the second child, she went to pre-natal breathing and relaxation classes. She continued doing what she learnt there throughout her life, often saying this 40 minutes lying down in the afternoon, breathing, was more refreshing than the nights sleep.

So i believe i started learning my Mum's breathing practices in her womb.

Note: Breathing lying down and sitting

I was maybe lucky – i only practised awareness of my breathing when i was lying down and relaxed; this stimulates the feeling of whole body breathing. By contrast, when sitting the expansion in the legs is minimal, because the butt is under the pressure of sitting on it.

Sidetracks

When i was around 17 i started reading, and found Buddhism with it's breathing exercises. I immediately felt the connection and started doing the exercises.

My biggest detour was to count the breaths one to ten and then start again, as a way of focussing and fixing the attention. I was so naive, and so impressed to have found something which seemed to speak to me and my breathing practice after years of useless 1960s school discipline.

It was in the commentary of the bestselling trend book "The Heart of Buddhist Meditation" written by a German who'd adopted a fine sounding Buddhist name.

I started developing only mind and tactile sense. And i started to lose the completion of the original feeling.

I now recognise all this was totally useless except as a concentration and willpower exercise.

Concentrating on the breath in my nostrils (without any mention of awareness of the smell) was another silly thing which "The Heart of Buddhist Meditation" advised.

Was there anyone, anywhere who would help young people be creative in their own way?

All the sidetracks, the clever things 'honourable teachers' were suggesting, with so many fascinating astral worlds and chakras and hidden 'spiritual' secrets to read about and experiment with; all of them so much more colourful, and socially attractive and admirable than my naive childhood experiences. Either that or stiff solid fixed rules, agendas, teachings, and dogmas.

Looking back, the only really good and helpful experiences were in meetings where we sat in silence with the awareness of meeting together and waiting.

My original experience pre-18 was far more pure and real, simple and beautiful than almost anything i've learnt since. And i largely forgot these experiences and wasn't able to recreate them, until i started empathising with animals.

I have a guiding rule these days to only do simple things which anyone and everyone can do. Any specific religious direction, anything with initiation rites, anything which involves clever theories or mystical beliefs; and all the antitheses, the people who criticise without offering any alternative; all these are useless and only lead to division in our culture.

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