August 2025: 5 Breaths
Vinyasa yoga is about sequence with specific intention. The following 5 components are the foundational criteria that makes a practice a vinyasa. This five breath exercise serves as a simple and always accessible vital reset that can be practiced anywhere you have 30 seconds, as well as profound transformational practice.
Breath One - Awareness
“The best and the greatest is breath” - Brihad-Aranyaka-Upanishad
On this breath, just be aware of the breath. As best you can. Observe. Start with the inhale. Follow it. Observe. You don’t need to change it. But you may find just the awareness may change it. Do your best to stay present at the beginning of your inhale, middle of the inhale and end of the inhale. Let the transition from inhale to exhale be a trigger to reinvigorate your attention to this breath, this moment, observing with the same enthusiasm your exhale. Follow the exhale. Beginning. Middle. End. You may find just the intention of awareness alone will change the way you breathe - will slow your breath down. Like a piece of video you’re editing in your phone, expanding the time line to observe each single frame. It is this practice of awareness that will bring quality to the rest of the exercise.
Breath Two - Intention
“As is one’s thought, so one becomes. This is an eternal mystery.”
- Maitri Upanishad
On this breath, make an elevated intention. “Intention determines the outcome of any sequence of events.”* What do you want? In this life? In this moment? Stay general, don’t get bogged down in specifics. It could be grand; Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu, happiness for all beings - my thoughts, words and actions being the source. It could be incredibly simple - ‘May I be present for just these 5 breaths’. Or a prayer, ‘help me’, ‘grant me the serenity’, ‘may I be receptive’, ‘let go’. Or even a single word; love, listen, settle, appreciate.
Breath Three - Mula Bandha (root lock)
“Mula Bandha can be practiced by itself or combined with practices like asana, meditation, kriya, and pranayama. Whenever it is used, it focuses the mind on God.” - *Sharon Gannon, David Life, Jivamukti Yoga Book
On this breath gently contract and hold steady the perineal body (near the cervix for women and rectal body for men). At the pelvic floor is Muladhara Chakra, the access point to our energy body. Engaging Mula Bandha (root lock) through one cycle of breath takes the largely mental process of awareness and intention (breaths one & two) and actualizes them into the physical body. This integration is the root source to experience our bodies truly as an instrument for awakening.
Breath Four - Drishti (gaze)
“Truth waits for eyes unclouded by longing” - Toaist Saying
On this breath open your eyes (if closed) and receive the world, without fixing your gaze. Behold your surroundings. The eyes largely are the instruments for the ego. What we see are triggers for comparing, judging, and attachment. Drishti allows us to navigate the external world while remaining settled within our own being-ness, letting go of the incessant categorization of good and bad. When we truly open our eyes, we see what was hidden in plain sight. Close your eyes at the end of the exhale.
Breath Five - This Too Shall Pass
“Your inner being never looks back” - Abraham Hicks
Yoga teaches us that there is no real identity in that which changes. The reality of our world is that nothing is fixed. Everything is in transition. The river is always flowing, and no matter how hard we work, we cannot swim against the current with much success. This may be the single most important understanding in spirituality. Impermanence. You cannot hold on even if you try and trying is only suffering. When practicing yoga asana, when staying engaged in a posture for the average of five breaths, we become intimate with transitions, moving on to the next thing, looking forward. A direct result of seeing the truth, that all things are impermanent, is to becoming increasingly intimate with our eternal nature.
In Yoga we dwell,
Jeffrey
August 2025