There are no photos, videos, paintings or sketches of the breath, online or offline. There are no maps, databases or historical documents describing the location, recording the facts or telling the story of an ancient breath or even a contemporary one. All attempts to sing its praises fall far short. It is completely overlooked but totally essential. We all totally rely on it but any attachment to it will never hurt us in the same way other attachments do. Quite the opposite — the more attached and dependent on it we become, the more bliss we feel.
Shouldn’t the breath be the most talked about, widely acclaimed or sung about thing in the world? But there are no blockbuster films, award-winning documentaries, long-running TV series, No 1 chart-topping hits or major global websites about it! The nature of the breath is quiet, humble, gentle, loyal, persistent, patient and kind and these are not descriptions you would normally apply to the media. So we can be thankful, very thankful, that this breath is giving us special attention and oh boy, how we need that special attention! We all get the star treatment, the pampering and the acceptance of our every whim by the breath but we are almost like prima donnas the way we ignore our most devoted companion.
We each have our own unique relationship with the breath and we get out of it what we put into. How fair is that! All other relationships bring disappointments but the breath never disappoints. Having said that, a TV programme about the breath might well be disappointing because very few people have anything to say about it. A science programme about breathing would probably focus on breathing difficulties and apnoea. Apnoea relates to interrupted breathing during sleep and can be found in a standard dictionary. The word for normal relaxed breathing is eupnoea and this is not in a standard dictionary — another sign that normal breathing is not given much significance even by the medical profession. Perhaps it is different in other cultures but western medicine is all about treating abnormal symptoms and not about caring for the healthy body despite the common saying that prevention is better than cure.
So in a world where the news focuses on bad or abnormal things, where entertainment is becoming increasingly bizarre and money-oriented, where pill-taking is seen as the perfectly normal way to be healthy, where there is plenty of food to feed everyone but it is hoarded to make money, where politicians compete to tell the most outrageous lies and see if they can get away with it (and they do), then perhaps it is not so surprising that celebrities and their audiences do not have time to care about this life-giving, love-giving breath.
One of these days, hopefully very soon, someone who really loves this breath will appear on TV, speak about the breath and blow everyone away. Love this breath and your life will change for the better and when it catches on, when the message gets out to the world, well… that will be almost as amazing as the breath itself!