Welcome!

We invite you, during these weeks, to an online path in which we will explore our habits with play, creativity and a loving encounter with ourselves.

In this path we will use some videos and audios to guide us through meditation. We’ll propose some breathing and movement practices, and a small personal diary to help us keep track of our progress.

Just three breaths

Invitation to practice

The practice of three breaths will accompany us for the entire journey. It is very simple: every time we get out of the whirlwind of thoughts, worries, projects that accompanies us throughout the day, every time we wake up to life, we allow ourselves to take three breaths. We pause while three breaths happen. It may help us to close our eyes, to move more easily from “Thinking to Feeling”. Another help can be to accompany the in breath with a movement and the out breath with a movement during the three breaths. Below are readings by Thich Nhat Hanh and Ezra Bayda to discover this practice.

The Practice of the Three Breaths

by Thich Nhat Hanh

Mindfulness is the kind of energy that helps us recognise and appreciate the things around us. Very often in our lives we are so absorbed in our worries and difficulties that we do not even realise that spring is coming and the trees are blossoming on the road we travel every day. Mindfulness is the practice of meditation in our daily lives. When we realise that our mind wanders and that we have lost contact with our body and the present moment, we can simply stop for a few moments and take three breaths calmly and at ease. Stopping is the first step to becoming happy again. While breathing in awareness we can look around us and if we practise correctly we will discover that in the present moment there are all the conditions necessary for us to be happy. Perhaps our colleagues, teachers, parents or friends have been rude to us and made us suffer, or perhaps our overly busy lives do not leave us the space to stop, but the flowers and trees on the road we travel every day continue to offer us their freshness. The only thing that can deprive us of the joy of appreciating the trees and flowers is our mind. Three breaths are enough to return to ourselves and recognise that both inside and outside of us there are countless conditions in which we can be happy. The sun continues to shine above our heads! If the sun were no longer in the sky every person on earth would suffer greatly, yet it is not often that we stop for a few moments to appreciate the warmth of its rays caressing our faces. If we have the desire to improve our lives and to live happily, we can promise ourselves, for example, to stop and breathe for a few moments every day.

The practice of the three breaths

by Ezra Baida

Sometimes the simplest techniques are also the most effective. Of course, all techniques can be misused; we can easily turn them into ‘self-improvement’ tools, instead of using them as a means to wake up. Furthermore, we can get lost in technique as an end in itself and forget the purpose of practice. Having said this, it is possible that for a very long time it is necessary to concentrate on techniques. Then, gradually, all valid techniques tend to dissolve, making way for the teaching that animates them as an integral part of our identity.

The conscious pause A simple but very effective technique is the so-called ‘three-breath practice’. Normally there are many moments in the day when we ‘come to our senses’, i.e. we simply become aware. Unfortunately, very often these moments last only a few seconds; immediately afterwards we fall back into a state of wide-eyed sleep, in which we are mostly unconscious, lost in thought or in our own drama. Direct observation will confirm the truth of this. The practice of the three breaths helps us to extend these moments of awareness, not only during the session, but throughout the day. The practice of three breaths consists of inserting a conscious pause into the usual state of open-eyed sleep, a pause as long as the duration of three full breaths. Here’s how you do it: every time you ‘come to’ for a moment, formulate a conscious intention to stay there for at least the duration of three full breaths. You do not need to concentrate on the breath, but bring your awareness to the whole experience of the moment, however it is. For example, if you ‘wake up’ in a condition of impatience, do not try to become patient. Just feel, fully feel, the visceral quality of the experience of the present moment, including impatience and all. The delivery is to inhabit the experience for the duration of three full breaths. The practice of three breaths helps to cultivate a very distinct feeling of ‘being here’. Try a little experiment: first bring your attention to your breath, perceiving the coolness of the air entering through your nose. Staying with the sensation of the breath, bring your attention to the overall experience of the body. Now stay with this, as attentively as you can, for the duration of three full breaths. One of the reasons why the practice of three breaths is so useful is that it can be done without intense or sustained effort. It is short and simple, and one can repeat it many times throughout the day regardless of one’s state of mind. In fact, engaging in the exercise could be just as useful when we are happy and relaxed as when we are down in the dumps. We all know that the simple desire to wake up is not enough; the forces that preside over sleep are powerful and tireless. Yet this simple practice, which often offers no particular difficulty, can begin to introduce moments of clarity and presence into the ordinary fog of daydreaming sleep. Rest in the present and remind yourself to feel what is there for at least three full breaths.

Being with discomfort Another interesting and very effective use of the three-breath practice is when we find ourselves in a painful and distressing experience. It is usually very difficult to stay awake in those moments, because we have a natural aversion to discomfort. But with the help of the practice of three breaths it is often possible to come to terms with the ego’s resistance by telling it that we will only stay with the discomfort for the duration of three breaths. The ego is disposed to make this compromise because it maintains the illusion of control, which is its main goal. The practice is then to tell the small mind that you will feel the discomfort for three full breaths, after which you can decide what you want to turn your attention to. Make sure you don’t break the pact: after the three breaths let go of the usual distractions. Then, after a while, repeat the pact, experiencing the discomfort for three more breaths at a time. The surprising aspect of this particular version of the three-breath practice is the ego’s ready acceptance. Often our resistance makes difficult experiences even more difficult. But when it dissolves, it becomes clear that we were resisting nothing more than a series of thoughts that we are convinced of, sometimes accompanied by intense physical sensations. The more deliberately we relate to these moments of suffering, the more we realise that rejecting the experience is more painful than feeling it fully. We learn this fundamental lesson three breaths at a time.