Suspire

There was one time and only the one
When dust really took in the sun
And from that one intake of fire
All creatures still warmly suspire.

“Sitting by a Bush in Broad Sunlight”

— Robert Frost

In the latest issue of the journal Biological Psychology, Elke Vlemincx writes that sighs function to rebalance the inherently dynamic and chaotic system of respiration. A sigh acts to reboot the breath.

In situations of stress, breathing patterns become stuck, non-responsive. That causes lungs to become stiff and less efficient. A sigh, defined as at least twice the mean volume of a breath, brings new responsive breath beginning.

This study also indicates that it is only the sighs that arise naturally from within the system that function in this way. Forced sighs do not cause rebalance, but only more tension.

Meditators who take the breath as the object of their meditation will not be surprised by this study.

In the Anapanasati Sutta, the Breath- Mindfulness Discourse, Buddha begins by simply noting: I am breathing in a long breath; I am breathing in a short breath. The meditator witnesses without controlling.

But what is being seen? And who is seeing?

The Latin word for breath is spiritus. This Latin word has many meanings: courage, vigor, life-force.

These meanings intend to refer to something outside the material, physical body.

Yet breath, spirit, is moving within the body. And breath brings into body all that seems to be outside, separate from body.

There is a thought experiment called “Mary’s Room.” Mary is a brilliant neurophysiologist who is forced to examine the world from a black and white room via a black and white television monitor. She measures and defines both the wavelengths that produce color as well as the physiology, retinal and vocal, that produce statements of color recognition. She can recognize and describe clearly what is happening when a lovely blue sky evokes the statement: That is a lovely blue sky.

When Mary is given a color television monitor, will she learn anything new?

The Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh would echo a resounding yes. The experience of color is not given in the conceptualization of it. The experience is ultimately important. He writes:

“People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child — our own two eyes. All is a miracle.”

How could one do more than merely attempt utterance of all this? Like the finger is not the moon to which it points, perhaps there can only be the long sighing breath observed flying after all, over all, all in all.

The sigh is yearning completely. 

— Rx is the FloridaW eekly muse who hopes to inspire profound mutiny in all those who care to rea d. Our Rx ma y be wearing a pir ate cloak of in visibility, but emanating fr om within this shado w is hope that readers will feel free to respond. Who kno ws: You may e ven inspir e the muse. Make contact if you dare.