Experience Lab: Taoist Breathing Practice

Experience Lab: Taoist Breathing Practice

Take a deep breath and feel the limitations of your breathing.

Taoists have always been fascinated by breath and started investigating how to breach breath’s limits and open up the possibilities and reach of breathing thousands of years ago.

Breath is called “Qi” (as in qigong), but Qi is not just breath. It is this connection between human breath and what we could call the “breath of the universe” that became the subject of the Taoists’ search for longevity and health and the union with Dao, the Way.

Using breathing practice examples from ancient Taoists such as Laozi, the Old Master, and from Taoist internal alchemy, we explore common breathing and the ultimate goal of the breath of Dao in theory and practice.

We also look at the nineteenth-century Taoist manual Wuxi Zhi Zhi (“Direct Instructions for the Five Breathings”), translated by Dr. Dan KJ…