What is Pranayama?

What does Pranayama mean and do we breathe or does the breath breathe us?

Prana in Sanskrit can be defined as 'life force', or the breath, and Yama means 'control', so Pranayama can be thought of as 'breath control'.

Some examples of these include our Khalabhati breath or 'skull shining breath' that we've been practising in power yoga class or our Nadi Shodhana Pranayama (Alternative nostril breathing) we've been practising in our gentle class.

Something I've been contemplating recently is whether we breathe or the breath breathes us.

This is something I've been bringing into my meditation, like a koan.

A 'koan' is a question without an answer, often used in meditation in the Zen Buddhism tradition.

A koan helps give the mind something to 'play with' during our meditation.

It means that the mind doesn't run off to thinking about the future, or the past and gives the 'Citta Vritti' or 'monkey mind' something to do.

Richard Rudd, author of the gene keys, refers to this as contemplation and explains this art as 'like turning a silk pulse over in your mind trying to find the latch.'

I would love to chat about this in person, and I'm around at the end of every class with tea to discuss yoga, philosophy, pranayama, meditation, asana, life and all the bits in between.