This Breath A Teacher
A poem I wrote on mindfulness, reasoning behind it, and the wisdom that can be found in the simple act of breathing.
This breath flowing in, This breath flowing out. Flowing on its own Flowing in and out As it flows in, A momentary pause; It takes a rest, Then it flows out, As it rests once more. It knows when to flow in And when to flow out, When to stop, rest, and restart; It flows on its own, As it breathes once more. Moment by moment, Breath by breath. A cycle of change, Each breath a teacher, Pointing the way. It breathes on its own, No need to direct, No need to control. Here lives the deepest wisdom, That of letting go. For it is necessary For the next breath to flow. A learning witness to the effects Of one’s breath’s flow. As it comes, pauses, and goes, It teaches impermanence, Acceptance, and letting go— So, what about going with the breath’s flow? - by Dr Clayton Micallef
I wrote this poem “This Breath A Teacher” as a contemplative exploration of mindful breathing through the personification of the breath in the poem. It is a reflection of the process of mindfulness of breathing and a reminder of the wisdom available to us in each moment through the act of pausing and observing a process that sustains our very existence.
Why such a reflection?
Because within the major contemplative traditions, the breath is one of the root vehicles of contemplative practice (Micallef, 2023). Yet this seems to have been lost.
The breath might be one of the most immediate yet accessible overlooked teachers. The breath is with us here now, every moment as a contemplative anchor to our attention. Jon Kabat-Zinn (1990) alludes in his book “Full Catastrophe Living” how the breath might be one of the most accessible anchors for mindfulness practice, yet it’s overlooked in everyday life.
“Slow or rapid, controlled or left to itself, the breath keeps\going, day and night, year in, year out, through all the experiences and stages of life we traverse. Usually we take it completely for granted. We don’t pay any attention to our breathing unless something happens to prevent us from breathing normally. That is, unless we start to meditate.” (ibid., p. 48)
I tried to capture this in the poem by directly bringing attention to the breath through its opening lines: “This breath flowing in, / This breath flowing out. / Flowing on its own / Flowing in and out.”
This might be one of the most fundamental instructions when it comes to mindfulness. Thich Nhat Hanh (1999) really emphasises this in his book “The Miracle of Mindfulness”, where he mentions how one of the keys to mindfulness is this intimate relationship with the breath, aware of its flow without controlling it in a non-directive manner, aware of the flow of the breath as the body breaths itself.
I reflect this in the poem in the verses: “It breathes on its own, / No need to direct, / No need to control.”
The personification of breath as a contemplative technique
Further, the personification of the breath in the poem was a deliberate choice that goes beyond the literary purpose of doing so. I did this to trigger a third-person perspective within the listener or reader, which might help the reader further reflect on the poem.
By attributing agency to the breath more explicitly through verses like — “It knows when to flow in/And when to flow out”— Here the breath is being portrayed as an entity with its own intelligence (“It knows”).
In doing so, the poem aims to create a stepping back - psychological distancing - between the reader and the act of breathing as a witness to it rather than its controller. This not to disconnect the person from the breath but to position the reader in what in mindfulness is known as a decentered observer.
This is what we do in mindfulness practice: we move away from identification with thoughts and sensations and approach them as events occurring in our experience. This is explicitly highlighted in approaches such as Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy, which emphasises throughout its approach how thoughts are not facts (Segal et al., 2012).
This decentering holds profound implications for our psychological well-being as having the capacity to observe our internal processes without being completely absorbed by them is crucial for meta-awareness and effective emotional regulation, as psychologist Daniel Siegel (2010) describes in his Book “Mindsight.”
Further, the poem highlights the autonomic nature of breathing - there is no need to direct or control it or think about it. This grounds us and directs us into the natural intelligence of the body; it knows how to breathe, we do not need to control the process.
This mirrors one of the foundational attitudes of mindfulness, “non-striving” (Kabat-Zinn, 1990).
So, through this process, the poem is not only trying to describe mindfulness — it is also trying to induce it. Through the very process, mindfulness practice aims to cultivate that of a curious, non-judgmental witness to experience.
The pauses as teachers of patience
The poem also draws the reader’s attention to the natural cycle of breathing: “As it flows in, / A momentary pause; / It takes a rest, / Then it flows out, / As it rests once more.”
This was a deliberate choice, the intention behind it being that the cycle of the breath, especially the pauses between the in-breath and the out-breath, can offer us a lesson in patience. This mirrors one of the foundational attitudes of mindfulness that of patience (Kabat-Zinn, 1990).
It might be that during our mindfulness practice, we rush past these pauses. Yet these pauses contain wisdom, as within them, we can find a space of stillness that is always available to us.
These pauses in breath are a direct mirror of the pauses we sometimes need to take in life before jumping into the next activity or making our next decision. This is reflected in practices taught in mindfulness programs like “The Breathing Space” from Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy, the “STOP Practice” from Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, and the emphasis that is placed in the Mindfulness-Based Living Course on resting in the pause offered on the out-breath (Choden & Regan-Addis, 2018; Segal et al., 2012; Stahl & Goldstein, 2019).
By deliberately drawing attention to these pauses, the poem is inviting the reader to stop for a moment to pause at the end of the in-breath and the out-breath to draw attention into the importance of learning the value of being in stillness.
Impermanence: The breath a teacher of change
In the poem, I also delve into the Buddhist concept of “anicca” impermanence – the understanding that phenomena that we experience in life are constantly changing – one of the three marks of existence, the others being “dukkha” and “anatta” (Gethin, 1998).
I identify this explicitly in the poem. One of the central things that the breath teaches us about is impermanence: “It teaches impermanence, / Acceptance, and letting go.” Impermanence is necessary for the next breath to flow. Why is this?
Because each breath is a miniature reflection of this, no breath is permanent and can be held indefinitely; there comes a moment where each breath must be released for the next to flow.
More profoundly, the breath as a cycle that is in constant flux from the moment it goes in, to the moment it goes out; it is constantly changing. As the breath arises and passes, it teaches us that everything arises and passes away and how nothing stays the same, not even for a moment.
In mindfulness practice, the breath, with its constant cycle of arising and passing away, can be a laboratory for investigating how we relate to change.
Do we hold/cling to the in-breath and try to prolong it? Do we rush through the out-breath into the next breath? Can we be this natural process with equanimity? And how this might reflect how we relate to things in life.
Acceptance and letting go: Necessary for life to continue
Leading on from impermanence, for me, one of the most significant parts of the poem comes in the lines: “Here lives the deepest wisdom, / That of letting go. / For it is necessary / For the next breath to flow.”
This points out a fundamental paradox of life: how many a time we must let go in order to receive. The breath is a great example of this, as the letting go of the in-breath to give way to the out-breath and so forth is not a loss but a necessary release that creates space for us to receive the next breath, to receive life.
We need to let go of each breath to breathe in the next one to continue receiving life.
And this extends far beyond breathing. I would say this because letting go is not about forcing ourselves to give up things. Rather, it is about recognising when holding on to something might be unhelpful or even harmful and a cause of suffering and cultivating the wisdom to let go of these and make way for new ways of being that are more beneficial.
Jon Kabat-Zinn (1990) uses a particularly helpful to illustrate this:
“They say that in India there is a particularly clever way of catching monkeys. As the story goes, hunters will cut a hole in a coconut that is just big enough for a monkey to put its hand through. Then they will drill two smaller holes in the other end, pass a wire through, and secure the coconut to the base of a tree. Then they put a banana inside the coconut and hide. The monkey comes down, puts his hand in and takes hold of the banana. The hole is crafted so that the open hand can go in but the fist cannot get out. All the monkey has to do to be free is to let go of the banana. But it seems most monkeys don’t let go.” (ibid., p. 39)
Letting go is one of the fundamental attitudes of mindfulness, and the breath shows us that letting go is not optional but essential for life. Just as we must release each breath to make way for the next, we must also release unhelpful behaviour, habits and ways of being to allow space for new possibilities to emerge in life.
This goes hand in hand with another foundational attitude of mindfulness that of acceptance (Kabat-Zinn, 1990). As Jon Kabat-Zinn (1990) explains, acceptance and letting go, go hand in hand, and there is no greater reflection of this than the Serenity Prayer:
“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.”
Going with the breath’s flow: From practice to living
I finally conclude the poem with a question: “So, what about going with the breath’s flow?”
I did this purposefully to invite the reader to consider how the lessons learned from observing the breath might extend beyond our “cushion” into daily life.
This points us to what in mindfulness we call “informal practice”— or the application/cultivation of mindfulness in everyday activities. The final line of the poem suggests this.
How are we going to carry the qualities we cultivate through breath awareness — presence, acceptance, non-striving, letting go — beyond our “cushion” so that they also start to infuse our approach to daily life.
I would argue what is the value of sitting in our mindfulness meditation practice for hours or days at a time if the qualities we cultivate while doing sitting meditation do not start to transfer into different aspects of our daily lives.
Although it does not directly mention this, the concluding question in the poem implicitly points us in this direction — how might I “go with the breath’s flow” in my daily life?
Bringing it all together: From observer to embodiment
Ultimately, “This Breath A Teacher” as a poem does not only try to capture and reflect in its structure the essence of the practice of mindful breathing but is also an invitation into a particular way of being
Particularly through the personification of the breath as having its own wisdom through the following verses - “It knows when to flow in / And when to flow out” - These also reflect some of the foundational attitudinal qualities central to mindfulness practice and teaching those of patience, non-striving, acceptance and letting go, but in particular the attitude of trust trusting the natural processes of breathing rather than forcing or controlling it.
It also tries to capture the experience of mindfulness of breathing practice through how the poem progresses in its structure, starting with the simple observation of the breath and how this can lead into deeper insights about impermanence and letting go.
This is especially reflected in the penultimate stanza - “Here lives the deepest wisdom, / That of letting go. / For it is necessary / For the next breath to flow” - Where I try to connect the physical act of breathing to the contemplative concept of letting go, which is further built onto in the closing stanza on how the breath can teach us about impermanence, acceptance and letting go “As it comes, pauses, and goes, / It teaches impermanence, / Acceptance, and letting go—.
With the closing question to the poem, “So, what about going with the breath’s flow?” - This as an invitation to the reader and a gentle reminder to the reader of this all.
While at the same time, reflecting to myself that I do not need to use complex language to explain this all, as reflected in the words used to write the poem; simple, accessible language which also allowed profound concepts such as impermanence to shine through without the unnecessary complexity - much like mindfulness practice itself.
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References
Choden, & Regan-Addis, H. (2018). Mindfulness-based living course. New Alresford: John Hunt Publishing.
Gethin, R. (1998). The foundations of Buddhism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hanh, T. N. (1999). The miracle of mindfulness: An introduction to the practice of meditation. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
Kabat-Zinn, J. (1990). Full catastrophe living: Using the wisdom of your body and mind to face stress, pain and illness. New York, NY: Delacorte.
Micallef, C. (2023). The adverse effects of mindfulness: A narrative review, emergent findings, and a proposed definition [Doctoral dissertation, University of Aberdeen] Primo. Retrieved from https://abdn.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/delivery/44ABE_INST:44ABE_VU1/12213274180005941
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