Please practice only 5-10 minutes every session, not more than 2 or 3 times a day in the beginning. As the pattern of breathing becomes familiar and you access the biological programming embedded in all of us since birth (embryonic breathing), the technique will come to you automatically and you can expand the time involved without effort. Practicing with music or while walking, or doing something mindless and handy like zen "no mind" activities such as knitting, Tai Chi, Hatha Yoga, or while receiving Bodywork, is great!

Please avoid all tendency to use force. Please avoid anything that hurts, anything that even hints of pain or tiredness. At the first signs of dizziness, or distress of any sort, take a break.

Please welcome and allow any form of body movement or sound or other breathing pattern that may surface or "interfere" while you practice. It might be a motion, emotions, gestures, moans, groans, trembling, shivers, panting, screaming, crying, vomit, whatever - it’s all welcome! Part of the benefit of Conscious Breathing is to unlock and release them. Please let them happen, let them go, and gently return to your Triangular breathing.

Triangular breathing: Inhale- exhale- pause. Inhale- exhale- pause. No force. Inhale- exhale- pause. Inhale- exhale- pause.

Moderate lengths of time for each leg of the triangle. Inhale- exhale- pause. Inhale-exhale- pause. There's no holding in of any air. No holding in of the breath. We only delay the inhalation by a little, an amount of time roughly equal to the movements of breath going in and out. Inhale- exhale- pause. Our triangle is roughly equilateral.

Inhale- exhale- pause. Please use no force in order to exhale. Simply let it empty out gently.

Inhale softly, without force. As the natural reflex to inhale becomes activated, at the end of the Pause you'll experience that various parts of the body begin to "pull" to initiate the inhalations. They do this on their own. Please allow this "pulling" to happen, and breathe gently enough so that the pulling remains gentle.

The best part is when the pulling begins from the diaphragm, and even better, from just below the navel! Even only a handful of triangular breaths spontaneously pulled from below the navel are the crowning achievement of Pranayama done well. It means we're on the Way.

After a while the pattern becomes easier to maintain. Those are the times when something "from the inside" begins to gather the courage to surface. It's usually some form of unfinished or unresolved experience trapped within the BodyMind seeking resolution. It may express itself in many and varied forms of activity, the most profound of these being totally real physical-emotional-mental-spiritual events. Each of these events might surface immediately, or take years to emerge slowly in fragments. We give it time.

You might notice that as you practice more and shift to automatic pilot, the pattern reverses spontaneously to the "other" triangle, that of retaining the breath in. Please don’t fight with it. Simply notice it, and gently return to the original Triangular Breathing pattern: Inhale- exhale- pause. Inhale- exhale- pause. For those who like to sing, to hum, to OM or practice mantras the Exhalation and Pause legs of the triangle are ideal time junctures to practice. The softer the better.

The Conditions of a Solitary Bird The conditions of a solitary bird are five: The first, that it flies to the highest point; The second, that it does not suffer for company, not even of its own kind; The third, that it aims its beak to the skies; The fourth, that it does not have a definite color; The fifth, that it sings very softly. - San Juan de la Cruz, in "Sayings of Light and Love", quoted by Carlos Castaneda in "Journey to Ixtlan"