The original intent of yoga was to achieve stillness in the body and mind as the necessary foundation for meditation. Yoga was primarily developed to help students maintain a comfortable sitting posture. In fact, the Sanskrit term asana literally means "seat"—the way in which your body rests on the ground when you meditate.

Much of the yoga in the west now focuses on gymnastics rather than creating a bridge to meditation. People can do yoga, be super-stretched and flexible and yet still be incredibly tense with chi bound inside them. When this is the case, the nerves become taut and so does the energy that runs through the body.

Longevity Breathing Yoga: Links Longevity Breathing

The primary emphasis in Longevity Breathing Yoga is to stimulate the flow of chi and free any blocked chi. By combining gentle postures and the ancient Taoist Longevity Breathing techniques, the body's energy channels are progressively opened and the flow of chi is thereby activated and strengthened.

Longevity Breathing Yoga has many gentle, seated postures, held from two to five minutes each. Because the postures require virtually no muscular effort, they enable you to "go internal" easily, to focus on feeling where the chi is blocked and to gently free it up.

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When I go into a TAO Yoga posture, I find it easy to feel the relationship of my breath to my chi, and how they are affected by my thoughts and emotions. For this reason, I find that TAO Yoga makes it dramatically easier for me to find and to let go of whatever binds me.

Relax to Stretch

Most yoga practitioners stretch to relax. The Taoists take it from the other direction: They relax in order to stretch. Once you place your awareness on the smooth, balanced flow of energy in the body, the nervous system creates a natural link to the feeling of relaxation. A natural, positive feedback loop is created. The process does not take years or even months; it can happen in the first few Longevity Breathing Yoga sessions. However, as you practice, you’ll become aware of ever-deeper layers that will help you let go of more subtle blockages.

Becoming Present in Meditation

Longevity Breathing Yoga is used as a bridge to meditation in the Taoist tradition because it is so effective at calming the monkey mind. As you focus on the circularity of your breath and chi from one posture to another, it becomes easier to let go of your thoughts and emotions. You locate blockages in your body and attend to them without all the internal dialogue that wants to fight or control them. Many have found Longevity Breathing Yoga to be the easiest way to get a sense of their bodies, such as feeling their internal organs.

The more you let go, the more you relax, the more smoothly your chi flows, the more open and present you become. It’s a synergistic process that leads you to a point of stillness inside yourself. And reaching a profound, relaxed stillness is the stable foundation necessary for allowing your spiritual path to unfold. Longevity Breathing Yoga helps you form the ‘seat’ needed for deeper and deeper meditation work.

Excerpted from The Chi Revolution: Harness the Healing Power of Your Life Force.

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