Taoist Yoga: Full Body Breathing
The practice begins by lying on our backs, with hands on the abdomen, sexual palace, or hips, (depending on our arm length) and breathing deep down into the lower centers of our body. As we flood awareness into these areas, we are activating the reproductive glands and inviting the muscles, tendons and ligaments to soften and relax.
Additionally, we exhale our emotions and mental activity at this level, and allow them to sink down into the earth. We follow this with an inhalation of the earth’s loving, healing energy back into our hips, navel, and sexual center. We can stay at this level of the body as long as we choose.
If done at night, we may fall asleep here, beginning a process that can continue throughout the night. The microcosm of our body flows in harmony with the macrocosm of the earth. Through this practice, we begin to experience its harmony within us.
-From The Alchemist’s Tao Te Ching