Yoga’s inner four limbs
Breath, withdrawing the senses, gathering attention, steady watching: the inward half of yoga’s eight-limbed path, in plain words, with one small way to try each.
Notice3 min read
East & West
Zhuangzi and the Stoics, qi and pneuma: East and West, saying the same thing in two languages.
Riding the six breaths: free and easy wandering
The first chapter of the Zhuangzi pictures someone who rides the changing weather of the world and wanders without a destination. What it might mean to be at ease anywhere.
Hold your own3 min read
Spirit, from breath: pneuma and spiritus
Greek pneuma, Latin spiritus and the English words they gave us all began as ‘breath’. A short walk through a word that never forgot where it came from.
Let go2 min read
Zhuangzi’s fasting of the heart
A short passage from a 2,300-year-old book about listening: first with the ears, then the heart, then the breath. What fasting empties, and what it leaves.
Notice3 min read