Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2005-05-21 20:43
So now, the next bit is to do with our experience and control of that mysterious muscle we call the diaphragm. Pretty clearly, if we want to master the ability to make 'fluid gestures with the airstream', it will help to know what is required of us.
Please don't give up. It all gets much simpler at the end.
To begin with, I want to put forward a very simple division of the muscles of our body into two classes. (Doubtless this division is anatomically naive, but I don't think it's *wrong*.)
There are some muscles in our bodies, like the biceps and triceps, that are visible, sensible, and under our voluntary control. That means, we can see, directly feel and operate them at will.
A very different muscle, or group of muscles, is what constitutes the heart. This is invisible, insensible, and not under our voluntary control. That is, we can't see it, we can't directly feel it (it can't feel tired to us, for example) and we can't tell it when to beat. We might be able to speed it up or slow it down indirectly, by thinking exciting or relaxing thoughts, but essentially it has its own agenda, determined by our bodily states.
The diaphragm lies between these two extremes. It's invisible; but contra David Peacham in another thread, it *is* under our voluntary control: clearly, if I decide to take a breath *right now*, I can do it. On the other hand, if I am concerned with other things, the diaphragm follows its own
agenda like the heart, taking a new breath at a time determined by our bodies' need for oxygen (or, more strictly speaking, our bodies' superfluity of carbon dioxide). But, again like the heart, we cannot directly feel it.
(As an aside, it's interesting that 'watching the breath' is a common discipline in meditative techniques. Something that can be voluntary *and*
automatic is a useful touchstone for an experience of self that incorporates
aspects of both.)
Anyhow, for us, the crucial thing is that we cannot know *by feeling it* that the diaphragm is working. So it's a waste of time trying to judge or control the action of our diaphragm by looking for a *feeling*.
But, fortunately, we can know that it is working in two other ways.
Firstly, we can know that it is working if we are actually taking a breath -- clearly, that it's working is the only way we *can* take a breath.
But secondly, we can know it is working if our abdominal muscles are flexed in exactly the way we flex them to blow air out -- BUT THE FACT IS, WE AREN'T BLOWING AIR OUT.
I'll stop there for the moment for responses, because this bit of the argument seems to be difficult for many people. Still, it may be helpful to consider the matter in terms of the analogy I made earlier:
Suppose we couldn't feel or see our biceps (the ones on the inside of the arm) but only our triceps. We could know that our biceps were working, then, if our arm was bending; but we could also know it if our triceps were flexed, but our arm was stationary.
Later,
Tony
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