The Awakening And Breathing Book Review

History of Breath Practice The history of breathe practice is well known and documented and breath and breathing have been essential elements of Asian philosophies since ancient times. According to Tadashi Ogawa, a Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Kyoto University, “Ethics is essentially a way of life through breathing”. (Hackenberg, Skof, p 201). According to the Soto Zen monk and teacher Shunryu Suzuki, “What we call ’I’ is just a swinging door, which moves when we inhale and when we exhale. When we practice zazen our mind always follows our breathing. When we inhale, the air comes into the inner world. When we exhale, the air goes out to the outer world. ” (Suzuki, 1994). Ancient Egypt held similar ideas. There breath was inseparable …show more content…
Crawley, explores breathing as an act of racial politics. The book discusses Garner's last words and what might otherwise have been – suggesting that it is possible to break from experiences of violence. The book’s subtitle, The Aesthetics of Possibility, shows Crawley to be steadfastly hopeful about the potential ethical and political options to keep breathing.
Crawley brings attention to alternatives such as ebullient sound, which can’t be rationally restrained and looks at the ritual of dancing until exhaustion. In Blackpentecostalism, such customs depend on the “inexhaustible breath, inexhaustible spirit” of a social situation. The communal practices that Crawley surveys all employ the breath and a mutual sharing of the breath. These include social rituals such as whooping, shouting, tarrying, and speaking in tongues. This becomes breathing as social politics in a radical way that gets at the heart of racial politics. (Crawley, …show more content…
Examples from Eddy include the growth of environmental activism within somatic communities and tighter bonds between “others” within somatic communities and their broader educational communities. (p 274). But somaction can also take the form of educating new communities – specifically those populations who are never given the opportunity to study somatics due to lack of resources. These resources can be simple ones such as access to a clean, quiet space in which to breathe, available teachers, and the financial ability to pay for a class. For Eddy, teaching somatics (of which the study of breath is inherent) allows for empowerment because students gain self-esteem and self-worth which may lead them to seek equity in their lives. Somatic awareness can also bring health benefits in terms of dealing with the negative bodily aspects of stress, which is a large part of the lives of those who lack other resources. (Eddy, p