(3b) Breathing out

The head is obviously a vital centre in a human being, and so is the heart & lungs. But after a long out-breath, if it has been a good one, I experience something -- maybe oxygen -- passing into a vital centre lower down still.

Once when I asked Gudo about what the Japanese call “ki,” or vital energy, he observed that those Japanese who liked to discuss about “ki” were generally the more spiritual ones.

That observation was doubtless true. At the same time, it may also be true that consciousness of something passing to and from the lower vital centre -- what the ancient Chinese called the dan-tien, and what Japanese martial artists call the tanden -- can be a very practical state.