As you train you may notice that your breath is never finished. It is a process that continues. In this way it is like everything else we experience in worldly life. Nothing is done. Nothing is completely satisfying. We adjust, crave and continue. That is dukkha, “unsatisfactory.” That does not mean bad or painful or wrong. It just means we are continually dissatisfied.
As you train you may notice that your breathing is never still. It is moving and changing all the time. Moving in, moving out, beginning to move in, continuing to move in, finishing moving in, beginning to move out… etc. Deep, shallow, harsh, smooth, always changing. It always goes like that. Everything we experience in worldly life has this quality. Nothing stays the same. Nothing stays. That is not bad or harmful or wrong. But people feel anxious about it. Things feel unstable, insecure, undependable, uncontrolled. We don’t have to feel that way. As we train we may notice that our breath has this quality, like everything we experience in the world. It is impermanent.
As you train, that is as you practice mindful attention on the in breath and the out breath, whether we are moving, walking, sitting, in kata, kumite, at any stage of practice, from day one to meijin, you may notice that your breath is not a “thing.” You can’t hold onto it, you can’t locate it, you can define its boundaries, qualities, or constituents. The air you breathe isn’t yours. You were in it, you took it in, you absorbed some of it into your body, you breathed it out, and it went away. How many other people and creatures breathed that air? Used those same molecules to fuel their cells, build their bodies, move and think, stay alive? How many plants and trees made those molecules of oxygen from the CO2 they took in? The air you just breathed has moved over the land and the ocean, carved the mountains, held the clouds and the rain and snow, moved around the world endlessly since the world began. You just connected with all of that. With every breath. But not one of those breaths is a thing, a bounded, formed, constituted thing that you could hold on to and examine or think of as yours. That’s not a bad thing. It means that the breath has no self-nature, that is there is no essential, stable thing you can call your breath. It is a process. Moving, changing, subject to influence, having effects, connected to the rest of the world. Everything we experience from the moment we are born, when we fill our lungs for dear life for the first time, to the last time we exhale and say goodbye, everything we experience has this quality of no-self nature.
As we train in mindfulness you will notice that your breath, each breath, is real. You notice it, experience it, rely on it. But that breath which we label as a breath and think of as ours is never done, never satisfactory, always changing, and has no fixed essence or nature of its own separate from everything else it touches, including us.
We should not miss this as we train. We should observe this and understand it. This is the insight of the three marks: dukkha, impermanence and no-self nature. It is the way things exist. Overlooking this fact brings confusion and error and pain. Seeing this we can make good decisions, and live in virtue, courage and freedom.
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Post copyright © 2025 Jeffrey Brooks, MountainKarateNC.com, Yamabayashi Ryu, Mountain Karate Dojo, in the mountains of western NC.
Photo by Thao Lee via Unsplash
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read True Karate Dō by Jeffrey Brooks
“One of the best books I’ve read in years, inviting and compelling. Jeff Brooks moves effortlessly from martial arts to Buddhism to consciousness studies, self-transformation, and related fields in this wide-ranging and Illuminating study that has much to offer both novice explorers and veteran practitioners. A splendid achievement.”— Philip Zaleski, Editor, The Best Spiritual Writing series