Geshe YongDong Losar - Calm Breath, Calm Mind: A Guide to the Healing Power of Breath

This work is a fascinating introduction to the Bnpo tradition of secret breathing yoga, revealing how to integrate breath in order to improve meditation, as well as to restore physical health through specific yogic techniques. The teachings are clear and easy to apply both in daily life and in retreat.

Jean-Luc Achard, researcher at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and author of The Six Lamps

I welcome this second edition of Geshe YongDongs Calm Breath, Calm Mind, which shares a range of practices with breath at its center. His simple and direct style of teachings comes through in the book. The practices he presents here range from simple breathings to breathings with visualizations, sounds, and the movements of tsa lung trul khor, the five magical movements. The simple instructions enable the reader to perform them and discover the healing potential in their lives.

Alejandro Chaoul, author of Tibetan Yoga and Tibetan Yoga for Health & Well-Being

Grown up in the ancient Bn tradition in Tibet and living in Canada, Geshe YongDong is able to express the traditions deep practices in accessible language with a poetic undertone. Through simple exercises, taking breath and energy as the overriding theme, he leads us to experience a deep sense of inner peace and well-being. If you are new to meditation, here is an excellent guide to develop an authentic and effective practice. If you are an experienced practitioner, this book will reconnect you to an attitude of openness and playfulness in your practice.

Florens van Canstein, meditation teacher and translator in the Bn tradition and author of Travelling with the Master

DISCOVER ANCIENT TIBETAN BREATH PRACTICES FOR CALMING YOUR MIND AND IMPROVING YOUR HEALTH IN THIS PLAIN-ENGLISH GUIDE.

Over millennia, many Eastern traditions have developed practices that use the powerful healing energy of breath to treat physical, emotional, and mental problems. In Chinese, this energy is called chi; in Indian Sanskrit it is called prana; and in Tibetan it is called lung.

Lung is life-giving energy that moves through our bodies. A lack or imbalance of lung can create illnesses of body and mind or cause emotional struggles such as confusion, anger, and sadness. In this book, Geshe YongDong Losar, a scholar and monk in the ancient Bn tradition of Tibet, guides us through time-tested practices to help balance our lung. His deep knowledge garnered through years of study and practice renders the practices simple and achievable, creating a clear path toward greater calmness, stability, and freedom from affliction.

Over and over I have personally witnessed, both in myself and in my students, the breaths clear potential to heal and deeply transform lives. I truly believe that in the future such practices will play an important role as a medicine for preventing and treating physical, emotional, and mental maladies. I am glad that Geshe YongDong is making these practices widely available, and Im sure that by doing so, he is bringing benefit to countless lives.

from the foreword by Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche

Wisdom Publications

199 Elm Street

Somerville, MA 02144 USA

wisdomexperience.org

2022 Geshe YongDong Losar

All rights reserved.

First edition self-published in 2017.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photography, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system or technologies now known or later developed, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Losar, Geshe YongDong, 1969 author. | Wyton, Bernadette, editor. | Wangyal, Tenzin, writer of introduction.

Title: Calm breath, calm mind: a guide to the healing power of breath / Geshe YongDong Losar; transcribed and edited by Bernadette Wyton; foreword by Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche.

Description: Second edition. | Somerville: Wisdom Publications, 2022.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021060232 (print) | LCCN 2021060233 (ebook) | ISBN 9781614297802 (paperback) | ISBN 9781614298014 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: npnasmti. | Respiration Religious aspects Buddhism.

Classification: LCC BQ5630.A6 L67 2022 (print) | LCC BQ5630.A6 (ebook) | DDC 294.3/443 dc23/eng/20220202

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021060232

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021060233

ISBN 978-1-61429-780-2 ebook ISBN 978-1-61429-801-4

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Cover design by Phil Pascuzzo. Interior design by Gopa & Ted2, Inc.

All Tibetan calligraphy is by Geshe YongDong Losar, including the Uchen character for Breath on page ii. The line drawings of Geshela are Gillian Brooks.

The diagram of energy channels and chakras is Lhari Kalsang Nyima.

The photograph of Geshela is Gordon Ross.

To my Amala, Norma Forrest