The most important thing in life (video)

Eric Dubay (atlanteanconspiracy.com); Editors, Wisdom Quarterly

What is the Number 1 most important key factor to achieving and maintaining optimum health, energy, longevity, vitality, and wellness? 

Is it genes, diet, exercise, hydration, sleep, mindset, environment? Certainly all of these factors are important, but in fact they are all secondary to something most doctors and laypeople alike completely overlook.

Think about it: What is the most important thing in our life? It’s so important that we do it all day every day and all night every night. We are even doing it unconsciously right now while reading this. 

Author Eric Dubay

It’s something so crucial to our health, longevity, and wellness that were we to cease for even a few minutes, it would result in certain death! The one and only undeniable answer is breathing.

• [WQ: The Buddha emphasized ana-pana-sati, "mindfulness of in-and-out breathing," just as yoga advocates prana-yama or "breath control or restraint." Christianity cherishes the breath calling it "holy spirit," and the martial arts emphasize the control of chi (ki, spiritus, the holy ghost) -- invisible life force -- as a source of great power and vitality.]

To breathe is to live. And without breath there can be no life. All aerobic life, plant and animal, from birth to death, completely depends upon the airs [and accompanying "life force energy"] for health, well-being, and continued existence.

From microscopic mitochondria [the power source of the cell] to macroscopic lungs, every living cell breathes and depends on the [vital] airs’ life-giving properties for sustenance. More

Buddhist Mindfulness of Breathing
Ven. Nyanatiloka, Buddhist Dictionary: Manual of Buddhist Terms and Doctrines

The focus of mindfulness meditation on breathing is the subtle breath itself not sensation.

  

Soft breaths move in and out and like soft clouds.

"Mindfulness on in-and-out-breathing" is one of the most important Buddhist exercises for reaching mental concentration and the four absorptions (jhānas).
 
In the Discourse of the Fourfold Setting Up of Mindfulness (Satipatthāna Sutra, MN 10, DN 22) and elsewhere, four methods of practice are given, which may also serve as the basis for insight meditation.

The "Discourse on Mindfulness of Breathing" (Ānāpānasati Sutra, MN 118) and other texts have 16 methods of practice, which divide into four groups of four.

The first three apply to both serenity- (samatha) and insight-meditation. The fourth refers to pure insight practice. The second and the third group require the attainment of the absorptions (samadhi).
 
"With attentive mind one breathes in, with attentive mind one breathes out.
 
I. (1) "When making a long inhalation one [simply] knows [yet does not ponder, think about, measure]: 'I make a long inhalation'; when making a long exhalation one knows: 'I make a long exhalation.'
 
(2) "When making a short inhalation one [simply] knows: 'I make a short inhalation'; when making a short exhalation one knows: 'I make a short exhalation.'

(3) "'Clearly perceiving the entire [length, extent, or body of the breath], I breathe in,' thus one trains oneself; 'clearly perceiving the entire [length, extent, or body of the breath], I breathe out,' thus one trains oneself.

(4) " 'Calming this bodily function I breathe in,' thus one trains oneself; 'calming this bodily function I breathe out,' thus one trains oneself.

II. (5) " 'Feeling rapture (pīti) I breathe in,' thus one trains oneself; 'feeling rapture I breathe out,' thus one trains oneself.

(6) " 'Feeling joy I breathe in,' thus one trains oneself; 'feeling joy I breathe out,' thus one trains oneself.

(7) " 'Feeling the mental formation (citta-sankhāra) I breathe in,' thus one trains oneself, 'feeling the mental formation I breathe out,' thus one trains oneself. More