Back to the breath

I’ve always appreciated, but never really understood, these two sentences from Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations: “When jarred, unavoidably, by circumstances, revert at once to yourself, and don’t lose the rhythm more than you can help. You’ll have a better grasp of the harmony if you keep going back to it.” Exactly how am I supposed to “revert to myself”? What “harmony” am I supposed to keep going back to?

Initially, I reasoned that Aurelius is advising us to have some thing that we can return to and take comfort in. An image, a place, a relationship, an activity. Or perhaps, even better, something inside us that is completely within our control. Perhaps my sense of purpose, or an objective, or my self-confidence, or the image I conjure of my existence? But as I was re-reading Mindfulness in Plain English, I came upon something more powerful than an external thing or an internal construct to return to in times of difficulty and struggle: the breath. Consider these words:

“The mind can never be focused without a mental object. Therefore we must give our mind an object that is readily available every present moment. One such object is our breath. The mind does not have to make a great effort to find the breath. Every moment the breath is flowing in and out through our nostrils. As our practise of insight meditation is taking place every waking moment, our mind finds it very easy to focus itself on the breath, for it is more conspicuous and constant than any other object.”

The breath is there when we cry. It is there when we smile. The breath is our companion in the valleys of pain and upon the peaks of pleasure. It persists as long as we persist. What better thing to come back to, to return to. Now, Marcus Aurelius’ words have new meaning, new power. Now, when I’m “jarred, unavoidably, by circumstances” I know where to go, I know the rhythm I must return to: inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. I must go back to the breath, to the companion of life.