This is so simple that it eludes discovery. In fact, it is so simple that unless someone tells you, you would never even think of it - and when someone tells you, it is difficult to believe. Chuang-tzu talked about it quite clearly, but everyone still runs around looking for that big secret. Lao-tzu told us not to leave our own houses, but off we go on a thousand mile journey. The breath is mind, the mind is breath. Even many well-known Taoists "put legs on a snake" and make breathing techniques complicated and further confuse the issue by implying there is a secrecy in the technique. Not that all these techniques and teachers per se are wrong, some techniques are certainly useful in various situations. But to acquire and maintain youthfulness abd tranquility is really quite simple.

First you need to understand the term natural breathing, whcih is not a method at all. The idea is to breath as we did when we babies. Lao-tzu's question "Can you attain the pliability of a child?" is a reference to this subject. Lao-tzu also said "The whole of cultivation is in subtraction, not addition." Taoism focuses on reversal, restoration and rejuvination to that state when we were children, to youthfulness.

When we are young our cheeks are reddened, joints are slightly bent, bones are soft, bodies are warm, and the breath is natural and concentrated in the abdomen. As we get older our cheeks pale. joints stiffen, bones become brittle, bodies chill, and the breath is concentrated in the chest. During the span of our lives our breath constantly rises upward, until at death the breath finds itself in the throat, not in the lower abdomen as it was during childhood. The Taoist seeks to restore this trend and return to a more natural state of health and vitality.

When a child breathes there are no thoughts of fixing the breath in the abdomen; the breath is there naturally. The child also breathes fully with the abdomen, meaning the entire stomach expands and contracts slightly si that it functions like a bellows or a balloon, not like those stomach pushers who just expand and contract the front of the stomach. This is only half-breathing. The breath should be felt on the lower spine and on both sides of the lower abdomen as well.

The big secret is really no secret at all. All that need be done is to focus the mind on the tan-tien, not the breath, The breath will follow the mind, mind does not follow the breath.

To breathe naturally you must allow the breath to become deep, slow and harmonious. This is something that cannot be forced by a technique. Picture your mind as a glass of dirty water. The more you agitate it, the cloudier it becomes. However, if you just let the glass sit, the debris will gradually filter to the bottom and the water will again be clear. Trying to make the breath deep, slow and harmonious is like stirring the water. The breath cannot be natural because you are forcing it. But just by letting it go, it will relax of its own accord and become natural. How can you be natural? Calm the mine. First empty your mind. and don't fill it with techniques and schemes. As the mind settles, so will the breath. Eventually, when the mind and breath settle, the breath will be almost undetectable, like Chuang-tzu's "Withered log and dead ashes" analogy.

Yin Shih-tzu, a famous modern day (1872 - 1934) Taoist, realtes in his work "When I left the breath alone to sink into the tan-tien of its own accord then the qi rose upward and circulated throughout all my limbs." His only technique was simple "abiding by the tan-tien." He focused his attention on the tan-tien, not his breath. The Tai Chi Chuan Classics relates the same principle of not focussung on the breath, as that will result in obstructing the qi.

Within Taoist works there are many technique for breathing excercises, such as holding the breath, embryonic breath, reverse breath and tortoise breath. All these excercises are valuable. However, natual breathing should be considered both the basis for and the culmination of all the techniques. Without acquiring natural breath, the other methods are merely fascinating techniques that lead nowwhere, except to some psychological and, possibly, physical ills. The other methods become valuable only after you have experienced and can consciously control the circulatation of qi. not before. As Master Liang related, "Don't speak of defecation to a starving man; don't speak of winter to the mayfly." The first and biggest step is to acquire natural breath. Don;t bother with other forms of breathing until you've natural breath. Don't be like the man who lived during the Ming dynasty wo bought a thousand books but could not read.

Breathing is not a secret, or, if it is, then it is an "open secret." Natural breathing occurs naturally, not by force or invention. Just feel and sense what is going on in your lower abdomen. Instantly, you will find that your breath followed you attention there. The more you pay attention to - sensing, observing, feeling - the lower abdomen, the deeper and more profound the breath will become. Just leave the breath alone, it will sink and develop of its own accord. The effort is simple keeping mentally focused on the lower abdomen. not on physicaly pushing the stomach in and out or bringing in great quantities of air.