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Breathing is central to every aspect of meditation training. It's a wonderful place to focus in training the mind to be calm and concentrated.

Remember that breath walking - as with any meditation technique - should not be pursued with a grim determination to 'get it right.' The point is to cultivate openness, relaxation and awareness, which can include awareness of your undisciplined, wandering mind.

To control the breathing is to control the mind. With different patterns of breathing, you can fall in love, you can hate someone, you can feel the whole spectrum of feelings just by changing your breathing.

Meditation is a vital practice to access conscious contact with your highest self.

Despite what you might guess, when monitoring your breathing, your body doesn't care whether you're inhaling enough oxygen. It cares only whether you're expelling enough carbon dioxide - that's the gas that sets off the panic button when you're suffocating.

Quite simply, if you're feeling anxious, angry, a sense of shame, whatever it is, breathe in and agree to touch or feel it. Breathing out, offer space and care to whatever's there. If there's blocking to touching it, emphasize the in-breath and stay embodied.

Our breath gets shallow and ineffective when we are in a stressed state. I advocate stopping whatever you're doing for a couple of minutes five times a day, closing your eyes and taking deep breaths.

Consciousness is a phase of mental life which arises in connection with the formation of new habits. When habit is formed, consciousness only interferes to spoil our performance.

Pranayama is the practice of breath control. The word prana refers not only to breath, but also to air and life itself.

I meditate. Just counting my breath. Before I do anything, really.