The nearest primates to humans don’t brush their teeth. They are not aware of it. That doesn’t mean it is not beneficial. It is. It is to our great advantage if we brush our teeth. Same with washing off the zeitgeist. We are largely not aware of it, and don’t do it. But it would be to our great benefit if we did it.
Taking showers helps us to become clean. It can refresh our mood, and help wash away bed feelings. But it is not the best for that. If we stay with the tooth brushing analogy, it’s like brushing your teeth with your fingers. It has some effect but it is not the best.
Breathing is the best way to clean our feelings. If you can track the feeling down to it’s source, remember it clearly and feel the feeling again, you can wash it away with your breath. All feelings need to be cleaned, even the good ones. This is like food in our mouths. All the food needs to be cleaned, even the really yummy food. Otherwise it changes into things that are harmful to us.
The same for feelings. Those feelings are useful at the time we feel them. Then, like food, we need to digest them, and clean ourselves of the excess by brushing our teeth. Life is movement and change. You would be disgusted if you had to eat last week’s dinner again. So it should be with our feelings and experiences. We don’t need to forget them but we do need to process them, and move on to the next. This is all connected to the impermanence of things in this world. They are constantly changing. Don’t try to preserve them and keep them, like stuffed animals in a museum.
The zeitgeist… or the spirit of the age, is the most difficult to capture. It is like the water the fish is in. It is so hard for the fish to notice it simply because it is always there. The sweeping breath practice gives us the skill we need to notice this zeitgeist. It is also the process for cleansing ourselves of it. Washing away the old past zeitgeists is a powerful cleanser that can lighten your emotional baggage tremendously.
It’s taken me three years of practice, and I have started to notice these zeitgeist and clean them up. The effect is subtle, yet profound. I am feeling a spaciousness in my life that didn’t exist before. It’s almost a distance between me and everything that allows me so see better, and clearer.