"We are faced with a profound mystery: the mystery of ourselves here and now, on this earth. Whatever scientific or religious beliefs we may have about this mystery, about how and why we have come to be, most of us are 'asleep' to its unfathomable immediacy, its 'now-ness.' We move through our lives in a state of waking sleep, a state of psychological, cultural, and spiritual hypnosis. Instead of experiencing ourselves consciously from moment to moment as living, breathing beings, we lose ourselves unconsciously in the various impulses and fragments of our self-images—our likes and dislikes, our pleasures and pains, our theories, our expectations, our dreams, our fears, and our beliefs." From Awakening to the Miracle of Ordinary Life.

So many of us today live unconscious, fragmentary, disharmonious lives driven by fear, guilt, anger, anxiety, and tension. "Out of touch with the earth, with never a glance toward the sky,"* we rush away from the past and into the future in pursuit of progress and "a better life" with little appreciation of the miraculous gift of now, the only time and place we can truly live. This anxiety-filled rush into the future, fueled as it is by our belief in our habitual thoughts, concepts, judgments, and reactive emotions, creates a myriad of so-called problems that we think we can solve with the very same mind that created them in the first place. And as we search for solutions, spiritual or otherwise, our lives become increasingly narrow and constricted--unable to manifest the mystery and miracle of our innermost being, unable to manifest the intelligence, kindness, love, and compassion that lie at the heart of the breath of life being breathed into us at every moment.

My work is to help us see and go beyond the boundaries of the conditioned mind--the habitual constellation of thoughts, emotions, sensations, beliefs, and judgments that each of us calls "myself"--and to help open us to the vast breadth of the life force as it manifests through us at this very moment. My work is to help us explore and awaken, in a harmonious way, to who and what we really are in our essence, to the freedom of real presence and consciousness--the freedom to see and say "yes" to the miracle of what is.

Whatever noble aims we may have, paths we may be on, or necessary efforts we may make, our only real freedom is to awaken now, this very instant, to the mystery and miracle of being, to the spacious awareness that we are. It is only this immediate awakening to the deepest levels of ourselves, to the conscious source that connects us all, that will enable us to experience and manifest real harmony, intelligence, kindness, love, and compassion in our lives and bring about the transformation in the world that we all wish for.

The various articles/essays, parables, in-sights, audio clips, interviews (including both radio and TV), and other material offered on this website explore some of the many principles, perspectives, and practices of the work with harmonious awakening that I offer. My books The Tao of Natural Breathing (read the Preface) and  Free Your Breath, Free Your Life (read a passage from the book, and my three-CD audio program Natural Breathing (listen to an MP 3 sample from this program) are designed to help in this awakening, as are the various nationwide breathing and presence workshops, retreats, and other events that I lead. These workshops include work with natural breathing, qigong (chi kung), meditation, and, perhaps most important, self-inquiry. A print interview I did with The Empty Vessel Magazine a few years ago will give you a good overview of my work with breathing and how it relates to consciousness and wholeness. You can also take a look on You Tube at my one-hour appearance on the Bridging Heaven & Earth show # 45, which took place on July 11, 1997.

And don't forget to sign up below for our free monthly newsletter, which includes essays, practices, and other material related to harmonious awakening. A copy of the first issue, published at the beginning of April, 2008, can now be viewed in our newsletter archive.

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 *From a poem by Kenneth Patchen