Since awareness and control of breathing is a central part of any singer's technique, singers wanting to use meditation as a method of stress control often find breathing meditation a natural choice.
This form of meditation is considered very powerful in the East in view of the association between breath, consciousness, healing and the spirit.
In some eastern languages the word for "breath" is also the word for "spirit". The Sanskrit word "atman", meaning "self" or "spirit" originally meant "breath". " Atem", the German word for breath, shares the same root.
The inflow and outflow of air in breathing is associated in Indian and Chinese Yogas with positive and negative, masculine and feminine energies in the universe.
There are two basic ways of practising breathing meditation. One involves consciously regulating the breath. The other is by applying meditative awareness to the act of breathing, without conscious control.
The way of passive awareness is the purer form of meditation. Buddhists call this "mindfulness of breathing". It is said to have been used by the Buddha himself.
