Breathing fast and slow

For more than a year now, I have been practicing meditation. Some might describe it as "meditation light" because I generally do not sit longer than 30 minutes at a time. Indeed, that has been my longest session thus far. Every other day, I attempt to sit in the early morning hours for 20 minutes. Along with my yoga practice and my writing rituals, this feels about right to me. I have spent some of these 20-minute sessions sobbing or choking back tears. Other sessions have delivered me from the fog of some important issue I needed to see more clearly. Of course, many other mornings it's a battle to find some quiet in the chatter before the bell sounds the session's close. About six months into this practice, I bought and read Jack Kornfield's book A Path with Heart : A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life . At the end of every chapter, Kornfield provides excellent guidance in the art of meditation, incorporating whatever lesson raised and rumi...