Question about breath retention

[ChiDragon]

On 7/6/2019 at 10:25 AM, liminal_luke said:

We can think of the breath as having four parts: the inhale, the pause at the top of the inhale, the exhale, and the pause at the bottom of the exhale.  Although it´s possible (and a practice in it´s own right) to completely eliminate the pauses, most people will naturally have slight pauses at the end of an inhale and exhale.  Already this is breath retention, albeit in a very minor form.  

 

The pauses are powerful because they are moments of neutrality, of balance, of silence.  They are analogous to the solstices.  The days get longer and longer (inhale) until finally there´s a moment of pause as we get to maximum yang at the summer solstice (pause of top of inhale).  Then the days get shorter and shorter (exhale) until finally there´s a moment of pause as we get to to maximum yin at the winter solstice (pause at bottom of exhale).  

I would like to comment on the pause. It is only a transition from one state to another. For example, a ball was going up until it reaches  the top, it pauses and then falls back down to earth. It is analogous to the Yang state, when the ball reaches the top and pauses, then, to the Yin state when the ball falls down. When the ball hits the ground, it was considered to be at the full yin state. It is at the full yang state when the ball is at maximum height.