Namistay?

Breathe in, breathe out. What could be more essential to meditation, yoga or life? But most of us hold our breath when the going gets tough. The inhale gets stuck, the exhale falters. The held breath tightens the muscles, interrupts the flow.
This universal tendency is not unlike clinging, the habit of mind that meditation addresses. We crave attachment; we can’t let go of people or places or things. We can’t even let go of our breath.
But the simple act of breathing can help us learn to let go. To live, we must breathe out as well as in. Each exhale reminds us of that fact. To grow as humans we must also learn to let go. “Necessary losses” Judith Viorst called them in a book by that name.
I’m a fledgling yoga student, but when my instructor pointed out this connection last week I had one of those aha moments. We end each class with “namaste” … not “namastay.” I’ll try to keep that in mind.