Brunton's Smiling-Breath

A faithful rendering of Brunton’s relaxation primer:

1. Sit or recline comfortably. Take a posture you can hold without strain — upright for meditation, or reclining if you simply want to relax. Loosen tight clothing.
2. Begin slow, deep, easy breathing. Breathe more deeply and slowly than usual, drawing the breath low (into the belly), with no force or counting. The pace is unhurried and natural — “quite slowly,” PB says.
3. Add a gentle smile. As you breathe, let a soft, gentle smile form on the face — not a grin, just the faint relaxed smile of someone at ease. Do it slowly, in time with the calm breathing.
4. Keep attention solely on the body’s condition. Place all the mind’s attention on how the body feels — the rise and fall of the breath, the loosening of the muscles, the spreading warmth and heaviness. Do not chase thoughts; whenever the mind wanders, bring it back to the body’s softening state.
5. Let the half-drowsy calm develop. Continue, slowly, until a relaxed, calm, half-drowsy state arises of its own accord — pleasantly heavy, quiet, and at ease. Don’t force it; allow it.
6. Pass into the main practice (or simply rest). From this receptive state, move gently into meditation — PB’s remembrance of the Overself or self-inquiry — or, if you only wanted relaxation, simply rest in the calm. (Sourcing note: “combining deep breathing with gentle smiling, both acts being done quite slowly,” “keeping the mind solely attentive to the body’s condition,” and “a relaxed half-drowsy state will develop” reflect Brunton’s documented instruction in The Wisdom of the Overself; the numbered steps describe the method faithfully, not verbatim.)

Paul Brunton (1898–1981) consistently placed bodily and nervous relaxation before meditation, treating tension as the chief obstacle to inner quiet (see The Wisdom of the Overself, 1943, and Notebooks Vol.

4, “Meditation / The Body”). The smiling-breath belongs to a broad family of relaxation-into-meditation primers. Its breathing half draws on the same calming physiology as yogic slow breathing and later Western relaxation training; its smiling half anticipates instructions made famous by Thich Nhat Hanh (“breathe and smile”) and modern body-scan relaxation. → (Paul Brunton). Kin to.

Thich Nhat Hanh — “Breathing in, I calm my body; breathing out, I smile” — the most famous smile-with-breath instruction; same two ingredients.

• Yogic slow breathing / dirgha — deep, slow diaphragmatic breath as a calming preliminary to meditation.
• Coherent / resonance breathing (~6 breaths/min) — the modern, measured version of slow breathing for vagal tone.
• Progressive Muscle Relaxation (Jacobson) — Western relaxation primer focused on the body’s condition.
• Autogenic training — attention to bodily heaviness/warmth to induce calm; close to PB’s “attend to the body’s condition.”
• Inner Smile (Taoist) — directing a gentle smile inward through the body; a more elaborate relative.

Forcing the breath. Deep does not mean strained or hyperventilated. Keep it slow, easy, and natural; over-breathing causes light-headedness and defeats the purpose.

• Faking a tense grin. The smile should be soft and genuine-feeling, the faint smile of ease — not a clenched performance, which adds tension.
• Letting the mind roam. PB’s instruction is to keep attention solely on the body’s condition. Thinking about your day undoes the calm; keep returning to the felt sense of softening.
• Treating it as the whole practice. It is a doorway, not the destination — use the receptive state for meditation or rest, don’t just stop at “relaxed.”
• Rushing. “Quite slowly” is the instruction for both breath and smile; speed re-arouses the system.
• Refinement: if you tend to fall fully asleep, sit upright rather than recline, and use it as a brief 5-minute primer.