The Senegalese Buddhist Community: The Mystical Practice of Breathing Between the Particles

(this entry is rated s for spoof)

There is a small but thriving Buddhist community here in Dakar.  They claim a lineage to somebody significant, whose name I don't recall, and I expect of little relevance to you.

A teaching colleague at the international school is a long-time member of this very tight knit community.  They get together for group mediation weekly, and for extended periods at particular times throughout the year.

It is fascinating that in a country so thoroughly influenced by Islam, the Senegalese Sufi Brotherhoods, and traditional animism, that this tiny sect of Buddhists meet to mediate, chant, and to share in a Buddhist lifestyle.  

It is through this teaching colleague that I was introduced to the founder of the community, a Rinpoche originally from Mali, who trained for years in India.  While enjoying a very pleasant dinner together, with the Call to Prayers echoing in the background from the nearby mosques, the Rinpoche inquired into my cough and obvious upper respiratory infection.  He explained that the community practiced a meditative technique which, translated, means to breathe between the particles.  

Initially, I was quite skeptical, to think that one could control one's breathing to such a high level that they inhale only between the dust particles.  It seemed a bit naive.  Still, my friend and the Rinpoche insisted.  The technique goes something like this:  

After a period of systematic quieting, one turns one's attention to the breath, and infuses one's being into the breath, so that all that exists is breath.  In this particular state of heightened being, one is then able to distinguish between the spirit and the material, which in this case is dust.  One then, with intention, inhales air in sharp bursts, from either or both nostrils, collapsing the space between particles.

In a country so thick with dust during the dry season, with upper respiratory infections so prevalent, the technique makes sense.  That the practice is yet another way of bringing mindfulness into one's daily life is of value.

Interestingly, the practice of Breathing Between the Particles can be directly applied to the sixth grade classroom, a milieu where flatulence is common and distracting.  I often have to pause in my teaching to recover from the "dust" emanating from a particular student, whose name I will not herein mention.  The practice is effective.  At the first sign of trouble, usually the striking reaction of another student, in the order of What's Died?!, I quickly center myself, pull all of my being in the breath, and begin inhaling between the particles.

Did I mention:  It was this same Rinpoche who told us about the Orange Fanta.