The verse and its meaning · Yoga in Practice · Yoga in Practice — Pranayama

Four times a day; the sweat; slowly, as one tames a lion

Hatha Yoga Pradipika 2.11

प्रातर्मध्यन्दिने सायं अर्धरात्रे च कुम्भकान्। शनैरशीतिपर्यन्तं चतुर्वारं समभ्यसेत् ॥

Meaning · English

At dawn, at midday, at evening and at midnight, let the holdings of breath be practised slowly, up to eighty each time, in four sittings through the day.

The Pradipika gives a timetable. There are four times in the day: dawn, midday, evening and midnight. At each, the practice is kumbhaka, a holding of the breath, the pause kept after the breath is drawn in. The manner is 'slowly'. The number is 'up to eighty'. The text then says four times once more, as the count of sittings in a day. Why does it teach this? The lines beside it say that steady practice over months settles the nadis, the tradition's name for the channels along which prana, the breath-energy, is said to travel. A timetable turns a single technique into a habit, and the text hangs the habit on the four turning points of day and night. The commentary adds detail, and these details are its own. It reads dawn as first light until a little over an hour after sunrise. Midday is the middle of the day, when the daylight is cut into five parts. Evening is twilight, and midnight is the middle of the night. Eighty at each of four sittings makes three hundred and twenty in a day. The commentary also says that if midnight is not possible, three sittings are kept, which gives two hundred and forty. What it asks of a practitioner is regularity, slowness and patience. 'Up to' marks a ceiling reached over a long time, not a place to begin. The text names no beginner's number.

1. Sit upright at a quiet hour, dawn, midday or evening, whichever you can keep daily. 2. Let the breath go slowly, with nothing pushed and no sound. 3. Attend to the slowness itself, the way each breath takes its time. 4. When the mind wanders, notice it and return to the slow breath. 5. Hold nothing. Stop if you feel dizzy or strained, and sit quietly with the ordinary breath.

The verse gives times and a ceiling, not a method. What follows is the gentle form taught today, without any holding. The counts are modern teaching, not the text's. This is learnt with a teacher. 1. Choose one sitting only, the morning. Sit on a folded blanket or a chair, spine tall, shoulders loose, left hand resting on the knee. 2. Close the eyes or let the gaze fall softly a short way ahead. Breathe normally for a minute. 3. Rest the right thumb against the right nostril and the ring finger near the left. 4. Close the right nostril. Breathe in through the left for a count of 4. 5. Close the left nostril and open the right. Breathe out through the right for a count of 4. Do not hold anywhere. 6. Breathe in through the right for 4. 7. Close the right, open the left, and breathe out through the left for 4. That is one round. 8. Do five rounds. Once that is easy, let the out-breath grow to 6 or 8 counts, so that it is longer than the in-breath. 9. To come out, lower the hand, breathe naturally, and sit still for a minute before opening the eyes. The breath stays quiet, with no sound in the throat and no push. A beginner holds no breath at all, and does not add the other sittings of the day or any large number. The text's eighty is a distant ceiling. Stop at once if you feel dizzy, a tightness in the chest or face, or any strain, and return to ordinary breathing.

The body first. Slow breathing is done by the diaphragm, the dome of muscle under the lungs, with the ribs widening gently. The neck, jaw and shoulders can stay loose, and the upright seat keeps the spine long without effort. Closing one nostril with the fingers asks the hand and arm to stay light, because a pressing hand tightens the face. The breath next. Slowing the out-breath lengthens each cycle and leaves room between breaths. A hold, when a teacher later adds one, makes the pause deliberate and calls for more care. This is why the text says 'slowly': hurry makes the breath ragged and the holding a struggle. The mind last. Counting and switching sides give attention a task small enough to finish, and a plain object to return to. Fixed times also help. A sitting at the same hour is remembered by the body, and less decision is needed each day. The tradition's own account is different in kind. The Pradipika describes the practice as clearing the nadis so that prana moves evenly. That is its map, not an anatomy. The four hours are the tradition's choice too, tied to sun and night, and nothing in breathing mechanics requires them.

This verse names no fruit of its own; it names only the times, the slowness and the number. The nearby Pradipika lines give the claims. The Pradipika says that those who practise the alternate-nostril method steadily find the nadis purified after three months. It also describes a progression through the practice: sweat first, then trembling, then a steadiness of the body, and it says that rubbing the sweat into the limbs brings firmness and lightness. The commentary adds nothing to these claims beyond the daily count. These are the text's promises, offered as the tradition's account of what regular practice gives. They are not guarantees, and the text does not say how long any one person will take.

A nurse on a night shift sits down in the quiet of her midnight break and tries slow breathing for a few minutes before the ward fills again. That small scene shows what is generally understood. Slow, unforced breathing, with a longer out-breath, tends to settle the body for many people, and a regular time helps a habit hold. This is ordinary knowledge about breathing and attention, nothing special to this text. The rest is the tradition's claim, or goes beyond what is established. There is no sound basis for the figures of eighty, three hundred and twenty or two hundred and forty, nor for four fixed hours. Nadis and prana have no match in anatomy. Holding the breath for long raises carbon dioxide and can bring light-headedness, which is why a beginner holds nothing. Midnight practice also cuts into sleep, and sleep matters more than any schedule. Sweating and trembling are read by the text as signs of progress. Today they are better read as signs of effort beyond what is wise, and a reason to ease off.

This is not medical advice, and a page cannot correct the breath as a teacher can. Learn it with a teacher, and stop if there is pain, dizziness or strain. Take particular care, or leave it out until a doctor and teacher agree, with high blood pressure, heart or lung conditions, pregnancy, a recent surgery, or a tendency to panic or faint. Never practise breath holds without a teacher. The text's eighty, four times a day, and the sweat and trembling it describes would be harmful if followed literally by a beginner. Do not force the breath, hold it to a count, or practise through the night at the cost of sleep.

अर्थ · हिन्दी

In this book

• Before: Nadi shodhana — the alternate breath · Hatha Yoga Pradipika 2.7
• Next: Rightly used, wrongly used · Hatha Yoga Pradipika 2.16
• All of Yoga in Practice · Ask Krishna about it

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