Paper short abstract:

This paper looks at breathing as a bodily process that, when becoming the object of conscious awareness, reveals the complex nature of human reflexivity, and allows for the experience of a multilayered personal identity.

Paper long abstract:

This paper looks at breathing as a bodily process that, when becoming the object of conscious awareness, can shed light on the nature of human reflexivity. Carefully observing one's breathing spontaneously generates a reflexive perception of what being a living subject might be, a perception of oneself at once from without and from within. By approaching this attentive observation of the breathing process as a ritual, one can better grasp what reflexivity entails before analytic thought gets involved. It allows us to take a step back both from the purely anatomical aspects of the breathing process and from the spiritual or religious dogmas commonly associated with it; both are important tools for understanding, yet both are overly reductive. Purposefully pursuing the observation of breathing gives rise to a perceptual experience of reflexivity as a complex multilayered process that can provide the grounds for a representation of human personal identity as being multilayered as well.

In keeping with the expectations of most contemporary spiritual movements, the practice of self-conscious breathing can be seen, then, as the application of the experimental method to what emerges as a plural self. As such, it can serve as an analytic tool for exploring the complex nature of both human reflexivity and personal identity. Is it personal identity itself that is multilayered, or is it rather the very nature of human reflexivity to be a multilayered mode of perception?