A few years ago, a professor of mine mentioned in a class that in certain cases he avoided giving very deep meditation at the end — because he had a student who, after an intense session, had crashed the car.
We all laughed.
Some time later, after a deep meditation session at home, I went to take the car out of the parking lot.
And I made a dent.
It didn’t seem so funny anymore.
My question at that moment was honest: “But after all, how does this, the practice, connect with life?”
It wasn’t the meditation’s fault. It was how I was using it — as an escape, as a zen moment, not as preparation for life.
And life brought me back, with something concrete and tangible.
But the question remained. It took some time to answer — and as much to integrate.
The misconception of relaxation
There is an established idea that Chi Kung, coherent breathing, meditation — serve to relax.
And I understand where it comes from. Those who come to these practices often arrive exhausted, overloaded, looking for relief. And the practices provide that — but that’s not the goal.
Relaxing in the sense of disconnecting, numbing, creating a bubble protected from life — that is an escape or postponement. And escape has a cost: when one returns, life is still there. With the same worries, the same tensions, the same challenges.
What these practices develop is not the capacity to escape. It is the capacity to be present — functional, attentive, resourced — amid everything life brings.
It’s not relaxation. It’s functionality.
Who used these practices — and for what
If Chi Kung and conscious breathing were only escape tools, they would have been abandoned long ago.
The three groups that have most used them throughout history were warriors, monks, and healers.
Warriors needed clarity under extreme pressure — not relaxation, but total presence in the critical moment.
Monks needed to be awake and attentive for hours — not asleep in a contemplative fog, but with a focused mind and a stable body.
Healers needed to be fully present with those who suffered — not protected behind emotional distance, but available without dispersing themselves.
None of them practiced to escape life. They practiced to be more within it and to be able to operate with higher quality in it.
The real challenge
The real challenge is not to relax. It is to bring what worries us inside our life area — and not reject it.
The difficult meeting. The conversation that is postponed. The fatigue that doesn’t pass. The bills that don’t add up at the end of the month. The worry that appears in the middle of practice.
All of that is life. And practice is not to erase it — it is to create the internal conditions to face it with more resources and from a more empowered place.
The eyes may be closed — but they are open to life.
Presence, not absence.
Good practices
Lourenço de Azevedo