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What may feel good for a couple of breaths may not be so good if you keep it up for a long time. So if one way of breathing doesn’t feel good anymore, you stop and change. Try to stay on top of the process.

"Get the mind really to settle down and be at ease with one object: the breath. Think of the breath as the energy flowing through the body that helps the air come in and out of the lungs. And you can look at that flow of energy anywhere in the body. Take a couple of good, long, deep in-and-out breaths and notice: Where do you feel that energy flow most prominently? Focus there. And then ask yourself if it feels good. If the way you’re breathing right now doesn’t feel good, you can change it. Make it longer, shorter, or in-long out-short, in-short out-long, fast, slow, heavy or light. There are lots of ways you can adjust your breathing. Try different ones for a while and see which ones seem to have the best effect, are easiest to stay with, and actually feel really good. Notice that some areas of the body are more sensitive to the flow of breath energy than the others. For some people, the most sensitive spot is in the area around the heart. For others, it’s in the a...

A sense of ease and well-being with the breath can do a lot more for you than any amount of status, material gain, praise, outside pleasures — any of the ways of the world.

"If you give a lot of attention to the breath, you begin to see its potentials and can take advantage of them. You find that a sense of ease and well-being with the breath can do a lot more for you than any amount of status, material gain, praise, outside pleasures — any of the ways of the world. A sense of ease and well-being that come from within: This is really all you need because it fully nourishes the mind right now." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Less is More" (Meditations6)

The sensual desire you’re feeling has drawbacks that far outweigh the gratification, and you’d be much better off focusing on the breath to let the mind gain a sense of inner peace and calm instead.

"If you’re honest with yourself, you’ll be able to find some way for realizing that the sensual desire you’re feeling has drawbacks that far outweigh the gratification, and that you’d be much better off focusing on the breath to let the mind gain a sense of inner peace and calm instead." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Karma of Mindfulness: The Buddha's Teachings on Sati and Kamma"

We try to develop this sense of well-being in the body as our refuge. It’s important that you find a strong sense of pleasure simply sitting here in the body as it’s felt from inside.

"We try to develop this sense of well-being in the body as our refuge. As the Buddha points out, if we didn’t have any other alternative to pain, we’d just go for nothing but sensuality, because that would be the only other option out there offering some pleasure. So, it’s important that you find a strong sense of pleasure simply sitting here in the body as it’s felt from inside." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "See Your Thoughts as Strange" (Meditations10)

You learn how to be a connoisseur of the pleasure, learning to appreciate how refreshing it can be to breathe, because you’re going to need that appreciation to deal with your thoughts of sensuality.

"The important point is that you don’t avoid the pleasure. You actively cultivate it. You learn how to be a connoisseur of the pleasure, learning to appreciate how really nice it can be to breathe, with a sense of fullness in the body, how refreshing that can be, because you’re going to need that appreciation to deal with your thoughts of sensuality. So appreciate the breath. Savor the breath." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Mastering Pleasure & Pain"

Work deeper and deeper on your sense of well-being and peace

"If the breath feels really good, you gain a sense that you really don’t want to go anywhere else. You like being right here; it’s like coming home. You have a sense that this is where you belong. So try to maintain that. The problem is that after feeling refreshed like this for a while, you say, “Okay, enough. I’m ready to go someplace else.” Remind yourself: There are deeper levels of pleasure that you won’t experience unless you really stay here for a long period of time. Things begin to open up, open up, open up over time. So try to be patient. If you find yourself wondering, “What shall I do next?” ask yourself, “Is there a way of breathing that could be even more comfortable?” Parts of the body that are not getting any breath energy: Look for those. In other words, you have to work on this sense of well-being. Otherwise, the mind begins to get drowsy and slips off. So there’s always more to observe right here. Just go deeper and deeper, and you get more and mo...

Simply by sitting here breathing — the breath coming in, going out comfortably — you don’t require any sensual pleasures at all to make you happy. It has nothing to do with sensual desires at all. That’s what renunciation means.

"Simply by sitting here breathing — the breath coming in, going out comfortably — you don’t require any sensual pleasures at all to make you happy. That’s what you learn when you meditate: You’ve got the resources inside that allow you to breathe in a way that feels really satisfying, and it’s all for free. It has nothing to do with sensual desires at all. That’s what renunciation means." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Five Precepts, Five Virtues"