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Trust in the fact that holding on to this perception of “breath, breath, breath,” “whole-body breath,” “calming the breath” as you breathe in, breathe out, can take you to a sense of ease, a sense of well-being.

"The perception you hold in mind will have a huge impact on how you experience things. So trust in the fact that holding on to this perception of “breath, breath, breath” as you breathe in, as you breathe out, “whole-body breath” as you breathe in, as you breathe out, “calming the breath” as you breathe in, breathe out, can take you to a sense of ease, a sense of well-being, a feeling in which you can really settle down in the present moment and be very clear and alert about it. It really can make a change in what you’re experiencing. That’s a very important lesson right there: that what you choose to focus on and how consistently you hang on to that focus can have a huge impact on what you’re experiencing. Then you learn how to take this lesson and apply it to other aspects of life: When you’re sick, when you’re bored, when you’re anxious, whatever the situation outside, you realize, “I may not be able to change the situation outside, but I can change my perception so that I ...
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You’ve got something good here. The breath can be as comfortable as you want. Just learn how to maintain that sense of well-being inside, because it is perfectly harmless, and it does give you strength.

"You’ve got something good here. The breath can be as comfortable as you want. Just learn how to maintain that sense of well-being inside, because it is perfectly harmless, and it does give you the strength you need to overcome greed, aversion, and delusion when they come and try to pull you away again. ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Battle Inside"
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You've got something really satisfying, this sensation is so totally absorbing that you let go of everything else

"As soon as that refreshing breath sensation begins to fill up in the body, you let go of everything else. No matter what other disturbances come, you’re not the least bit interested because you’ve got something really satisfying. You could almost say that it’s a sensation to die for. You let down your guard, let go of everything else, because this sensation is so totally absorbing. You’ve opened up every part of the body, every part of your awareness for this sensation to come in." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Tuning-in to the Breath" (Meditations1)
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Breathe through your discomfort and dissolve it away. Let the breath create physical feelings of ease and fullness. This physical ease helps put the mind at ease as well.

"Breathe through your discomfort and dissolve it away. Let the breath create physical feelings of ease and fullness, and allow those feelings to saturate your whole body. This physical ease helps put the mind at ease as well. When you’re operating from a sense of ease, it’s easier to fabricate skillful perceptions as you evaluate your response to the issue with which you’re faced." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Head & Heart Together: Bringing Wisdom to the Brahmavihāras"
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Examine Your Happiness (extract)

"The bliss of concentration is an acquired taste. It’s a specific kind of happiness, which the Thais call santi-sukha, which literally means the happiness of peace. This is a basic level of well-being that we tend to overlook because it carries no excitement, no thrills. It’s just a basic sense of ease that’s steady, like the flame of an oil lamp. For most of us, we notice pleasure and pain because of the back-and-forth, the ups and the downs. When things are steady and on an even keel, we tend to lose interest and not notice them. But that’s precisely the kind of well-being we’re working on here: the kind of happiness that’s steady, that doesn’t go up and down. We have to learn how to appreciate that. As we stick with it more and more, we begin to realize that we wouldn’t want to be without this kind of happiness, without this kind of well-being. But then the next question is, is it really steady? As you examine it, you find that it, too, involves a certain level of...
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Breathe through and dissolve away uncomfortable energies in your body and senses of the world you inhabit

"The way you manipulate the energy in your body is going to determine how you identify yourself, along with sense of the world you inhabit. If the energy in your body’s really uncomfortable, whatever world you’ve got out there is going to feel confining. But if you can breathe through it, you can learn to walk through those uncomfortable worlds, dissolve them away." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Close to What You Know"
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You look after the energies in your body. You begin to realize that you’ve been placing a lot of burdens on your mind, unnecessary burdens, by allowing these energies to get all out of whack.

"Even working on breath meditation is a form of goodwill [mettā] for yourself, as you look after the energies in your body. You begin to realize that you’ve been placing a lot of burdens on your mind, unnecessary burdens, by allowing these energies to get all out of whack. But if you work on them and gain a sense of being balanced here in the concentration, a lot of the burdens in the mind get lifted. And then you have more time for other people." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Spread Goodness Around" (Meditations9)
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