Try to maintain a sense of awareness of the whole body, and let the pleasure radiate out through the body.

"Notice how the breath feels in the different parts of the body. Here we’re not talking just about the air coming in and out of the lungs, but also about the whole energy flow, the subtle movement of the body, as the breath comes in, the breath goes out. Try to notice: Do you tense up as you breathe in? Do you hold on to tension as you breathe out? Can you breathe in in a way that doesn’t build up tension? Can you breathe out in a way that’s not holding on to tension?

First you want to start out at one spot in the body where it’s easy to get a sense of the breath coming in, the breath going out, or the movement of the body as you breathe in, as you breathe out. Learn how to relate to that spot so that you stay with it but are not clinching up around it, so that there’s a sense of openness and fullness right there in that spot — fullness in the sense that the blood is allowed to flow naturally without being squeezed and diverted. This is a skill. For most of us, when we concentrate on some part of the body, we tense it up in order to maintain a sensation we can stick with. But here you want to maintain a sense of openness and stick with that.

Learn how to stick with that sense, so that you can keep that sense of openness and fullness all the way through the in-breath, all the way through the out. When you can maintain that, move to other parts of the body. You can do this systematically. You might start, say, at the navel, or the base of the throat, or the back of the neck. If you start at the navel, go up the front of the body, then down the back, out the legs. Then from the back of the neck, down the shoulders, and out the arms. Or if you start at the back of the neck, you can go down the back first, out the legs, down the shoulders and out the arms, and then down the front of the torso, taking the body section by section, to see if there’s any section where you tend to hold onto tension with the out-breath or the in-breath, and training yourself to breathe in such a way that there’s no holding on, so that things are allowed to flow smoothly. The breath flows smoothly, the blood flows smoothly, and there’s a sense of ease all the way through the breathing process.

Some people at this point begin to get a sense of floating, but try not to drift out. You can float and be buoyant, but stay in place. There’s a sense of lightness and buoyancy, so keep that sense of lightness, but stay where you are. You’ve learned to breathe in such a way that the whole body feels at ease throughout the in-breath and out-breath. Try to maintain that sense of awareness of the whole body, and let the pleasure radiate out through the body. Just learn how to maintain that, to stick with it. If you find yourself losing focus when you open up your range of awareness to the whole body, go back to surveying the body spot by spot, section by section, and then try settling down with the whole body again. You may find yourself going back and forth like this for a while until you feel comfortable and stable staying with the whole body. Even though there’s a sense of ease and lightness, there’s also a solidity to your focus. In other words, it’s steady. It doesn’t get moved around easily.

At this point, you want to maintain a sense of being focused primarily on one spot in the body, but aware of the whole body. It’s like looking at a painting. Your eyes may focus on one spot in the painting, but you can see the whole painting, even though you’re focused on one spot."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Right Resolve"