Learn to focus on the positive side of the enjoyable experience of the breath and breath meditation

"Ask yourself: “What kind of breathing would feel really good? How do you perceive the breathing? Do you perceive it in a way that prevents it from feeling good?” Think of it as something that’s going through your nerves, down through your blood vessels, down to the tips of the toes, not so much the quantity of air that comes in and out of the lungs, which tends to get mechanical. But think of a flow. And you’re not outside doing the squeezing or the pulling. You’re in the midst, being bathed by the breath sensation, letting it come in, letting it go out, and directing it simply with a thought: “longer” or “shorter,” “deeper,” “more shallow.” If you don’t find the breath refreshing, ask yourself, “What is getting in the way? What needs to be refreshed in the body right now? What’s not getting the refreshment it wants? Can you think of the breath helping with that spot? If you’re feeling dissatisfied with the sensations in your body right now, what can you do to change them?” But first you’ve got to analyze: Where’s the problem? What’s the dissatisfaction coming from? What’s feeling starved of breath energy? Make a survey, go around the body, go to the spots that you don’t normally focus on and allow them to open up.

It’s good to perceive the breath and breath meditation not so much as a chore, but as an opportunity. It’s like when you go camping. You can think of all the hardships that you’re putting yourself through and you can make yourself miserable that way. Or you can realize how liberating it is to be away from society, with your only bathroom a hole in the ground, your source of water a spring — and looking around, you don’t see anybody telling you what to do.

In other words, learn to focus on the positive side of the experience and you make it enjoyable. You realize, of course, that there are both negative sides and positive sides, but why focus on the negative? There’s so much negativity in the world as it is. Learn to focus on the positive. What’s already getting satisfied, say with the breath, as you breathe in, breathe out? And what potentials do you have for satisfying other parts of the body? Look at this as an opportunity. You don’t have a deadline. You don’t have crazy people telling you what to do. You’re away from human society.

The ajaans will often tell their meditators: Tell yourself you’re the only person sitting here in the sala. Even though there are other people around you, you don’t have to worry about them. It’s as if they weren’t there. So if you’d like your awareness to spread out and just to fill the whole sala and say “I can take this whole sala as mine,” that’s perfectly fine. It gives you a little more space, and you’ve got the sense of the body surrounded by space. Then you can ask yourself, “Where is there tension in the way you hold the body right now? Can you release the tension?” Try to sit straight and ask yourself which muscles in the body are pulling you out of a nice comfortably, straight posture. Relax those muscles.

Get into the details. The reason the breath seems mechanical is because you’re not really sensitive to what you’re doing. You’re not giving it your full attention, your full sensitivity. Think of meditation as listening to a piece of music you’d like to hear, but it’s far away, so you have to make yourself really quiet and really sensitive. Learn how to be a real connoisseur of the breath."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Full Attention"

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