The Buddha said when there are unskillful states of the mind, working with the breath and soothing the body with the breath is like the first rains after the hot season. Your mind is stirring up a lot less dust.

"So one of the purposes of breath meditation is to soothe things. In one of the Buddha’s analogies, he said when there are unskillful states of the mind, working with the breath and soothing the body with the breath is like the first rains after the hot season.

If you’ve ever been in India at the end of the hot season, you know that everything’s really dusty. When the first rains come, they clear all that dust out of the air. It’s the same with the breath, when the breath feels good, and you’re with a sense of ease and refreshment, and you allow it to percolate through the body. Whatever unskillful notions or impulses that the mind might normally feed on just get washed out of the mind like so much dust. When you’re in this state — secure, at ease — you can look at the petty concerns you have from the day and you actually see them as petty. They seem a lot smaller from this perspective than they do when you’re in the midst of them. This allows you to step back and have some freedom from them.

So as you’re feeding your sense of well-being inside the body with the way you play with the breath, you’re also contributing to the well-being of people around you, because your mind is stirring up a lot less dust."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Breath Energy"

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