Thanissaro Bhikkhu on Refreshing Breathing

"The Pāli word for “rapture” (pīti) is related to the verb pivati, to drink. Several passages in the discourses describe rapture as the food of the Radiant devas, inhabitants of a brahmā world into which meditators can be reborn through mastery of the second jhāna (DN 1; Dhp 200; AN 4:123). “Rapture” thus carries connotations of refreshment and rejuvenation. In the standard similes for the four jhānas, rapture is symbolized by movement: the movement of water through the bathman’s ball of bathing powder in the simile for the first jhāna, and the natural movement of spring water throughout the lake in the simile for the second. Only in the third jhāna, where rapture is absent, does the water of the lake fall still. Rapture can be felt both mentally and physically, a fact indicated by two passages from the discourses. The description of the seven factors for awakening in MN 118 speaks of the meditator who has attained rapture as a factor of awakening as being “enraptured in heart.” T...

"So make sure you get the basics down. Stay with the breath. Keep the breath comfortable. If you fall off, get back with the breath. Do it all with a sense of good humor, because it’s a skill that requires you stick with it for the long haul. And don’t be discouraged by how much effort it takes, because the results, when they come, are more than worth the effort." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Breathing Game"

"As long as the mind is starving, feeling irritated and unhappy, all it can think about is immediate results, a desire for an immediate hit. To counteract this tendency, we feed the mind with concentration, we feed the mind with comfortable breath sensations, work those sensations through the body so that we can feel bathed in a sense of ease, realizing that nobody can take this sense of ease away from us. We’re not threatened. That lets us think in the long term, not only the long term into the future, but also thinking back long-term into the past and being a little bit more mature about our attitude about the bad things that come our way in the world, or bad situations in the world." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "We’re All Learning the Ropes"

"As we meditate, we’re trying to master a skill. In the beginning, the skill is the skill of concentration: getting the mind to stay with one object — like the breath. You think about the breath and then you notice when it’s coming in, when it’s going out, and you evaluate it: Is it comfortable? What kind of breathing would be comfortable right now? And you also evaluate your focus: Where’s a good place to focus? You can focus on the tip of the nose, the base of the throat, the middle of the chest, just above the navel — anyplace where you can clearly notice now the breath is coming in, now it’s going out. You breathe with a sense of refreshment." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Skill of Happiness"

"We find that simply by focusing on the breath in a way that’s comfortable, allows the mind to settle down and feel at home in the present moment. That right there is a huge, huge thing. There are so many people who can’t do even that, either out of regret for what they’ve done in the past, or just a simple unwillingness to look carefully at what’s going on in the present moment. They’re always running around, running around, running around, and having nothing to show for it really. So it’s an important investment to take the time to get to know your breath, get to know the body in the present moment, in a way that allows you to settle down. When the mind settles down, it has a greater sense of spaciousness. That sense of spaciousness is something you can’t buy." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Intelligent Heart"

"When you feed the mind well, there’s a sense of ease that comes from breathing well, and this can be done in lots of different ways. You can work with the rhythm of the breath. Or you can work from the outside in. In other words, think of the breath energy flowing in your arms and legs, as you relax around the process of breathing. Relax your arms, relax your legs. Start with the feet. Start with the hands and come into the center, and the in-and-out breath will find a good rhythm on its own. But it is something you fabricate. In other words, you do work on this. You adjust the condition so that it feels good breathing in, feels good breathing out, it feels good just sitting here, inhabiting your body, inhabiting the form of the body. Allow yourself to gain an appreciation for this level of pleasure, this level of refreshment. As the Buddha says, you indulge in it, and it helps you to stabilize the mind. As the mind gets more stable, it reaches a point where it doesn’t need that ...

"So when you try to acquaint yourself with these [breath] energies, there are three points to keep in mind: 1) You’re not concerned with your breath as it might be observed by a doctor or a machine outside you. You’re concerned with your breath as only you can know it: as part of your direct experience of having a body. If you have trouble thinking of these energies as “breath,” see if thinking of them as “breathing sensations” or “body sensations” helps — whatever enables you to get in touch with what’s actually there. 2) This is NOT a matter of trying to create sensations that don’t already exist. You’re simply making yourself more sensitive to sensations that are already there. When you’re told to let the breath energies flow into one another, ask yourself if the sensations you feel seem unconnected to one another. If they do, simply hold in mind the possibility that they can connect on their own. This is what it means to allow them to flow. 3) These energies are n...

"When we’re working with the breath, sometimes we feel we want to make it really comfortable and full of rapture and all these wonderful things, and for some reason it’s just okay. We drive ourselves crazy trying to make it really good. But you have to remember: Okay is okay. You’re looking for a spot where you can settle down." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Pain is a Noble Truth"

"What really feels good when you’re breathing right now? If you can’t figure out what really feels good, hold your breath for a while until the mind comes to the point where it’s screaming at you: “Breathe! You’ve got to breathe!” Then, when you breathe, notice what feels really good as you breathe in. Take that as a guide." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Start Out Small" (Meditations2)

"When everything else seems to be crazy in life, just say, “Okay, I’m going to stay right here. If I don’t know anything else for sure, what I do know for sure is that the breath is now coming in, the breath is now going out. Let’s just hang out here for the time being.” In that way you can weather whatever crisis comes up, and it gives you the strength to deal with things, to recover. I was reading recently about studies they’ve done of major disasters and catastrophes — huge hurricanes, earthquakes, fires. They’ve noticed how people immediately after a catastrophe feel a bizarre sense of euphoria. They develop a sense of common purpose as they drop their normal concerns and band together to rebuild, to recover. Then, after a while, once things get back to normal again, everybody goes back to their old ways. As one researcher pointed out, right after a catastrophe there’s a suspension of time; people’s normal narratives stop functioning and there’s a sense of liberation from tho...

"Most of the evil in the world is done because people feel threatened or afraid. But if you have a good and secure basis for the mind here in the body like this, and have trained your awareness so that you can fill the body with a sense of rapture, fill your awareness with a sense of ease, fill the body with your awareness, then the normal petty ways of the world just get less and less attractive. This is good for the body. But that’s incidental. The really important part is that it’s good for the mind." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Body as Path"

"If you think of the breath simply as the air coming in and out of the nose, that influences how you’re going to breathe and the way you experience the breath. But if you think about the energy in the body as being breath, then it can go anywhere in the nervous system. It can go through anything at all. That gives you another perception. It’s going to change the way you actually experience the breath. You can start to think of all those little tiny nerve endings going all the way out to the pores of your skin. They’ve got breath energy, too. If you hold that perception in mind, how does that change the way you breathe? How does it change the way you feel in the present moment? Does it feel more pleasant? If not, what other perception of breathing can you think of that would? So as you focus on working and playing with the breath, you’re getting some conscious experience in learning how to manipulate what the Buddha calls bodily fabrication, verbal fabrication, and mental fabricati...

"If you understand that happiness comes from within — from developing your own inner resources, things as simple as the breath — that puts in you in a very different position with regard to the people around you. Your happiness doesn’t have to conflict with theirs. In fact, your happiness can actually help theirs. If you know how to find true happiness inside — how cultivate your breath, how to cultivate your thoughts in the proper way — then you can be a good example to them. And you can actually share your knowledge with them at the appropriate times. You’ve probably noticed: People who have that kind of glow from an inner happiness — you pick up some of that glow just being around them. So you create a better environment for the people in your family, the people at work as you’re cultivating good things inside." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Understanding Happiness"

"So think of the breath as your safe place, as your safe haven. And work on making it a comfortable place to stay, because it is yours. The thoughts that come through your mind: You’ve picked up language from this culture, all different kinds of culture sometimes. Even the words going through your mind are words you’ve borrowed from other people. But your sensation of the breath: That’s yours. So allow that to be comfortable. That way you have a good bulwark against all the forces of the world and the forces of your own emotions. At the same time, you learn how to step back from it. You’re not entirely involved in an emotion. That weakens it so that it doesn’t take over. This is what the Buddha means by finding refuge. We develop his qualities inside our own mind. He was a person of mindfulness and alertness, so try to be mindful to keep the breath in mind and be alert to stay with the breath. And just as he found a refuge inside himself, you’ll be able to find a ref...

"So these are the qualities you bring to the breath: mindfulness, keeping the breath in mind; alertness, being alert and sensitive to the breathing; and ardency, trying to make that sensitivity even more refined, more continuous. So, as we focus on the breath, it’s not that we’re just getting the breath. We’re also developing good qualities in the mind." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Making a Difference"

"If you breathe out in a way where you’re squeezing the energy out of the body, that’s not going to help with the physical sense of rapture. You have to breathe out in a way that doesn’t squeeze things. You can tell yourself, “I’ll put energy into breathing in. Let the body breathe out on its own. I don’t have to squeeze the breath out.” You also have to be careful not to squeeze anything at the end of the in-breath or the end of the out-breath. This, too, is a common mistake when people are doing breath meditation: They want to have a clear dividing line so that they can know, “This is the in-breath; this is the out-breath.” So they make a little squeeze between the two in the energy field of the body. You want to learn how to resist that temptation. You don’t need that clear a dividing line. Think of the in-breath flowing into the out-breath, and the out-breath flowing into the in-breath. Don’t squeeze to make a distinction between the two. You’ll find that if you don’t squeez...

"When you work with the breath, it’s good to not have too many preconceived notions about what a good breath is going to be, or the general direction that you’re breathing should go. I was reading a letter recently from someone who’d picked up the idea someplace that, as the mind settles down, your breath grows shorter. So he put the cart before the horse and tried breathing shorter in order to get his mind to settle down. He found that his short breathing was not refined at all. It wasn’t making his mind calm. There are people who will stifle their breath energy in hopes of making it refined and calm, and end up putting themselves to sleep. So you really have to be alert to what the body needs right now, what the mind needs right now, so the two of them can stay together. If the breath is too soft, too refined, and you’re not really ready for it yet, the body is not really ready for it yet, it depletes the level of your energy. Of course, if the breath is too harsh, it’s hard to ...

"Try to find a way of breathing that feels good for the body right now. When you’re feeling tired, try to breathe in a way that gives you more energy. If you’re feeling tense, try to breathe in a way that’s more relaxing. This is one area of your life where you have a lot of freedom. There’s no price on the breath; they haven’t privatized it yet. Nobody else has to know how your breathing is going. But it’s something you can know for yourself if you pay attention. And you find that when the breath is comfortable and nourishing, the body feels better, you feel better, the mind feels better — a totally free way of finding some pleasure in life. All it requires is a little discipline and curiosity, wanting to find out. Here you have this energy flowing in and out of the body, flowing around the body all the time. How does it affect your body? How does it affect your mind? Take some time to notice, and you find that you benefit in all kinds of ways." ~ Thanissaro Bhi...

"Breath energy in the body has lots to offer. On the physical side, it can relieve a lot of stress, a lot of diseases associated with stress. On the mental side, it can create a sense of ease and belonging here in the present moment so that you enjoy being right here just breathing in and breathing out. When you get on more friendly terms with the breath, and the breath becomes your friend, then you're more inclined to want to stay, to see what you can learn from the breath." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Basics" (Meditations2)

"And the more interested you can get in the present moment, the more firmly you’ll stay — not only right now, but also as a long-term project. That’s a second benefit that comes from working with the breath: If you see that the meditation is accomplishing something and it’s pleasant — it can be a refreshing and even rapturous place to stay — then it’s a lot easier to stick with it over the long haul." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Work & Play"

"If you find that the goodwill [mettā] meditation is getting dry, you stop and you work on your breath, trying to develop a way of breathing that feels good inside, nourishing inside. Ajaan Lee once said that if you don’t have any sense of well-being or pleasure inside, then it’s hard to wish for other beings’ happiness. He gave the image of a large water tank. If there’s water in the tank, then when you open the faucet, cool water comes out. If there’s no water in the tank and you open the faucet, nothing but air comes out. And it’s the same with your goodwill. There has to be a sense of well-being inside for it to really have force and to really be cooling. So breath meditation and goodwill meditation help each other along. There are times when you need to develop goodwill in order to just be able to settle down with the breath, and other times where you need to work with the breath so the goodwill has a felt sense of well-being inside. So you practice these thing...

"Take the noble eightfold path. The Buddha teaches it as middle that avoids sensual indulgence and self torture. This doesn’t mean that you lead a middling life halfway between torture and indulgence, torturing yourself a little bit and allowing yourself a little pleasure. The path actually involves a very intense level of pleasure in right concentration. But it’s a different kind of pleasure, and you relate to it in a different way from how you normally relate to pleasure. That takes it off the continuum. To begin with, it’s a pleasure based not on the pleasures of the senses, but on the ability of the mind to settle down and be still. This is off the continuum of sensual pleasure and sensual pain. It’s a pleasure that comes simply from inhabiting the form of your body, being with the breath, the breath energy all around the body, all through the body, experiencing it from the inside. That’s form. It’s also a pleasure that can come as you learn how to direct the energies in the b...

"You want to be a connoisseur of your breathing, even though that’s not the ultimate goal of the practice. The ultimate goal of the practice is to use the breath as a means for settling down so that it can discern its defilements and gain release. But to get the mind settled down, you focus your attention completely on the breath to begin with. As Ajaan Fuang used to say, “You have to be crazy about meditation if you want to do it well.” You really have to be addicted to it; you want to cling to it for a while. They say that alcoholics, when they walk into a house, very quickly pick up on where the alcohol is in the house. They may be pretending to listen to the conversations, but they’re looking for the signs. Maybe they’re not even aware of it, but they pick up on the signs very quickly — where the alcohol is kept. It’s the same with chocoholics; they know where the chocolate is kept. When you try to become a breathaholic, whatever the situation you’re in, you want to ask, “Whe...

"Come to the breath with goodwill [mettā]: May the breath be easeful; may you relate to it well. What does it mean to relate to it well? On the one hand, you want to explore it; on the other hand, you want to learn how to direct it. Explore its various ins and outs: long, short, deep, shallow, fast, slow, heavy, light. Explore the range of its possibilities. At the same time, learn to explore what the body needs in terms of the breath right now. What kind of breath would feel good? Make that your intention right now. That’s the beginning of goodwill: learning how to find pleasure in a harmless way, learning to explore the various resources you have right at hand. One of the themes in the teachings of the forest ajaans is that all you need for awakening is right here. You have it. You’ve got the body, you’ve got the breath, you’ve got the mind thinking and aware, and that’s really all you need. Simply learn how to familiarize yourself with what you’ve got, the potentials of what y...

"If you give the breath an hour to do its healing work, totally opening up the body to allow the breath to bathe every nerve out to every pore, you know that you’ll come out at the end of the hour with a body and mind in much better shape. The body will be soothed; the mind, bright and alert. And you don’t need to stop being bathed in the breath when the hour is up. You can keep it going in all your activities. That way, even though you may not be armed with a whole set of plans for facing the future, at least you’re in a position where you don’t need that kind of armor. You’ve got the armor of a healthy body and mind. You’ve got an invisible armor: the force-field of this all-encompassing breath, continually streaming out from your center to every pore, protecting you on all sides. That’s something you feel in every cell of your body, something you know for sure, for you can sense it all around you, right here, right now. And you know that whatever the future brings...

"What kind of job are you doing as you put your experience together? You want to do a good job. Talk to yourself about the breath. Ask yourself: What kind of breathing would be comfortable? What kind of breathing would not be comfortable? How can you breathe in ways that feel satisfying? And what would be satisfying right now? What does the body need right now? When the breath feels satisfying, how do you keep it satisfying? How do you spread it around? As the Buddha says in his instructions for getting the mind into deeper concentration, you want to take any sense of ease or fullness or refreshment and let it fill the whole body. Let the whole body get saturated with it. How do you do that? Ajaan Lee gives some pointers. He says to think of the breath energy flowing through the blood vessels, flowing through the nerves, out to the pores of the skin, so that as you breathe in, you’re suffused by breath. It’s a good perception to hold in mind. That would be a mental fabrication. T...

"Regardless of what’s happening in the mind, you can still breathe calmly. In fact, this is an important way of retraining yourself. Even though scary thoughts or infuriating thoughts are coming through the mind, you can still breathe calmly. They don’t need to have such a total impact. So while we’re meditating here, it’s good to gain practice in being sensitive to what kind of breathing feels good." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Fear & Anger" (Meditations5)