As you sensitize yourself to the potential for pleasure here just breathing in, breathing out, you’re getting closer and closer to the mind. Your powers of sensitivity are heightened so that they’re equal to the task of seeing deeper inside.

"As you sensitize yourself to the potential for pleasure here just breathing in, breathing out, you’re getting closer and closer to the mind. You’re getting more and more sensitive; your powers of sensitivity are heightened so that they’re equal to the task of seeing deeper inside.

This is how your pursuit of pleasure becomes a mature activity. You’ve learned how to be mature about how you find pleasure in life, you’ve learned how to be responsible about how you find pleasure in life, you’ve learned to be wise about how you try to find pleasure in life. And that’s a lot of what it means to be mature, responsible, and wise.

Because that’s basically what all our activities are aimed at: finding happiness, finding well-being, pleasure, ease. We’re simply learning how to do it in a way that really gives results: long-term results, harmless results, because harmless pleasure is the only kind of pleasure that could be long-term.

So always remain alert to the fact that there’s a lot of pleasure to be found simply in the act of being still, watching the breath. And it’s a pleasure that’s perfectly fine to pursue. It’s a noble pursuit. As the Buddha said, this is noble right concentration. The path of sensual pursuits, he said, is ignoble. The path of self-torment or self-torture is also ignoble. This kind of pleasure, though, is noble."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "An Ennobling Pleasure"

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