Learn to converse with your breath, asking it how it feels, listening to what it has to say. Make the breath your companion for the time being. And as you get to know the breath, you get to know the mind a lot better as well.

"As Ajaan Lee says, learn to converse with your breath, asking it how it feels, listening to what it has to say. Make the breath your companion for the time being.

And as you get to know the breath, you get to know the mind a lot better as well. It gives you a good foundation so that when someone else comes in and wants to talk, you can say, “No, I’ve already got a good conversation going right here.” And no matter how insistent they are, you can say, “Look, I want to develop this relationship and then we’ll talk about you after a while.” Most of those other thoughts that are coming in are old friends, old enemies, old whatever anyhow. You don’t need to go with them. You know them already. You want to make better friends with the breath right now.

So as long as the mind is going to be chatting with itself, chat with the breath, chat about the breath. This way you can shed a lot of the other things that would come in and bother you. You can really focus on this one conversation, get it going really well.

When you’ve got this good conversation going, you don’t have to give in to these other harmful conversations. In that way, the mind really does begin to gain a sense of what it’s like to be happily by itself, to be sufficient for itself, able to let go of all its other responsibilities, all of its other cares.

So for the time being learn how to take care of yourself, because that’s a skill you’re always going to need."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Developing Mental Seclusion"

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