The breath is coming in and going out all the time, so you can take advantage of that fact, both for the health of the body and for the health of the mind. This is called Dhamma medicine. It’s free. But to work, it requires that you pay a lot of attention to it.

"Take some good, long, deep in-and-out breaths, for as long and as deep as you can manage. How does it feel? If it feels good, keep it up. You want to get in touch with how the breathing element in your body, the breathing property in your body, has an impact on how you experience the body. Breathing deep and long is one good way of highlighting that. But when you reach the point where long breathing doesn’t feel good, you can allow it to grow shorter. If deep breathing doesn’t feel good, you let grow more shallow. The important thing is finding a way of breathing that really does feel good and nourishing for the body.

If you have a big knot of tension someplace in the body, for the time being just let it go. Work in the areas that do feel comfortable. Strengthen that sense of well-being, just being inside your own skin, being in your body. This is an important principle in the meditation. If the breath doesn’t feel nourishing, you’re going to be in trouble. The mind won’t stay with the body, and the body itself will start getting tense, tight, uncomfortable.

You have to realize that a large part of the health of the body and the health of the mind, the well-being of the body, the well-being of the mind, depends on the breath. For the most part, we ignore this potential. We ignore this impact to our own peril. The good news here, though, is that it’s free. The breath hasn’t been privatized, at least not yet. Nobody can hold it back and sell it to you at a profit. The breath is coming in and going out all the time, so you can take advantage of that fact, both for the health of the body and for the health of the mind. This is called Dhamma medicine. It’s free. But to work, it requires that you pay a lot of attention to it."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Dhamma Medicine for Free"

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