Compare the sense of ease and well-being that can come simply from being with the breath with other pleasures you've followed in life

"This is why you’re practicing concentration. You try to develop a state of good solid concentration in the mind with a sense of ease and well-being that can come simply from being with the breath, being absorbed in the breath, filling the breath energy throughout the body with a sense of healthy energy. This puts you in a good position to compare things. You can look at the other pleasures you followed in life and ask, “Are they anything like this breath? Are they as steady, reliable, and harmless as this kind of pleasure?” You’re training yourself to be a connoisseur of pleasure, so that you can really understand where the pleasure lies, where the pain lies, and how things stack up. Which pleasure is greater? How about the pain of going back to your old ways of looking for pleasure? You see these things a lot more easily when you’re coming from a vantage point of stable well-being.

Even though concentration isn’t the ultimate, it does give you a higher standard for understanding what true pleasure can be. It doesn’t automatically wean you off of your old ways of thinking, but it gives you a basis for actually doing the work of contemplation, especially when you realize that following your daily pleasures gets in the way of this pleasure of concentration. You’ve got to make a choice. Once you admit that you’ve got to make the choice, then it’s easier to sort through your other pleasures and start seeing which habits you’re willing to sacrifice. When you can drop them, you’ve won a victory over the clinging, craving, and ignorance that kept you bound to those habits."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "A Victory that Matters" (Meditations6)

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