The breath feels good when you allow it to find a good rhythm and when you allow it to spread around. And there’s a mental pleasure that comes as well. The mind has a good place to stay. It feels at ease. It can rest.

"We work with the breath, trying to find a comfortable breath, and then we learn how to use that sense of comfort, that sense of ease, and spread it around the body. We’re working with pleasure here that’s both mental and physical. The breath feels good when you allow it to find a good rhythm and when you allow it to spread around. And there’s a mental pleasure that comes as well. The mind has a good place to stay. It feels at ease. It can rest. It can put down a lot of its guard, a lot of its tendency to be ready to jump off at any moment — because that’s what it’s learned from the pleasures of the world: You stay with them a little bit, and then you’ve got to jump off. But here you can relax into the pleasure. It’s more reliable. That’s one of the reasons why it’s better."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "A Pleasure Without Stories"

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