Thanissaro Bhikkhu on Refreshing Breathing

"When the breath energy is pleasant, allow the sense of pleasure to permeate through the body, so that no part of the body is untouched by that sense of well-being. There may be little pains here and there, but don’t pay them attention. Focus primary attention on the sensation of comfort that you’re gaining here right now, because it’s a blameless comfort; it’s a blameless pleasure. Again, that’s something that makes the path noble." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Noble & True"

"If you found that you’ve lost the breath, just come right back. Direct your thoughts back to the breath. Each time you come back, reward yourself with a breath that feels especially good. What would feel really gratifying right now in terms of the breath energy in the body? Sometimes all you have to do is pose that question in the mind, and the body will respond. And how can you maintain that sense of feeling gratified as you breathe in and out again? — not only with the in-breath and the out-breath, but also between the breaths, so that the whole breath cycle feels light, full, spacious, at ease, perfectly balanced. That’s when you’ve got good shelter for the mind." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Groundwork"

"So each time you breathe in, think: healing breath. Each time you breathe out, it’s a healing breath. It’s a breath combined with your alertness and your patient mindfulness, knowing that sometimes the effects will take time but, hey, it’s better than not having these skills at all. If you find that you’ve slipped off, just come right back and breathe in a healing way again. When you come back, reward yourself with an especially good breath, one that feels really, really satisfying. Just pose the question in mind: What kind of breathing would feel really gratifying right now? Allow the body to breathe in that way. And of course, when it breathes that way once, why stop with once? Ask yourself again: What kind of breathing would feel good now? How about now? Each breath coming, in going out, ask yourself: Where would this breath feel best? After all, the breath is a whole-body process. When you breathe in, the entire nervous system is involved — part of it more blatantly than ot...

"If the mind slips off, just drop whatever it is that it slipped after, and you’ll be right back at the breath. If it does it again, bring it back again. Each time you come back, try to reward yourself with a breath that feels especially good. Think of some part of the body that needs a little extra energy, and provide that. Think of the breath going there immediately as you breathe in. It might be down in the middle of the brain, in the area of the heart, the area of the stomach, or some of the more outer parts of the body that need to be refreshed. We look for these areas and refresh them because the qualities of right concentration are pleasure and refreshment. And you can create those qualities by the way you breathe." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Noble Truths of the Breath"

"You want to learn how to develop a taste for this. That means, for instance, when you’re working with the breath, trying to breathe in a way that feels really, really satisfying. It’s not just in, out, in, out. Ask yourself, “Where are the most sensitive parts in the body right now? Can you breathe for their sake? And what kind of breathing would feel good for them?” You may have a personal preference for longer breathing, but that particular part in your body might like shorter breathing. So pay attention to what it needs. And then, when you’ve satisfied that part of the body, look for other parts of the body that are especially sensitive, and see if you can satisfy them, too." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "What is One?" (Meditations9)

"The breath is always coming in and going out. The thoughts don’t disturb the breath. Our problem is that we leave the breath to focus on the thoughts. If you find that happening, just drop the thought. Don’t try to finish it. Just let it go with its ends dangling. Come right back to the breath. No matter how many times you wander off, just keep coming back, coming back. Each time you come back, reward yourself with a breath that feels especially good. That way, the mind will be more and more inclined to want to come back and settle in." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Nuts & Bolts"

"The way you manipulate the energy in your body is going to determine how you identify yourself, along with sense of the world you inhabit. If the energy in your body’s really uncomfortable, whatever world you’ve got out there is going to feel confining. But if you can breathe through it, you can learn to walk through those uncomfortable worlds, dissolve them away." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Close to What You Know"

"You can experiment, say, emphasizing the out-breath. Without paying much attention to the in-breath, be more careful to breathe out, to get all the unhealthy air out of your lungs: See what holding that idea of the breath in mind does. Or you can experiment the other way around. See what works best right now." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Use of the Present" (Meditations9)

"Pay special attention to the in-breath, because that’s the energizing breath. The in-breath is something you do. The out-breath is something you should learn how not to squeeze out. You do the in-breathing; the body will allow the breath back out again at its own pace. Then when you feel the need to breathe in again, then breathe in." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Savor Your Breath" (Meditations11)

 "So you focus on your breath. When the breath comes in, know it’s coming in; when it goes out, know it’s going out. As you do that, you have to bring some mental factors to the breath. The first is mindfulness, just keeping the breath in mind. Remind yourself: This is where you want to stay. And make this your frame of reference. You can forget about the world outside for the time being. Focus on this world here, the world of your breathing, the world of your immediate experience in the body. Make that your frame of reference. Thoughts that deal with other things: Put them aside for the time being. It’s not that you’re being irresponsible here, it’s simply that the mind needs some time for itself, some time when it can put down all the cares and responsibilities of the outside world so that it can get itself into shape. So, mindfulness here means remembering to stay with the breath in and of itself, right here. The next quality is alertness: You actually know what you’re doing ri...

"It’s so important that the breath be comfortable. The more comfortable it is, the easier it is to stay with it. Once it’s comfortable, then you have to watch out for the mind’s tendency to lose its focus, lose its sharpness. That’s why we work with spreading the breath energy through the body, being aware of the different parts of the body as a way of keeping ourselves awake and alert even though things are getting comfortable — because when we meditate we’re here to do work, not just to zone out or have a little stress reduction. The reason we’ve reduced the stress and made the mind more comfortable in the present moment is because it’s got work to do in the present moment. There are things it’s got to figure out. It’s got to figure out why it’s causing suffering, exactly where it’s causing suffering." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Steadiness of Your Gaze" (Meditations2)

"Playing with the breath also helps you stay in the present — and stick with the meditation over time — because it gives you something interesting and engaging to do that can show immediate benefits. This keeps you from getting bored with the meditation. As you see the good results arising from adjusting the breath, you become more motivated to explore the potentials of the breath in a wide variety of different situations: how to adjust the breath when you’re sick, how to adjust it when you feel physically or emotionally threatened, how to adjust it when you need to tap into reserves of energy to overcome feelings of exhaustion. The pleasure and refreshment that can come from working and playing with the breath provide your ardency with a source of inner food. This inner food helps you deal with the obstreperous members of the committee of the mind who won’t back down unless they get immediate gratification. You learn that simply breathing in a particular way gives rise to an imme...

"The breath is your arammana, it’s your support right now — but also make that your support as you go through the day. You’re in the body, standing on the breath, standing in the breath. Think of the breath surrounding you, bathing you. Let it become a force field that you carry around. Make tending to that force field your prime responsibility. Try not to have lots of other issues that make it difficult to tend to that." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Wealth of Simplicity"

"Being in touch with the breath gives the mind a sense of being “at home” no matter where it is. Wherever you go, the breath is there. The sense of fullness that comes from learning how to breathe with a sense of the whole body gives a strong sense of nourishment both to the body and to the mind. And you find that you’re hungering less for specific things to happen. Your sense of wanting people to say things like this or act like that gets loosened up quite a bit. When people say things that don’t strike you as proper, don’t strike you as what you want, then you’re not all that upset about it. It’s almost as if in the past you were looking for food from other people and you had to accept whatever scraps they spit in your direction. Of course you got upset when they gave you garbage. But now you don’t need food from anyone else. The mind is getting its nourishment right here simply through breathing. So what other people serve up to you or spit at you is no longer a b...

"Be as fully aware of the body, as fully aware of the breath as you can right now. Think of the breath as a whole-body process. It’s not just the air coming in and out of the lungs. It’s the flow of energy throughout the body, part of which is related to the flow of the blood and to the sense of aliveness in your nerves. Try to be sensitive to the whole body as you breathe in and breathe out. Notice if there’s any tension or tightness in any part of the body. Allow it to relax. If there’s a sense of nourishment and refreshment, allow that to expand. Ask yourself: What would be the most refreshing way to breathe right now? See how the body responds. And stick with it, trying to stay on top of the body’s breath-needs and providing whatever you sense it needs with each and every breath." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Less is More" (Meditations6)

"When you breathe in, the incoming energy simply melds with the old energy. It doesn’t fight it, doesn’t have to be pushed against anything. It just suffuses and energizes what’s already there. There’s no clear line of demarcation. When the in-breath reaches a point where you feel you’ve had enough incoming energy, the breath goes out. So try not to impose too many strict, preconceived notions on the breath. Just watch how the process feels and hold that perception in mind: that the whole body is a field of breath energy and the in-breath is simply charging up the breath energy already there. Then when things feel too charged, you allow the breath to go out. When it’s going to start coming in again, that’s its business. You’re just there to watch it. To use the Thai word Ajaan Fuang would use, “prakhawng” — hover around it, look after it, make sure it feels good. You can pose some questions in the mind: “What kind of breathing would feel better right now? What kind of breathing w...

"If you think of the body as being a solid lump and you’ve got to pump the breath into it, that’ll affect the way you breathe, affect the level of pleasure you can get out of the breath. It restricts a lot of your possibilities. But if you think of the whole body as a breath energy field, you can breathe in and out of various places that you might not have thought of before: breathing out of the sides of your rib cage; thinking of the breath coming in from the left and the right as you breathe in and going out the chest you breathe out. Or you can breathe in and out of the shoulders, in and out of the eyes. See if there’s someplace in the body that you’ve never thought of as breath before, and experiment with it: As you breathe in, think of the breath energy coming in right there. You don’t have to pull it from anywhere else. It just comes straight in through the skin. Notice which parts of the body, when you do this, have an especially good effect on how you experience the breath...

"Each time you breathe in, think of the body as a clean slate. The breath can go everywhere, anywhere, all at once. It can go in strange directions and do all kinds of things, whatever is needed to keep the body feeling buoyant. An important point to notice here when you breathe out is that you not breathe out too long. The more you breathe out long, the tighter things become in the body. So allow the breath to go out just right, then breathe in again, breathe out again, breathe in again, and allow the breath to dissolve anything that seems uncomfortable, that seems blocked. After you’ve played with the breath like this for a while, ask yourself what feels right, what feels balanced in the body, in terms of the breath. Are things too light? Too heavy? Too warm? Too cold? See if you can use the breath to bring them into balance. In doing this, you create a sense of ease in body and mind, a sense of harmony, so that the peace that you feel inside is palpable. It’s not ...

"Ajaan Chah says that sometimes your mind will say, “How much longer am I going to sit here?” And your answer should be, “I don’t know. Let’s see. Can I sit with this breath? Can I sit with the next breath?” Sit with one breath at a time and you find after a while that you get a lot of breaths under your belt without you’re having to carry them around or find them oppressive or burdensome." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Four Bases of Success"

"As long as you’re with the body you’re safe. You’re in your own territory. If you don’t feel that your body is your territory, do what you can to breathe in a way that feels good. Think of the energies going through the body in a way that feels soothing. Then it does become your own territory. You have a home, and it’s a home you can carry with you throughout the day. So try to get acquainted with what the body needs right now. That will make the sense of the body, the presence of the body, that much more nourishing for the mind. It becomes something you want to carry through the day because it feels so good." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Your Own Territory"

"When the Buddha talks about the factors for awakening, there are two processes or two exercises that he says are really helpful: one is to develop appropriate attention, the ability to ask the right questions; and the other is to practice breath meditation. And it’s not as if these were two things to be done separately. You do them together. You focus on the breath, applying the right questions to the breath and to your mind’s relationship to the breath. We’re here looking at three things, basically: the breath, the feelings that come up with the breath, and then the mind state that watches and that is soothed by the breath. The mind is both on the receiving end and on the proactive end in its relationship to the breath. On the receiving end, it’s alert to the level of comfort coming from the breath and its effect on the mind. On the proactive end, it tries to figure out which kind of breathing is more comfortable, long or short — because that’s what appropriate att...

"You have to start here, creating this little corner and giving all your attention to this one spot where you’re focusing on the breath or whatever your meditation object is. The purpose is to create a little space, at least, where you can put aside the madness of the world — where you feel solid, secure, where there’s a sense of well-being. So you find a spot that’s relatively comfortable and you work to make it more comfortable." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Pleasure & Pain"

"Remember that the breath is energy, it’s not just air coming in and out of the lungs. The air can be held, as when you hold your breath, but the energy of the breath can’t be held. It can be blocked, but you don’t really hold it. So even as you’re holding the air in your lungs, there will be a flow of breath energy in different parts of the body. This means that when we focus on the breath as energy, we’re focusing on something that’s very light, very quick, and very pervasive. It also helps to think about the breath as something that comes in and out of the body very easily. Even when you’ve got a stuffy nose or congestion from a cold, there’s still a subtle energy coming into different parts of the body. It’s like working around a traffic jam: If you know that the traffic is congested on a main street, you drive through the side streets. You can think about the breath just waiting to come in at any time, so you don’t have to pull it in. At the same time, you don’t ...

"In addition to the worlds we intentionally carry around, there are also lots of unintentional ones that come blowing through our minds. Those come because of the force of our old actions. As those storms come blowing through, sometimes the best thing you can do is simply hold onto the breath. Just as you would batten down for a storm, you just lie low and try to hold tight to the breath for dear life as the winds blow through. You hang onto the breath as tenaciously as you can. Even though it doesn’t fill your awareness, it at least gives you a corner where you’re still in the context of the present moment." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Worlds" (Meditations2)

"You try to develop a sense of well-being, of belonging here in the present moment, because you’re going to see some things coming up in the mind that you’re not proud of, but that’s to be expected. Having a sense of ease and belonging with the breath helps keep you on an even keel." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "We All Start with an Impure Heart"

"In the process of working with the breath, you’re learning lessons in how to make yourself happy, how to develop a sense of pleasure within. Once you have that sense of pleasure, that sense of well-being, then it’s a lot easier to spread thoughts of goodwill [mettā] in an unlimited way. Because if you’re feeling put upon, feeling simply the desire to run away, it’s hard to wish happiness for anybody, much less happiness for all living beings unconditionally. Once you develop the sense of pleasure, the lessons in happiness that you can learn from the breath are that, one, you understand what happiness is all about, and, two, you’ve got it. You’re in a position where you want to share. You also understand what you’re doing when you wish happiness for other beings. You wish that they, too, could develop their inner resources." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Lessons in Happiness"

"The body has all kinds of potentials that we rarely take advantage of because we don’t let the mind get quiet enough for them to show themselves. So give this potential — this potential for fullness, a sense of refreshment — some space; give it some time. You’ll find that it really can strengthen your practice and give you a source of energy that you can tap into whenever you need it at any time throughout the day. Whether you’re in formal meditation or not, these potentials are always there. When you can recognize them and learn how to allow them to grow, you’ll have a constant source of food, a constant source of energy that you can take with you wherever you go." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Rapture" (Meditations6)

"Ajaan Fuang would comment on this often, on how the ability to breathe easy is a source of nourishment. You can have all the physical food you might want, and the body can still feel starved if the breath is starved. There’s no one forcing us to breathe in a way that’s difficult. There’s no breath police. They haven’t privatized the breath. It’s all yours. So try to realize the full implications of that, expand your sense of the possibilities of what the breath can do, and it’ll be your friend as long as you’re together." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Breathe Easy"

"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"

"Get the mind really to settle down and be at ease with one object: the breath. Think of the breath as the energy flowing through the body that helps the air come in and out of the lungs. And you can look at that flow of energy anywhere in the body. Take a couple of good, long, deep in-and-out breaths and notice: Where do you feel that energy flow most prominently? Focus there. And then ask yourself if it feels good. If the way you’re breathing right now doesn’t feel good, you can change it. Make it longer, shorter, or in-long out-short, in-short out-long, fast, slow, heavy or light. There are lots of ways you can adjust your breathing. Try different ones for a while and see which ones seem to have the best effect, are easiest to stay with, and actually feel really good. Notice that some areas of the body are more sensitive to the flow of breath energy than the others. For some people, the most sensitive spot is in the area around the heart. For others, it’s in the area in the nec...