Thanissaro Bhikkhu on Refreshing Breathing

"Many people have trouble staying with the breath or getting in touch with the breath energies in the body because their conception of how their body works is determined by what they’re told about how it works: what other people can observe; what a doctor says or what a machine can measure about their breath from the outside. But when you’re meditating, you’re not looking at the body from outside. You’re experiencing it from within, and that means throwing out a lot of your old outside preconceptions, particularly the assumptions that draw on materialism: the idea that you’re primarily matter, and only secondarily conscious. If you function totally in a materialistic universe, it’s going to make you suffer. And yet when we come to meditation, even though part of us realizes that materialism is a miserable way of thinking, we still carry a lot of materialistic assumptions into the mind. So turn things around. Awareness comes first, the material world later. You’re experiencing thin...

"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"

"There’s enough suffering in life. You don’t have to compound it by breathing in a way that’s harsh, uncomfortable, or unhealthy. So you look at the breath and see how it’s affecting the body in different parts: where the breath energy seems comfortable, where it seems strained, what you can do to make it comfortable throughout, all the way through the in-breath, all the way through the out, and all the way through all the different parts of the body." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Goodwill First & Last"

"If you’re honest with yourself, you’ll be able to find some way for realizing that the sensual desire you’re feeling has drawbacks that far outweigh the gratification, and that you’d be much better off focusing on the breath to let the mind gain a sense of inner peace and calm instead." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Karma of Mindfulness: The Buddha's Teachings on Sati and Kamma"

"Like the whole issue of inhabiting your body: We know that ultimately you have to let go of your attachment to the body, but in the meantime, learn how to inhabit it purposely. Be fully aware of the whole body. This is part of the path. Breathe into the body. Think of the whole body breathing. Every cell in the body, your whole nervous system, is engaged in the flow of energy. Think about that. Then look at what sensations you have in the body that would correspond to that. Look at whatever sensations are blocking that sensation. In other words, there may be tightness here, tightness there, that’s getting in the way of the sense of flow in the body. Well, relax the tightness. As long as you’re going to identify with something, identify with this sense of the whole body, inhabit the whole body, and then learn how to stay there. What usually happens is that we inhabit part of the body for a while, then we run off to something else. If you could take a picture of your sense of your ...

"And that sense of balance and stillness: That’s your gift. So learn how to protect it. At first it’s going to be a little awkward, but over time you find that it is possible to keep this balanced state of mind, this balanced sense of the breath being nourishing, open, refreshing inside and doing other things at the same time. This is one of the reasons why we do walking meditation: to learn how to maintain that sense of balance and stillness even though the body is moving. And then from there you can add other activities on top of that. But always think of this as your foundation. It’s not just one more ball to keep in the air as you’re juggling all kinds of things. It’s the spot where you’re standing as you juggle. In other words, it’s an essential foundation for everything else you want to do. When you’ve started getting used to having this sense of the center, you wonder how you functioned before you had it. And although simply concentrating the mind is not going ...

"If you give the breath an hour to do its healing work, totally opening up the body to allow the breath to bathe every nerve out to every pore, you know that you’ll come out at the end of the hour with a body and mind in much better shape. The body will be soothed; the mind, bright and alert. And you don’t need to stop being bathed in the breath when the hour is up. You can keep it going in all your activities. That way, even though you may not be armed with a whole set of plans for facing the future, at least you’re in a position where you don’t need that kind of armor. You’ve got the armor of a healthy body and mind. You’ve got an invisible armor: the force-field of this all-encompassing breath, continually streaming out from your center to every pore, protecting you on all sides. That’s something you feel in every cell of your body, something you know for sure, for you can sense it all around you, right here, right now. And you know that whatever the future brings...

"When you find that you’ve wandered off, remind yourself: It’s just a little thing to move back to the breath. Wherever your thoughts may go, the thought itself is right next to the breath. That way, it’s no big deal to come back, and it doesn’t require a lot of browbeating, just a little nudge. If you learn how to keep on nudging, nudging, nudging yourself in this way, you can stay on course." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Long-distance Meditator"

"Someone raised the question, “What is this business about spreading breath energies throughout the body? The Buddha never said anything about breath energies.” Well, there are a lot of things the Buddha didn’t say about the practice. He sketched out the main outlines. It’s for us to fill in the details. For instance, there’s that passage where he says that when you get the mind to settle down with a sense of pleasure and rapture and fullness around your object, you should spread that well-being through the body. But he doesn’t say how. This is where Ajaan Lee’s teachings on spreading the breath energy are really useful. They give you some ideas to explore for how you could use the breath energy to spread the pleasure and rapture around so that you can have body, feelings of pleasure, and mind all together right here." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Significance"

"You’re ready to learn from the meditation regardless of how well or how poorly it may go. You’re not so neurotic or brittle that you have to pretend that there is no such thing as poor meditation. Sometimes the meditation just doesn’t work. Okay, it doesn’t work. Recognize that it’s not going well and pose some questions in your mind. Exactly what’s going wrong? Tease things out. Is there something wrong with the breath, something wrong with the body? Is it the state of mind you’re bringing? The beliefs you’re bringing? Something that happened today and got you all stirred up? Learn how to separate these things out, so that regardless of how well or poorly the meditation goes, you know how to learn from it, to learn how to benefit from it. The lessons you learn, the benefits you get, may not be the ones you planned, but you’ve got to learn how to appreciate them so that your sense of conviction stays strong and gets more and more reliable. You learn to appreciate the...

"The more steadily and consistently you can stay with the breath, then the more you see in terms of all the subtle politics going on in the mind: the part of the mind that wants to be heedful and the parts of the mind that don’t. There are many different voices in there, after all, many different sides to any question, not just two. So, when you settle down to be with the breath, be prepared: Lots of other voices will be pulling in different directions. And it’s normal. Don’t get discouraged. Try to strengthen the good voices by making the breath comfortable, so that there’s an immediately felt sense of ease, a sense of well-being that comes just by sitting here breathing. It feels good to breathe in, feels good to breathe out." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Factions in the Mind" (Meditations4)

"Begin with the task of trying to get the mind to stay comfortably focused for long periods of time on the breath — and right there you run into two operative assumptions: What does it mean to breathe? What does it mean to be focused? It’s common to think of the breath as the air passing in and out through the nose, and this can be a useful perception to start with. Use whatever blatant sensations you associate with that perception as a means of establishing mindfulness, developing alertness, and getting the mind to grow still. But as your attention gets more refined, you may find that level of breath becoming too faint to detect. So try thinking of the breath instead as the energy flow in the body, as a full body process. Then make that experience as comfortable as possible. If you feel any blockage or obstruction in the breathing, see what you can do to dissolve those feelings. Are you doing anything to create them? If you can catch yourself creating them, then it’...

"You stay with the breath, get to know the breath, be friends with the breath. This is important. Many times, when we’re working with a meditation object and things don’t seem to be going well, the meditation object seems to become our enemy. If that’s your attitude, you’ll never be able to settle down with it. Realize that the breath is your friend. It’s what’s keeping you alive. If you get to know it, you find it has all sorts of other good qualities, other than maintaining mere survival. It can create a sense of ease, a sense of well-being, here in the present moment. You breathe in and feel full throughout the body; you breathe out and feel relaxed throughout the whole body. There’s a sense of energy and well-being that comes when you get to know the breath and learn to deal with it properly. When the sense of ease, energy, and well-being is solid, you can turn your attention to the issue of suffering." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Bright Tunnel"

"So, you have an hour to get acquainted with the breath, to try to see what kind of breathing feels good right now, and then right now, right now. The needs of the body will change over time, so you have to be on top of them. Notice how they change. Make it a game. Don’t be too grim about the meditation. After all, we’re here trying to find pleasure in the breath. So treat it as a sport, something you want to learn how to enjoy. As with any sport, it takes time, it takes training, it takes discipline. But there’s also the element of enjoyment that comes when you’re doing it well. It feels good. It feels right." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Befriending the Breath" (Meditations4)

"When you breathe in, know you’re breathing in; when you breathe out, know you’re breathing out. Notice where in the body you have the sensations that tell you, “Now you’re breathing in; now you’re breathing out.” Notice how the sensations feel. Do they stay comfortable all the way through the in-breath, all the way through the out-? If there’s some stress and strain at the end of the in-breath or the end of the out-breath, it’s a sign that the breath is too long. Allow it to be little bit shorter. Or if the in-breath doesn’t feel satisfying, you might want to try a little bit longer. See how the rhythm of the breath affects your sense of the body. And see how your conception of the breath affects your sensation of the body. If you feel that you have pull the breath in, you really have to fight to pull it in, that’s really unnecessary — because the breath is going to come in and go out on its own without your having to fight. In fact, it’s much better for the body i...

"Breathe through your discomfort and dissolve it away. Let the breath create physical feelings of ease and fullness, and allow those feelings to saturate your whole body. This physical ease helps put the mind at ease as well. When you’re operating from a sense of ease, it’s easier to fabricate skillful perceptions as you evaluate your response to the issue with which you’re faced." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Head & Heart Together: Bringing Wisdom to the Brahmavihāras"

"So learning how to create this sense of well-being [with your breath] is not a selfish pursuit of happiness. Some people think that Buddhism is narrow and selfish, with each Buddhist looking out only for himself, but that’s not the case. If you can find a good solid happiness inside, that means you’re not irritated or frustrated in your search for happiness. People who are irritated and frustrated tend to take that irritation and frustration out on other people. Here you have happiness inside, so you take that “out on” other people, but a better way to put it would be that you take it out and offer it to other people too. Your thoughts and words and deeds come from a sense of well-being inside. And those are not afflictive, either to you or to others." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "A Heart & Mind of Goodwill"

"There’s a real lightness that comes from being able to find happiness simply sitting here breathing. It means that your happiness is dependent on very few contingencies. The people with money, the people with investments, are the ones who have to read the newspapers every day to figure out what’s safe, what’s not safe out there in the world. But if your investment is in the skills of the mind, then no matter what the situation, you’re secure." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Wilderness Wealth"

"You need a higher pleasure, a more refined pleasure, a pleasure that can saturate your whole sense of the body to compare with the pleasure that comes from sensuality. This is why it’s important that you develop a sense of ease and well-being inhabiting your body, relaxing the different parts of the body, easing the breath energy throughout the different parts of the body, getting the breath energy to feel good and allowing it to spread, and then enjoying it. That’s an important tool for prying you loose from your sensual desires." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Fires of Sensuality"

"All too often, when you’re really tired or stressed out, you say to yourself that the pleasure that comes from the lust is really worth it; it’s something you really need; you want your quick fix. But if you can take a few minutes to stop and just breathe in a way that’s really refreshing, really nourishing, you give yourself some relief, you give yourself some strength, you give yourself some food, and then that enables you to say to yourself, “Actually, I don’t really need that other kind of pleasure after all.” This is why ardency in developing concentration can be your first-line protection against lust. As the Buddha said, you can know all the drawbacks of sensuality but if you don’t have an alternative form of pleasure, all that knowledge is worthless. So ardency here also has to develop concentration, a sense of non-sensual well-being, working with the breath." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Protection Through Mindfulness Practice" (Meditations8)

"Bodily fabrication is the way you breathe. Simply by learning how to breathe calmly around the emotional problem, you can begin to take it apart. Just two weeks ago, I was reading that some scientists had done a study showing that calm breathing calms the mind. How do you say “Duh!” in French? Mais bien sûr . Of course it calms the mind. We’ve been doing that for 2,500 years." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Five Faculties: Putting Wisdom in Charge of the Mind"