Bring the right qualities: the desire to learn about the breath; persistence in just sticking with it; and using your intentness, and your powers of ingenuity and circumspection. As you do this, the breath will develop into something remarkable.

"Get so that you’re a real connoisseur of your breathing. Here it is: something that’s free. It hasn’t been privatized yet. Nobody’s going to take your breath away and then try to sell it back to you. You’ve got it right here. Here’s an opportunity to develop this resource inside that you can ultimately use in all kinds of ways. You’ll find that when you’re tired, if you’ve really been observant about your breathing, you know ways to breathe that will give you more energy. If you’re feeling tense, you’ll find ways of breathing to relax. When you’re feeling hot or cold, you have ways of breathing that make you feel more comfortable.

When you’re angry, there are ways to breathe that get rid of the sense that you’ve just got to get the anger out of your system. Instead of bottling it up or letting it all out, you can breathe in a way that feels relaxed all the way down to your fingertips, all the way down to your toes, and the sense of feeling stifled by the anger will go away. Then you can actually look at the anger as an event in the mind, without all the physical symptoms getting in the way.

There are lots of useful skills connected with the breath. And the breath can do all kinds of things for you aside from just keeping you alive by going in and out. If you really pay close attention, you find it really is something remarkable — this energy flow we have in the body. It all depends on bringing the right qualities: the desire to learn about the breath; persistence in just sticking with it; and using your intentness, and your powers of ingenuity and circumspection. As you bring these qualities to the breathing, the breath will develop into something remarkable. The mind will begin to develop into something remarkable as well. It’s all a matter of what you give to the practice."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Remarkable Qualities"

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