Sukha and piti

"As you work with the breath and try and make it more comfortable, you’re dropping, as the Buddha said, unskillful mental qualities. You’re not really thinking about the sensual pleasures you might look for tomorrow or the sensual pleasures you enjoyed today. You’re focused simply on how the breathing feels right now in the body, the space of the body as you feel it from within, which is a higher level of pleasure. As you develop and work with the breath energy, you develop a sense of ease, well-being, pleasure, called sukha in Pali.

Then there’s the word piti, which usually is translated as “rapture,” but also means “refreshment.” Sometimes “rapture” seems a bit too strong as a description for what you feel. Other times, “rapture” seems just right, as when there’s a very strong, intense feeling of the energy going in waves through the body.

These two very pleasant feelings come from the fact that your mind isn’t engaged in sensuality. It’s more engaged in just looking at the breath in and of itself, engaged in directed thought and evaluation around the breath. You begin to see that your state of mind feels more at ease, nourished, stronger. You begin to see how you actually have the power to shape your state of mind in the present moment, simply through these processes of directed thought and evaluation that gave rise to very pleasant feelings."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "A Mirror for the Mind"

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