Thanissaro Bhikkhu on Refreshing Breathing

"Take a couple of good, long, deep in-and-out breaths. Notice where you feel the process of breathing in the body. You don’t have to focus just on the air coming in and out of the nose, because the air isn’t doing anything. It’s the body that’s doing something. That’s the wind element in the body: the energy that allows the air to come in, to go out. That’s what you want to focus on." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Think of the Consequences"

"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)

"Do you visualize [the breath] as coming into the body only through one tiny spot, such as the nose? If so, that might be restricting the breath. Try visualizing the body as a sponge, with breath coming in and out easily through all the pores. Or you can ask yourself if you visualize the breath as unwilling to come into the body. If so, you’ll find yourself having to force it in. Try visualizing it as wanting to come into the body, and all you have to do is allow it in." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "With Each & Every Breath: A Guide to Meditation"

"If you want to understand the process of intention, one, set up a really good, clear intention. Like right now: You’re going to stay with the breath, to watch the breath come in, watch the breath go out. Then you learn how to augment that intention, because simply making the intention is not going to make it last. You’ve got to learn how to nurture it and keep it going. You can do this by experimenting with the breath. Make this a process of exploration. You’re not tying the mind down to something boring, you’re actually focusing on something interesting: this breath energy in the body. When we use the word breath, it’s not just the air coming in and out of the lungs. It’s the whole movement of energy, the quality of energy throughout the body, all the way through the nervous system and out to every pore. How does your in-and-out breathing affect that energy? You can experiment with long breathing, short breathing, or in long, out short; in short, out long; deep, shallow, heavy,...

"No matter how the breath is cycling through the rest of the body, keep the sense of relaxation in your feet and your hands as steady as possible. It doesn’t have to be an enormous relaxation, just enough for you to know that it’s more relaxed than before. One way of checking it is to compare one hand to the other, one foot to the other. See which one is more tense and then allow it to relax as much as the other one." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Grass at the Gate" (Meditations3)

"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)

"You may need to close your eyes in the beginning, as you meditate, just to prevent distractions. But as you get more and more grounded in the breath, more absorbed in the breath, you not only keep your physical eyes open, you keep your mental eyes open as well. You see where the pleasure comes from, and you can see that it causes no harm to anyone. That allows the mind to open and be more sensitive to all kinds of areas that it used to desensitize itself to." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Breathaholic"

"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)

"Hope lies right here in this fathom-long body, as he called it, with its perceptions and intellect. That’s where the potentials lie. In the body, of course, the first thing we’ve got is the breath. You can explore the breathing. There’s a lot more to the breath than just in and out. Try to notice, when it comes in, how does it come in? What are your subconscious actions around bringing the breath in? Do you have to tense up a part of the body? All too often, we tense up in our joints, in our extremities. It’s almost as if they act as a fulcrum so that the breath energy could be brought in, but remind yourself the breath energy is actually already there in the body. The air outside is what you bring in, but the breath energy is what flows inside and it doesn’t require any tension. So start with the fingers and work your way up, to relax the tension. I’ve noticed that the outline of the body, especially the outline of the hands, is a good place to start to relax and to keep things ...

"You try to learn which ways of breathing feel good for the body. I’ve had people ask me what kind of breathing is best, and the answer is that you have to figure out for yourself what your body needs right now. What it needs right now may not be what it needs tomorrow, or even at the end of the hour. You have to be on top of what kind of breathing feels good each time you breathe: what kind of feelings you can create by the way you breathe, different feelings of pleasure in different parts of the body. When you have a feeling of pleasure, how do you spread it around? Think of the image of the bathman kneading water through the dough of the bath powder he’s trying to create. How do you do that in a way where you’re not forcing things too much, one where you allow things to flow? When you force the breath too much — even though it starts out comfortable — the fact that you’re squeezing it too much or pushing it too much turns it into something else. This is a skill you have to lear...

"Find a way of breathing that feels good right now and allow that sense of comfort to spread through the body. Relax around the breath. We have these potentials for happiness in life and if we don’t make the most of them, then we get discouraged and we resent other people’s happiness, too. So here’s an opportunity to develop some very basic resources that you have with you all the time, so that wherever you are, you can relax into the breath no matter what the situation is, and at the very least you’ll have that amount of pleasure to nourish the mind. This ability to find pleasure where it’s skillful is an important skill to have in life, because otherwise we go looking for unskillful pleasures." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Using Your Wealth"

"3. A third common problem is an inability to feel breath sensations in different parts of the body . This is often a problem of perception: The breath sensations are there, but you don’t recognize them as such. Part of your mind may think that it’s impossible for there to be breath energies flowing through the body. If that’s the case, treat this as an exercise in imagination: Allow yourself to imagine that breathing energy can flow through the nerves, and imagine it flowing in some of the patterns recommended in the basic instructions. Or imagine it flowing in the opposite directions. At some point, you will actually start to feel the movement of energy in one part of the body or another, and then this will no longer be an exercise in imagination. In the meantime, survey the body and relax any patterns of tension you may feel in its various parts. Start with the hands and work up the arms. Then start with the feet and work up through the legs, the back, the neck, and into the he...

"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"

"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"

"You breathe in and out training yourself to be sensitive to rapture. In other words, there are potentials for rapture or refreshment in the body. Wherever there’s a sense of fullness in the body, allow that sense of fullness to stay. This can just be the sense that it’s full of blood or full of energy. There’s a nice buzz, say, in your hands, or in the middle of the chest. Allow that nice feeling to be unaffected by the in-and-out breathing. Don’t squeeze it. That way it gets a chance to grow stronger. Even as you breathe out, allow this feeling to stay full. As it grows stronger, let it spread. It’s usually accompanied by pleasure. Sometimes, though, the pleasure and the refreshment are two different things. After a while, the sense of refreshment or energy spreading gets to be a little bit too much. So you figure out how to tune in to a subtler level of energy that’s just pleasant and you let the excess go out your eyes, out the palms of your hands and the soles of your feet....

"Look at your desires and see if they’re in line with the Dhamma and if they’re in line with where the Buddha said true hope lies. Hope lies right here in this fathom-long body, as he called it, with its perceptions and intellect. That’s where the potentials lie. In the body, of course, the first thing we’ve got is the breath. You can explore the breathing. There’s a lot more to the breath than just in and out. Try to notice, when it comes in, how does it come in? What are your subconscious actions around bringing the breath in? Do you have to tense up a part of the body? All too often, we tense up in our joints, in our extremities. It’s almost as if they act as a fulcrum so that the breath energy could be brought in, but remind yourself the breath energy is actually already there in the body. The air outside is what you bring in, but the breath energy is what flows inside and it doesn’t require any tension. So start with the fingers and work your way up, to relax the tension. I’v...

"Use what strategies you can to make the breath interesting, comfortable, a pleasant place to stay, an interesting place to stay. Learn to think of the breath not as the air coming in and out of the lungs but as the movement of energy through the body. Then you can explore how the movement of the energy is going right now in different parts of the body. You can wander around the body for a while to see which part of the body seems easiest to focus on or when you focus on it has the most beneficial effect on the breath. Take your time to choose your main focal point. You’re not just clamping down someplace. You’re actually exploring and choosing which kind of breathing feels best, which part of the body seems to be the best place to stay focused. You may settle at a place for a while and then decide that you don’t like it after all. Well, you can move again. This way, the meditation is not an exercise in clamping down on the mind. It’s an exercise in exploration, seei...

"Allow the sensation of the breathing to be as relaxed as possible. Think of the breath energy as something that already fills the body. As you breathe in, you’re simply adding more breath energy, infusing it into the energy already there. When you breathe out, you’re not trying to squeeze everything out. If all of the breath were squeezed out of the body, you would die. So try to find the right balance. At what point does an out-breath start feeling uncomfortable? When you sense that point, stop breathing out; start breathing in. At what point does an in-breath start feeling uncomfortable? Stop there and allow yourself to breathe out again. Learn how to surf the breath in the same way you’d surf a wave. In other words, try to maintain a balanced sense of ease in the body whether the wave tends right or left. That sense of ease is going to be your friend." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "A Warrior's Stronghold" (Meditations4)

"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)

"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)