Thanissaro Bhikkhu on Refreshing Breathing

"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"

"Learn how to develop a sense of ease, a sense of fullness and refreshment right here in the body. Make that your food. Try to preserve and protect that level of the mind. That’s the skill in how you look at things and listen to things: maintaining this sense of the center in the body, a sense of ease, refreshment, and fullness no matter what happens outside. That puts the mind on a higher plane — and in a much better position." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Skill of Restraint" (Meditations4)

"Ask yourself if you’re being too demanding. Does the breath feel okay? Are you trying to force it to be better than okay? If that’s what’s happening, be patient. Stick with the okay breath and give it some time. Your impatience may be putting too much strain on it. Allow it some time to relax and develop on its own." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "With Each & Every Breath: A Guide to Meditation"

"This is another way the breath can be your friend. It’s like having a friend who reminds you when you get angry that it’s not in your best interest to be angry. It can soothe you when you’re angry, put you in a better mood. It can be your friend when you’re sick; it can be your friend when you’re suffering from fear or any other strong, unpleasant emotion." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Befriending the Breath" (Meditations4)

"You could focus on the breath. What way is the breath light, totally unstuck, totally unfettered? It has nothing to do with heat or coolness at all. It’s simply motion. Energy. Your mind tunes into that kind of sensation. You may find that you can start smiling, and then the smile on your face induces all the chemical reactions in the body that go along with smiling. You start feeling better. So try to induce feelings that are helpful." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Reality of Emotions" (Meditations5)

"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"

"So, work with the breath right now. Create this state of becoming, because it functions in several ways that are going to be useful on the path. One is that when you have this state of well-being inside the body — with the happiness that comes from that state, the pleasure that comes from that, the sense of refreshment that can come from that — you can see that it’s a harmless pleasure, a harmless refreshment. It’s not like the pleasures of the senses. The pleasures of the senses can get us all wound up in greed, aversion, and delusion, and we end up doing a lot of unskillful things. But the pleasure that comes from breathing in a comfortable way has never led anybody to kill or steal or have illicit sex, to lie or to take intoxicants. It’s a safe pleasure, a nourishing pleasure. So it’s okay to indulge in it. And you realize it’s much better than a lot of the other pleasures you’ve had outside senses. That enables you to step back from the process of how you engage...

"So take some time to get to know the breath and see to what extent you can make it better, more soothing, more relaxing, more energizing — whatever you need right now. This is your territory, so settle in. Don’t let anybody else push you out. Of course, other people aren’t the ones trying to push you out. Your own defilements push you to go running out after things. But the more you feel at home right here, then the less likely you’re going to be pushed around, the less likely you’re going to run away." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Mindfulness, Discernment, & Peace of Mind"

"Try to look at what in your mind is skillful and what’s unskillful, try to notice the qualities that lead to skillful action and unskillful action. You can start by asking those questions about your breath: What way of breathing feels good? What way of breathing doesn’t feel good? Pose that question in your mind and then experiment with different kinds of breathing. You’ll start noticing that certain rhythms of breathing or certain ways of conceiving the breath feel better than others. Then you ask yourself, “How can I maintain those ways of breathing? And how I you ride with the waves of change that go through your body?” Sometimes a particular rhythm feels good for a while, but then the body doesn’t need that rhythm anymore. It needs a different rhythm. How do you sense that? It’s like riding a surfboard. How do you sense shifts in the wave so you can stay balanced? And when you can maintain that sense of ease, how do you spread it through the body? This involves asking yourse...

"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"

"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"

"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"

"So, work with the breath right now. Create this state of becoming, because it functions in several ways that are going to be useful on the path. One is that when you have this state of well-being inside the body — with the happiness that comes from that state, the pleasure that comes from that, the sense of refreshment that can come from that — you can see that it’s a harmless pleasure, a harmless refreshment. It’s not like the pleasures of the senses. The pleasures of the senses can get us all wound up in greed, aversion, and delusion, and we end up doing a lot of unskillful things. But the pleasure that comes from breathing in a comfortable way has never led anybody to kill or steal or have illicit sex, to lie or to take intoxicants. It’s a safe pleasure, a nourishing pleasure. So it’s okay to indulge in it. And you realize it’s much better than a lot of the other pleasures you’ve had outside senses. That enables you to step back from the process of how you engage with your sen...

"Ask yourself if you’re being too demanding. Does the breath feel okay? Are you trying to force it to be better than okay? If that’s what’s happening, be patient. Stick with the okay breath and give it some time. Your impatience may be putting too much strain on it. Allow it some time to relax and develop on its own." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "With Each & Every Breath: A Guide to Meditation"

"As Ajaan Lee says, learn to converse with your breath, asking it how it feels, listening to what it has to say. Make the breath your companion for the time being. And as you get to know the breath, you get to know the mind a lot better as well. It gives you a good foundation so that when someone else comes in and wants to talk, you can say, “No, I’ve already got a good conversation going right here.” And no matter how insistent they are, you can say, “Look, I want to develop this relationship and then we’ll talk about you after a while.” Most of those other thoughts that are coming in are old friends, old enemies, old whatever anyhow. You don’t need to go with them. You know them already. You want to make better friends with the breath right now. So as long as the mind is going to be chatting with itself, chat with the breath, chat about the breath. This way you can shed a lot of the other things that would come in and bother you. You can really focus on this one con...

"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...

"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...

"Normally, people will allow their happiness to depend on a whole lot of conditions. And the more you think about those conditions, the more you realize that they’re totally beyond your control: the economy, the climate, the political situation, the continued beating of certain hearts, the stability of the ground beneath your feet, all of which are very uncertain. So what do you do? You learn to look inside. Try to create a sense of well-being that can come simply with being with the breath. Even though this isn’t the total cure, it’s the path toward the cure. You learn to develop a happiness less and less dependent on things outside, and more and more inward, something more under your control, something you can manage better. And as you work on this happiness you find that it’s not a second best. It actually is better than the kind of happiness that was dependent on things outside. It’s much more gratifying, more stable. It permeates much more deeply into the mind....

"So take some time to get to know the breath and see to what extent you can make it better, more soothing, more relaxing, more energizing — whatever you need right now. This is your territory, so settle in. Don’t let anybody else push you out. Of course, other people aren’t the ones trying to push you out. Your own defilements push you to go running out after things. But the more you feel at home right here, then the less likely you’re going to be pushed around, the less likely you’re going to run away." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Mindfulness, Discernment, & Peace of Mind"

"Try to find a way of breathing that feels good for the body right now. When you’re feeling tired, try to breathe in a way that gives you more energy. If you’re feeling tense, try to breathe in a way that’s more relaxing. This is one area of your life where you have a lot of freedom. There’s no price on the breath; they haven’t privatized it yet. Nobody else has to know how your breathing is going. But it’s something you can know for yourself if you pay attention. And you find that when the breath is comfortable and nourishing, the body feels better, you feel better, the mind feels better — a totally free way of finding some pleasure in life. All it requires is a little discipline and curiosity, wanting to find out. Here you have this energy flowing in and out of the body, flowing around the body all the time. How does it affect your body? How does it affect your mind? Take some time to notice, and you find that you benefit in all kinds of ways." ~ Thanissaro Bhi...