Thanissaro Bhikkhu on Refreshing Breathing

"Start with what you know. The breath is coming in. You know that? Yes, you know that. It’s going out. You know that? Yes, you do. Okay, know just that much. Don’t forget that. Is it comfortable or not? Well, you may not be sure. Could it be more comfortable? Experiment and see. Try to sensitize yourself to how the breathing feels. Without this level of sensitivity, the meditation becomes mechanical. When it’s mechanical, it becomes a chore. And when it’s a chore, the mind will rebel. So ask yourself: What really feels good when you’re breathing right now? If you can’t figure out what really feels good, hold your breath for a while until the mind comes to the point where it’s screaming at you: “Breathe! You’ve got to breathe!” Then, when you breathe, notice what feels really good as you breathe in. Take that as a guide." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Start Out Small" (Meditations2)

"The practice of concentration often goes best when you treat it as a game, something you do for enjoyment. After all, some of the factors of right concentration include pleasure and rapture, and these things don’t arise if you treat the concentration as a chore, as something grim you have to slog your way through. So make it a pleasant challenge. How long can you stay with the breath?" ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Unskillful Thinking"

"The reason the breath seems mechanical is because you’re not really sensitive to what you’re doing. You’re not giving it your full attention, your full sensitivity. Think of meditation as listening to a piece of music you’d like to hear, but it’s far away, so you have to make yourself really quiet and really sensitive. Learn how to be a real connoisseur of the breath." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Full Attention"

"Try to relax around the breath. Don’t make the meditation too much of a chore. Think of it as an opportunity to breathe easy. Each breath is another opportunity to breathe easy. When the mind can rest a bit, then it can look at itself more clearly. So whatever lessons you’ve learned on how to let the mind rest with the breath and let that sensation of resting spread out: Remember them." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Getting the Most Out of the Present"

"Start with what you know. The breath is coming in. You know that? Yes, you know that. It’s going out. You know that? Yes, you do. Okay, know just that much. Don’t forget that. Is it comfortable or not? Well, you may not be sure. Could it be more comfortable? Experiment and see. Try to sensitize yourself to how the breathing feels. Without this level of sensitivity, the meditation becomes mechanical. When it’s mechanical, it becomes a chore. And when it’s a chore, the mind will rebel. So ask yourself: What really feels good when you’re breathing right now? If you can’t figure out what really feels good, hold your breath for a while until the mind comes to the point where it’s screaming at you: “Breathe! You’ve got to breathe!” Then, when you breathe, notice what feels really good as you breathe in. Take that as a guide." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Start Out Small" (Meditations2)

"If you don’t find the breath refreshing, ask yourself, “What is getting in the way? What needs to be refreshed in the body right now? What’s not getting the refreshment it wants? Can you think of the breath helping with that spot? If you’re feeling dissatisfied with the sensations in your body right now, what can you do to change them?” But first you’ve got to analyze: Where’s the problem? What’s the dissatisfaction coming from? What’s feeling starved of breath energy? Make a survey, go around the body, go to the spots that you don’t normally focus on and allow them to open up. It’s good to perceive the breath and breath meditation not so much as a chore, but as an opportunity." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Full Attention"

"Start with what you know. The breath is coming in. You know that? Yes, you know that. It’s going out. You know that? Yes, you do. Okay, know just that much. Don’t forget that. Is it comfortable or not? Well, you may not be sure. Could it be more comfortable? Experiment and see. Try to sensitize yourself to how the breathing feels. Without this level of sensitivity, the meditation becomes mechanical. When it’s mechanical, it becomes a chore. And when it’s a chore, the mind will rebel. So ask yourself: What really feels good when you’re breathing right now? If you can’t figure out what really feels good, hold your breath for a while until the mind comes to the point where it’s screaming at you: “Breathe! You’ve got to breathe!” Then, when you breathe, notice what feels really good as you breathe in. Take that as a guide." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Start Out Small" (Meditations2)

"The fewer issues the better. The fewer issues the less complexity. We know how difficult complexity is to handle: lots of balls that you’re juggling in the air. Sometimes it seems like the meditation becomes one more ball that you’re trying to juggle, but don’t think of it in that way. Try to make it the place where you stand, not only while your mind stands on its object here in meditation — that’s the image they have in the Pali, arammana, it means basically a support, something you stand on, like the breath is your arammana, it’s your support right now — but also make that your support as you go through the day. You’re in the body, standing on the breath, standing in the breath. Think of the breath surrounding you, bathing you. Let it become a force field that you carry around. Make tending to that force field your prime responsibility. Try not to have lots of other issues that make it difficult to tend to that. All too often, you get up from your meditation and you drop eve...

"Ajaan Chah says that sometimes your mind will say, “How much longer am I going to sit here?” And your answer should be, “I don’t know. Let’s see. Can I sit with this breath? Can I sit with the next breath?” Sit with one breath at a time and you find after a while that you get a lot of breaths under your belt without you’re having to carry them around or find them oppressive or burdensome." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Four Bases of Success"

"The practice of concentration often goes best when you treat it as a game, something you do for enjoyment. After all, some of the factors of right concentration include pleasure and rapture, and these things don’t arise if you treat the concentration as a chore, as something grim you have to slog your way through. So make it a pleasant challenge. How long can you stay with the breath?" ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Unskillful Thinking"

"Try to relax around the breath. Don’t make the meditation too much of a chore. Think of it as an opportunity to breathe easy. Each breath is another opportunity to breathe easy. When the mind can rest a bit, then it can look at itself more clearly. So whatever lessons you’ve learned on how to let the mind rest with the breath and let that sensation of resting spread out: Remember them." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Getting the Most Out of the Present"

"The reason the breath seems mechanical is because you’re not really sensitive to what you’re doing. You’re not giving it your full attention, your full sensitivity. Think of meditation as listening to a piece of music you’d like to hear, but it’s far away, so you have to make yourself really quiet and really sensitive. Learn how to be a real connoisseur of the breath." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Full Attention"

"You don’t have to feel compelled to get the best possible breath. Don’t turn it into a chore. Make it something you enjoy. You’re here to play with the meditation. That was one of Ajaan Fuang’s instructions that always sounded the strangest. He said to meditate playfully. Not in a desultory way, but enjoy it. Think of all the different crazy ways you can breathe right now. It’s like getting a new stereo. You turn up the treble, you turn up the bass — not because you seriously want to hear your music all treble or all bass, but because it’s just fun to see what you can do with the machine. After you’ve explored some of the extremes, then you start fine-tuning it until you get it to the point where it sounds just right. The important thing is that the breath not become a chore. If breathing becomes a chore, that simply makes life that much heavier. The breath can be something you enjoy playing with. It can become your sport. Then you have something to play with all th...

"Sometimes, as the mind settles down, the body feels so solid and dense that breathing becomes a chore. One possible reason for this is that you’re subconsciously holding onto the perception of the body as a solid object, and of the breath as something that has to be pushed through the solidity. The solution is consciously to change your perception. For instance, you can remind yourself that the breath is actually your primary sensation of the body: The energy of the breath is there first, and the sense of solidity comes later. So you don’t have to push the breath through a wall of solidity. Let it flow freely wherever it wants. Another useful perception is to think of all the space around the body and in-between the atoms in the body. Even within the atoms, there’s more space than matter. Everything is permeated by space. As you hold this perception in mind, the difficulty in breathing will go away." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "With Each & Every Breath: A Guide to Meditat...

"The practice of concentration often goes best when you treat it as a game, something you do for enjoyment. After all, some of the factors of right concentration include pleasure and rapture, and these things don’t arise if you treat the concentration as a chore, as something grim you have to slog your way through. So make it a pleasant challenge. How long can you stay with the breath?" ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Unskillful Thinking"

"Try to relax around the breath. Don’t make the meditation too much of a chore. Think of it as an opportunity to breathe easy. Each breath is another opportunity to breathe easy. When the mind can rest a bit, then it can look at itself more clearly. So whatever lessons you’ve learned on how to let the mind rest with the breath and let that sensation of resting spread out: Remember them." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Getting the Most Out of the Present"

"If you don’t find the breath refreshing, ask yourself, “What is getting in the way? What needs to be refreshed in the body right now? What’s not getting the refreshment it wants? Can you think of the breath helping with that spot? If you’re feeling dissatisfied with the sensations in your body right now, what can you do to change them?” But first you’ve got to analyze: Where’s the problem? What’s the dissatisfaction coming from? What’s feeling starved of breath energy? Make a survey, go around the body, go to the spots that you don’t normally focus on and allow them to open up. It’s good to perceive the breath and breath meditation not so much as a chore, but as an opportunity." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Full Attention"

"So instead of throwing out language or throwing out our social conditioning, we learn how to use them more skillfully. And working with the breath is an ideal place to start. You give space to the mind by breathing in a way that feels good. You can use your linguistic habits to talk to yourself about the breath: How does this breath feel? How does that breath feel? Where would it feel good to breathe right now? Which part of the body needs a larger dose of good breath energy? In this way you get more and more in touch with the immediate feeling of your body so that your linguistic habits can show immediate benefits. It feels good to breathe this way. It feels good to breathe that way. Your mind and your body are getting more intimate so that all the levels of fabrication — physical, verbal, and mental — start working together around a common sense of well-being. In this way they get to communicate with one another. The process of focusing on the breath in a skillful...

"Try to relax around the breath. Don’t make the meditation too much of a chore. Think of it as an opportunity to breathe easy. Each breath is another opportunity to breathe easy. When the mind can rest a bit, then it can look at itself more clearly. So whatever lessons you’ve learned on how to let the mind rest with the breath and let that sensation of resting spread out: Remember them." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Getting the Most Out of the Present"

"You don’t have to feel compelled to get the best possible breath. Don’t turn it into a chore. Make it something you enjoy. You’re here to play with the meditation. That was one of Ajaan Fuang’s instructions that always sounded the strangest. He said to meditate playfully. Not in a desultory way, but enjoy it. Think of all the different crazy ways you can breathe right now. It’s like getting a new stereo. You turn up the treble, you turn up the bass — not because you seriously want to hear your music all treble or all bass, but because it’s just fun to see what you can do with the machine. After you’ve explored some of the extremes, then you start fine-tuning it until you get it to the point where it sounds just right. The important thing is that the breath not become a chore. If breathing becomes a chore, that simply makes life that much heavier. The breath can be something you enjoy playing with. It can become your sport. Then you have something to play with all the time." ...