Thanissaro Bhikkhu on Refreshing Breathing

"If you’re mindful, ardent, alert, and have a good sense of being at home here with the breath, where you get a sense of nourishment from the breath, that gives you all the help you need in order to do and say and think the skillful thing. And it’s with the skillful things that we do and say and think that we build a good life for ourselves." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Developing Around the Breath"

"When Ajaan Fuang noticed that I was having trouble getting my head around the concept of breath energy in the body the first time I was there — the concept appealed to me, but I wasn’t quite sure how to handle it — he said that it refers to the sense of feeling already there throughout the body, it’s just a matter of learning to recognize that feeling as breath energy. Then you just start working with what you already feel, seeing it as a type of breath. So take that concept and see how it helps you to get the mind to settle down." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Language of the Heart (1)"

"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)

"When the defilements are clamoring for instant gratification, you see you’ve got this alternative form of pleasure, the pleasure of concentration, right here, to feed them. You’ve got this comfortable way of breathing. It’s free. It’s immediate. It’s visceral. Just that fact can help peel away a lot of the appeal of things you were attached to before." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Fourth Noble Truth"

"When there’s fear, you can try using the breath to deal with fear. Get in touch with the physical side of the fear and breathe right through it. Notice how the breath can help deal with boredom, how it can help deal with illness, how it can help deal with pain. There’s a lot to explore here. And as the possibilities of the breath capture your imagination, you find that this skill is useful, not only when you’re trying to sit with your eyes closed, but also wherever the present may be, wherever you may be in the present. Whatever the context, whatever the situation, you find that the breath has something to offer — if you explore it. And to explore it, you have to get a sense that it can capture your imagination. It gives you that kind of challenge, along with the sense of reward that comes when you’ve explored something and discovered something new, a valuable skill." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Imagine" (Meditations1)

"We’ve talked for the last couple of days in the Q & A about different ways of working with the breath energy, and it’s important to take some time to explore this aspect of your relationship to your body. What kind of movement of the breath is actually helpful? What kind of movement of the breath makes it more difficult to stay with the body? And learn to play. Take the breath energy in the body as your playground here and be open to new ideas about how the breath energy can move. You’ll notice, in Ajaan Lee’s basic instructions, that he talks about the breath energy going down the spine and down the legs as you breathe in. But it can also do that as you breathe out. There are other times when he talks about the breath energy starting in the soles of the feet, coming up the legs and up the spine, in the other direction. You may read in manuals on Tai Chi that there’s an energy circle running from the navel down to the spot between the legs and then back up the spine, and down...

"You have the power to shape your experience. You learn how you’re already shaping it, and then you use your ingenuity to figure out new and better ways of shaping it. The Buddha gives you some help, but sometimes the particulars, like issues around the breath, are things you’ve got to learn how to explore things on your own. But we explore not just to play around; we play around not just to play around. We play around to learn. From learning, then we can shape the rest of our experience in good ways as well, even while we’re not here meditating. Learn how to inhabit your body fully, so that it is your place. Nobody else can invade it. And then you’ll go through the world with a lot more solidity, both in body and in mind." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Shaping Your Breath, Shaping Your Life"

"You’ve got to start from within. Once you develop this good relationship with your breath, then it’s a lot easier to be on good terms with the people around you, and to be really helpful to them, because you’re not burdening yourself down with unnecessary suffering. That way you have more energy to help the people around you, to deal with whatever their issues are." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Befriending the Breath"

"Ajaan Fuang has a nice passage where he talks about the breath as being like a nursemaid who’s been looking after you for all your life, but you haven’t paid that much attention to her to see what kind of person she is, why she’s been so kind to you. Whether you pay attention or not, she keeps breathing in, breathing out. Of course, if she’s neglected she can’t do her best for you. So, give her some attention. How does the breath feel right now? Is it long? Is it short? Heavy? Light? What kind of breathing feels good right now? — because the breath is nourishment for the body, and it’s most nourishing when it feels refreshing. The breath becomes even a better friend if you make friends with it. You do it in the same way that you make friends with someone: You have to listen, you have to ask questions, notice. People don’t tell you all about themselves all at once, and often the things they don’t tell you are most important for establishing a friendship. So try to be observant. Wh...

"I once had a student who was manic-depressive. She found that a large part of the problem was anticipating her ups and downs. The anticipation in and of itself would exacerbate the extremes. But she also found that in her extreme moods, the experience of the body was very different. This is where the breath became helpful. When she was feeling down, she could breathe in a way that would add more breath energy, make the body lighter, lighter, lighter, so she didn’t feel so weighed down all the time. And without the physical experience of being weighed down, her depressive mind states didn’t have so much to latch onto. This began to cut through the pattern. Similarly, when she found she was getting more manic, she could breathe in a way that made the body heavier. She would think a lot about the earth element, find whatever sensations in the body were solid, still, heavy, and substantial, and just focus on those sensations. That would balance things out. It would balance out the en...

"You’re working with two kinds of pleasure. One is the physical pleasure of being with the breath — which the Buddha doesn’t count as a sensual pleasure. It’s called the pleasure of form: the way you feel the body from within. That’s different from the pleasures of sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and tactile sensations. The Buddha places it on a higher level because it doesn’t really have to depend on things outside. And, as he says, it’s a blameless pleasure, in the sense that you don’t have to harm anybody to gain it. At the same time, it doesn’t intoxicate the mind; it doesn’t befuddle or cloud the mind. It actually makes the mind a lot clearer. So that’s the physical pleasure of the breath. Then there’s the mental pleasure of working with the breath energies in the body and seeing that you can make changes in how the body feels from within. It’s a way of helping the body along. If the breath energy flows well it’s going to be conducive to your health. It feels good knowing tha...

"Have goodwill [mettā] toward your breathing, compassion, appreciation, equanimity towards your breathing. In other words, allow the breath to be comfortable so that you can have a foundation. Where it’s not comfortable, work at making it more comfortable: That’s compassion. Where it is comfortable, appreciate it. Sometimes, especially in the very beginning, the states of comfort seem to be very minor and not impressive at all. But that doesn’t mean they don’t have the potential to be more impressive. You’ve got to give them a little space. It’s like oak trees. They start out as tiny little acorns. Or even better, think of coastal redwoods. They start as the tiniest little seeds, and yet the tallest trees on earth come from these tiny, tiny seeds. Develop the conditions, allow them to grow and they become a huge forest. It’s the same with a sense of well-being in the body. First find areas that are simply not in pain, that seem okay. That’s good enough. Just be very ...

"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"

"Have goodwill [mettā] towards your breathing, compassion, appreciation, equanimity for your breathing. In other words, allow the breath to be comfortable so you can have a foundation. Where it’s not comfortable, work at making it more comfortable: That’s compassion. Where it is comfortable, appreciate it. Sometimes, especially in the very beginning, the states of comfort seem to be very minor and not impressive at all, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have the potential to become more impressive with time. You’ve got to give them a little space. It’s like oak trees: When they first come out of the ground, they’re pretty small — a little tiny acorn. Of an even better analogy is a coastal redwood tree, which has the tiniest little seeds, and yet the tallest trees on earth come from these tiny, tiny seeds. Develop the conditions, allow them to grow, and they become a huge forest. It’s the same with the sense of well-being in the body. First find areas that are simply not in pain, t...

"Playing with the breath also helps you stay in the present — and stick with the meditation over time — because it gives you something interesting and engaging to do that can show immediate benefits. This keeps you from getting bored with the meditation. As you see the good results arising from adjusting the breath, you become more motivated to explore the potentials of the breath in a wide variety of different situations: how to adjust the breath when you’re sick, how to adjust it when you feel physically or emotionally threatened, how to adjust it when you need to tap into reserves of energy to overcome feelings of exhaustion. The pleasure and refreshment that can come from working and playing with the breath provide your ardency with a source of inner food. This inner food helps you deal with the obstreperous members of the committee of the mind who won’t back down unless they get immediate gratification. You learn that simply breathing in a particular way gives rise to an imme...

"We talk about listening or looking at the breath, but, of course, it’s not a matter of looking or listening with the eyes or ears. It’s a matter of being really sensitive to what the body needs. Now, you do want to be very careful, and this is where the analogy of listening comes in. Think of it as an analogy, of course. There are times when you listen very, very carefully for very subtle sounds and that helps to refine the breathing, because the mind is more intent and more sensitive at that time. That’s when it’s really ready for refined breathing. But if you’re not ready for it, you just drop off to sleep. So in the same way that you would, say, listen to the inner voices of a piece of music, the ones that are hard to hear, or to a very soft sound off in the distance, try to make yourself really, really quiet, and very, very intent. That will help make the breath more subtle without your forcing the breath too much. But listen to the body and the mind: If you run...

"We’ve talked for the last couple of days in the Q & A about different ways of working with the breath energy, and it’s important to take some time to explore this aspect of your relationship to your body. What kind of movement of the breath is actually helpful? What kind of movement of the breath makes it more difficult to stay with the body? And learn to play. Take the breath energy in the body as your playground here and be open to new ideas about how the breath energy can move. You’ll notice, in Ajaan Lee’s basic instructions, that he talks about the breath energy going down the spine and down the legs as you breathe in. But it can also do that as you breathe out. There are other times when he talks about the breath energy starting in the soles of the feet, coming up the legs and up the spine, in the other direction. You may read in manuals on Tai Chi that there’s an energy circle running from the navel down to the spot between the legs and then back up the spine, and down...

"Some kinds of pain you can work through. As you expand the sense of the comfortable breath, it begins to dissolve the pain away. Or if there’s a sense of tension around the pain, you can dissolve the tension away. Even though the pain may stay there, dissolving the tension around it can help a lot. It makes it a lot easier to live with these things. So get as much of the body as comfortable as you can." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Pleasure & Pain" (Meditations3)

"If you’re mindful, ardent, alert, and have a good sense of being at home here with the breath, where you get a sense of nourishment from the breath, that gives you all the help you need in order to do and say and think the skillful thing. And it’s with the skillful things that we do and say and think that we build a good life for ourselves." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Developing Around the Breath"

"If you understand that happiness comes from within — from developing your own inner resources, things as simple as the breath — that puts in you in a very different position with regard to the people around you. Your happiness doesn’t have to conflict with theirs. In fact, your happiness can actually help theirs. If you know how to find true happiness inside — how cultivate your breath, how to cultivate your thoughts in the proper way — then you can be a good example to them. And you can actually share your knowledge with them at the appropriate times. You’ve probably noticed: People who have that kind of glow from an inner happiness — you pick up some of that glow just being around them. So you create a better environment for the people in your family, the people at work as you’re cultivating good things inside." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Understanding Happiness"