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"

"If the breath feels really good, you gain a sense that you really don’t want to go anywhere else. You like being right here; it’s like coming home. You have a sense that this is where you belong. So try to maintain that. The problem is that after feeling refreshed like this for a while, you say, “Okay, enough. I’m ready to go someplace else.” Remind yourself: There are deeper levels of pleasure that you won’t experience unless you really stay here for a long period of time. Things begin to open up, open up, open up over time. So try to be patient. If you find yourself wondering, “What shall I do next?” ask yourself, “Is there a way of breathing that could be even more comfortable?” Parts of the body that are not getting any breath energy: Look for those. In other words, you have to work on this sense of well-being. Otherwise, the mind begins to get drowsy and slips off. So there’s always more to observe right here. Just go deeper and deeper, and you get more and mo...

"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"

"Keep your curiosity here with the breath, and let the breath permeate the body. And then once this has become your home, and thoughts come in, they’re coming in on your  terms. They can’t do anything to you that you don’t want them to do. They can’t trap you again, they can’t deceive you against your will, because you see what lies all around them on every side." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Wide-open Awareness"

"Learn to be on good terms with your breath so that you have a sense of well-being simply through the way you breathe. This is your center; this is your home. No matter where you are, this is your home. That way, when situations outside are difficult, you remind yourself, “Okay, they can’t take my home away from me.” That’s your safe place. When you’re operating from a safe place like that, it’s a lot easier to try new things out. It’s a lot easier for you to be more ingenious in thinking up new solutions to problems that present themselves. This is why we keep returning to the breath and learning how to be on good terms with it. Have at least some spot in the body that’s your home, where there’s a sense of well-being. Then learn how to maintain that sense of home and that sense of well-being as you go through life. That way, when something unexpected comes up, at the very least you’re not too far away from home." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "To Take Danger in Stri...

"You come to realize that this spot being here with the breath — where you can watch what’s happening in the mind, watch what’s happening in the body — is really the best place to be. You can monitor things. You can gain some control. There’s even an element of control over the body as you get more sensitive to the comfortable sense of the breath. You can learn to maintain that in different situations, and it’s good for the health of the body. A sense of the breath energy flowing throughout the whole body means that every part of the body is getting properly nourished with energy, with the blood flow. It’s much more likely to stay healthy, and you cut through a lot of stress diseases. As for the mind, it’s good to have a place to stay. After all, the world is swept away. But here you’ve got a home that’s not swept away by the world. You’ve got a place where you can take shelter. The world doesn’t give you shelter but you can make your own shelter here. When things co...

"This is the best thing you could be doing right now: getting the mind to settle down, getting a sense of being at home with the breath, being friends with the breath. Don’t think of the meditation as a struggle. If you regard your breath as your enemy, you’re really in bad shape, because wherever you go, there it is. Learn to be friends with it. Listen to it. Work with it. Play with it. Learn how the breath and the mind can cooperate with each other. This requires paying careful attention. As with any friendship, it takes time. But that length of time can be shortened if you’re really attentive, if you really watch." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Friends with the Breath"

"Begin with the task of trying to get the mind to stay comfortably focused for long periods of time on the breath — and right there you run into two operative assumptions: What does it mean to breathe? What does it mean to be focused? It’s common to think of the breath as the air passing in and out through the nose, and this can be a useful perception to start with. Use whatever blatant sensations you associate with that perception as a means of establishing mindfulness, developing alertness, and getting the mind to grow still. But as your attention gets more refined, you may find that level of breath becoming too faint to detect. So try thinking of the breath instead as the energy flow in the body, as a full body process. Then make that experience as comfortable as possible. If you feel any blockage or obstruction in the breathing, see what you can do to dissolve those feelings. Are you doing anything to create them? If you can catch yourself creating them, then it’...

"Focus your attention on the breath. Take a couple of good long, deep in-and-out breaths. And notice where you feel the sensation of breathing in the body. Focus your attention there. And then ask yourself if it’s comfortable. If long breathing feels good, keep it up. If not, you can change. Make it shorter, deeper, more shallow, heavier, lighter, faster, slower. Or you can try in-long and out-short, or in-short and out-long. See what kind of breathing feels good. If you find something that feels good, stick with it for a while until it doesn’t feel so good anymore, then you can change again. The needs of the body will change as your mind begins to settle down. If your thoughts begin to wander off to something else, remind yourself that you’re not there for that. You’re here to develop some concentration. So you drop those thoughts and you’re back at the breath. No matter how many times you wander off, you just keep coming back to the breath. When you do come back, reward yourself...

"If you found that you’ve lost the breath, just come right back. Direct your thoughts back to the breath. Each time you come back, reward yourself with a breath that feels especially good. What would feel really gratifying right now in terms of the breath energy in the body? Sometimes all you have to do is pose that question in the mind, and the body will respond. And how can you maintain that sense of feeling gratified as you breathe in and out again? — not only with the in-breath and the out-breath, but also between the breaths, so that the whole breath cycle feels light, full, spacious, at ease, perfectly balanced. That’s when you’ve got good shelter for the mind." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Groundwork"

"Being in touch with the breath gives the mind a sense of being “at home” no matter where it is. Wherever you go, the breath is there. The sense of fullness that comes from learning how to breathe with a sense of the whole body gives a strong sense of nourishment both to the body and to the mind. And you find that you’re hungering less for specific things to happen. Your sense of wanting people to say things like this or act like that gets loosened up quite a bit. When people say things that don’t strike you as proper, don’t strike you as what you want, then you’re not all that upset about it. It’s almost as if in the past you were looking for food from other people and you had to accept whatever scraps they spit in your direction. Of course you got upset when they gave you garbage. But now you don’t need food from anyone else. The mind is getting its nourishment right here simply through breathing. So what other people serve up to you or spit at you is no longer a b...

"As long as you’re with the body you’re safe. You’re in your own territory. If you don’t feel that your body is your territory, do what you can to breathe in a way that feels good. Think of the energies going through the body in a way that feels soothing. Then it does become your own territory. You have a home, and it’s a home you can carry with you throughout the day. So try to get acquainted with what the body needs right now. That will make the sense of the body, the presence of the body, that much more nourishing for the mind. It becomes something you want to carry through the day because it feels so good." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Your Own Territory"

"Learn to be on good terms with your breath so that you have a sense of well-being simply through the way you breathe. This is your center; this is your home. No matter where you are, this is your home. That way, when situations outside are difficult, you remind yourself, “Okay, they can’t take my home away from me.” That’s your safe place. When you’re operating from a safe place like that, it’s a lot easier to try new things out. It’s a lot easier for you to be more ingenious in thinking up new solutions to problems that present themselves. This is why we keep returning to the breath and learning how to be on good terms with it. Have at least some spot in the body that’s your home, where there’s a sense of well-being. Then learn how to maintain that sense of home and that sense of well-being as you go through life. That way, when something unexpected comes up, at the very least you’re not too far away from home." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "To Take Danger in Stri...

"We find that simply by focusing on the breath in a way that’s comfortable, allows the mind to settle down and feel at home in the present moment. That right there is a huge, huge thing. There are so many people who can’t do even that, either out of regret for what they’ve done in the past, or just a simple unwillingness to look carefully at what’s going on in the present moment. They’re always running around, running around, running around, and having nothing to show for it really. So it’s an important investment to take the time to get to know your breath, get to know the body in the present moment, in a way that allows you to settle down. When the mind settles down, it has a greater sense of spaciousness. That sense of spaciousness is something you can’t buy." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Intelligent Heart"

"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"

"So you want to maintain your strong energy inside, a healthy energy, an energy of well-being. You’ve learned how to create this sense of well-being through the breath energy. Now learn how to maintain it as you’re sitting here and as you carry it into the world. Give it a grounding, give it its vehicle, give it its means of transport, so that wherever you go, you’re at home. You’ve got a solidly based home while you’re sitting here and a good mobile home to take you around. This way you’re at home wherever you go." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "A Home & a Mobile Home"

"Keep your curiosity here with the breath, and let the breath permeate the body. And then once this has become your home, and thoughts come in, they’re coming in on your terms. They can’t do anything to you that you don’t want them to do. They can’t trap you again, they can’t deceive you against your will, because you see what lies all around them on every side." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Wide-open Awareness"

"If the breath feels really good, you gain a sense that you really don’t want to go anywhere else. You like being right here; it’s like coming home. You have a sense that this is where you belong. So try to maintain that. The problem is that after feeling refreshed like this for a while, you say, “Okay, enough. I’m ready to go someplace else.” Remind yourself: There are deeper levels of pleasure that you won’t experience unless you really stay here for a long period of time. Things begin to open up, open up, open up over time. So try to be patient. If you find yourself wondering, “What shall I do next?” ask yourself, “Is there a way of breathing that could be even more comfortable?” Parts of the body that are not getting any breath energy: Look for those. In other words, you have to work on this sense of well-being. Otherwise, the mind begins to get drowsy and slips off. So there’s always more to observe right here. Just go deeper and deeper, and you get more and more sensitive...

"You have to train yourself, if you can, to feed off the good qualities of your own mind. That way, you can live with the ups and downs and the goods and the bads in the world, and not have any ill will over the bad parts. Ill will comes from wanting something out of other people and then not getting it. But if you can put yourself in a position where you don’t feel threatened by other people’s bad actions, bad words, bad thoughts, and you’re not trying to find anything to feed off of them, then you can live in the world with goodwill [mettā] for everybody — realizing we all have our good and bad sides. You try to look for the good in other people so that you can help develop goodwill, but realizing at the same time that you can’t always trust that it’s going to be there or it’s going to be ready to be developed. So how do you do all this? Start out by working on the technique of getting familiar with your breath, noticing when you breathe in, breathe out, where does ...

"Stay with the breath. If the mind wanders off, just drop that thought and come right back. It wanders off again, drop the thought, come back again. Don’t get discouraged. Each time you come back, don’t come down hard on yourself for having wandered off. Instead, reward yourself for the fact that you’ve come back, by breathing in a way that feels really good. Think of parts of the body that aren’t getting much nourishment from the breath and think of the breath going right there. And, of course, if you can do one breath like that, you can do two and then three and four. See if you can find a way of breathing that feels really good for the parts of the body that are tired, that have been tense. You’ll find that this ability to stay with the body in the present, with a sense of well-being in the body, can be really nourishing. When the breath feels good, think of that comfortable sensation permeating throughout the body. Think of the whole body breathing, all the nerves in the body ...