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)

"You may have noticed, when you really look at your inner sense of the body, that certain parts seem to be missing. There’s a holding in, a tension that blocks things off. But as your sensitivity to the breath begins to get more and more subtle, the blockages dissolve and you realize that what seemed to be a physical blockage had its mental side as well. It’s opening up now that you have the physical and mental tools to deal with it, along with the sensitivity to use those tools well." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Close to the Heart" (Meditations2)

"You’ve got to keep the focus right here, right now. Each breath. How you’re shaping each breath right now: Be sensitive to that, so that each breath becomes your goal, in and of itself. And try to find the most delicious breath, the most comfortable breath, the most gratifying breath, not because you’re going to keep it and put away in storage, but because the process of looking for these things is what clears up your ignorance." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Between You and Your Eyes"

"You hold a label in your mind and apply it to what you’re experiencing. The label can be a mental picture, a feeling, a word, or even just a kinetic sense that you have of the breath in the body. In other words, you might have a mental picture of how the breath goes into the body. Or you may create a particular feeling through the breath. You can focus on a point someplace around the middle of the chest and find a quality of feeling there that feels nice. You try to maintain that niceness, that pleasant feeling, so that nothing in the in- breath and nothing in the out-breath touches it or disturbs it. This is where the Buddha’s image of holding a baby chick in your hand comes in handy. You gently hold that nice feeling all way through the in-breath, and all the way through the out-breath, adjusting your breathing so that it doesn’t disturb the feeling. Or you can just keep in mind the word “breath,” ”breath,” “breath,” as a way of reminding yourself not to leave the breath, when ...

"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)

"So we respect concentration, one, by respecting it in theory, reminding ourselves that it’s something we’ve got to do. And two, while you’re doing it, you want to give yourself to it fully. Don’t hold anything back. Immerse yourself in your object. Here we’re working with the breath. When we say to focus on the breath, it’s an unfortunate image. It gives the impression that your mind is like a camera, and you’re going to focus the lens of the camera on something outside of the camera. It’d be better to say, “Wear the breath. Put it on, wear it. Think of it being all around you.” And you want to develop an all-around awareness as well. So you don’t hold anything back. If you hold anything back, you’re off to the side. Be in the middle. When you hold things back, there are big blind spots in the mind. Those blind spots are ignorance, and it’s precisely because of the ignorance that we suffer. So as you begin to settle down and the breath begins to feel good, allow you...

"Close your eyes. Feel the breath coming in; feel the breath going out. And notice where you feel it. This is something that’s going to be individual for each of us. Some people feel it most clearly at the nose. Others feel the movement of the chest, the movement of the abdomen. You can feel the breath energy anywhere in the body. So try to notice where it’s most prominent. Focus your attention there. Then ask yourself if long breathing is comfortable. If it is, keep it up. If not, you can change: Make it shorter, deeper, more shallow, heavier, lighter, faster, slower. You can experiment for a while to see what rhythm of breathing feels best for the body right now. We’re trying to establish our awareness right here, so that we can see things clearly — what’s going on in our mind, what’s going on in the body, because all too often our attention is directed someplace else. Things outside grab our attention, especially now with everybody having a screen they carry around. Your eyes a...

"So it’s important to learn how to develop a sense of ease and well-being, pleasure, rapture, fullness, and refreshment that’s not sensual. Look for it here, simply in the way you breathe in, the way you breathe out. What feels good right now? Don’t worry about what Ajaan Lee said, what anybody else says, look at what feels good in your body right now. Breathe that way. Often what you think Ajaan Lee said or what the other masters say is filtered through your ignorance. So there comes a point in the meditation where you simply have to put the instructions aside and just focus on what feels really good right now as you breathe in, what feels really good as you breathe out. Expand your imagination as to different ways you can experience the breath in the body. Explore that right here right now. That kind of pleasure doesn’t count as self-indulgent. It’s part of the path that you’re on: the middle way." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Middle Way"

"One of the little-known corners of dependent co-arising is an explanation of how, through the power of ignorance, the way you’re breathing can be a cause for suffering. This is one of the reasons why we focus on the breath: to bring knowledge to the process so that at the very least, even though we might not be at the total end of suffering yet, we can still breathe in a way that alleviates a lot of suffering. After all, the breath has an effect not only on the body but also on the mind. So try to be fully aware of the breath. Think of it bathing the whole body, and you’re in the midst of this big breath-bath: the breath coming in, the breath going out, the subtler breath energies that flow through the arms, the legs, the different parts of the body. The more sensitive you are to these processes, the more you can use them to help the mind not create suffering for itself." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Reclaim Your Breath"

"One of the little-known corners of dependent co-arising is an explanation of how, through the power of ignorance, the way you’re breathing can be a cause for suffering. This is one of the reasons why we focus on the breath: to bring knowledge to the process so that at the very least, even though we might not be at the total end of suffering yet, we can still breathe in a way that alleviates a lot of suffering. After all, the breath has an effect not only on the body but also on the mind. So try to be fully aware of the breath. Think of it bathing the whole body, and you’re in the midst of this big breath-bath: the breath coming in, the breath going out, the subtler breath energies that flow through the arms, the legs, the different parts of the body. The more sensitive you are to these processes, the more you can use them to help the mind not create suffering for itself." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Reclaim Your Breath"

"You’ve got to keep the focus right here, right now. Each breath. How you’re shaping each breath right now: Be sensitive to that, so that each breath becomes your goal, in and of itself. And try to find the most delicious breath, the most comfortable breath, the most gratifying breath, not because you’re going to keep it and put away in storage, but because the process of looking for these things is what clears up your ignorance." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Between You and Your Eyes"

"So we respect concentration, one, by respecting it in theory, reminding ourselves that it’s something we’ve got to do. And two, while you’re doing it, you want to give yourself to it fully. Don’t hold anything back. Immerse yourself in your object. Here we’re working with the breath. When we say to focus on the breath, it’s an unfortunate image. It gives the impression that your mind is like a camera, and you’re going to focus the lens of the camera on something outside of the camera. It’d be better to say, “Wear the breath. Put it on, wear it. Think of it being all around you.” And you want to develop an all-around awareness as well. So you don’t hold anything back. If you hold anything back, you’re off to the side. Be in the middle. When you hold things back, there are big blind spots in the mind. Those blind spots are ignorance, and it’s precisely because of the ignorance that we suffer. So as you begin to settle down and the breath begins to feel good, allow yourself to plun...