Thanissaro Bhikkhu on Refreshing Breathing

"Here the cause [of suffering] is inside. So you want to see that. And it’s right here that you see it. Now to see that, you’re going to be seeing some things you don’t like about yourself. That’s why we work on concentration, to get the mind to settle down and have a sense of well-being. You soothe the mind with the breath." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Most Important Thing to Be Doing"

"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...

"While you’re sitting here and meditating, for instance, how is this breath? And then how is this breath? How about this one? How is your focus? Where are you focused? Is it working? Is it getting results? If you like the results, stick with what you’re doing. If you don’t like the results, you can change. As for the issue of how good a meditator you are, if that somehow pops into the mind, just let it pop out of the mind. It’s really irrelevant. And it can get into the way of deeper insights." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Thoughts with Fangs"

Question: If I correctly understood your teaching this morning, the breath should be a pleasant flow, with no holding or pressing, etc. In yoga practice, there is kapalbhati breathing and alternate-nostril breathing, where we hold the breath for 16, 20, or even more counts, which is not always pleasant. How is this breathing technique related to meditative breathing? Thanissaro Bhikkhu: The technique we’re teaching here is basically designed to get the mind energized through the processes of bodily and mental fabrication and then get it to calm down with a sense of ease. In other words, the main emphasis is on the effect on the mind. We do it as a means for giving rise to insight and tranquility together. As for the yoga technique, that’s mainly for the sake of bodily health. But you can also use the Ajaan Lee technique for bodily health as well. He himself discovered this technique after he had had a heart attack deep in the forest, and he was able to recover from the heart attack ...

"So play around with the breath. Think of fabrication as playing, and you have permission to play. Don't think that playing around in this way is going to get in the way of insight. It actually helps create the conditions for insight to arise. For one, it gives stamina to the practice. If you're simply sitting with whatever comes up, meditation becomes an exercise in brute endurance. If no pleasure's coming up in the meditation, no sense of rapture or gratification, it becomes dull and unattractive. You find it harder and harder to actually sit down and keep up with the practice day after day. But if you allow the meditation to be a process of exploring, of finding what's really comfortable right now, you can stick with it. It becomes something interesting, something you want to do." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Permission to Play" (Meditations5)

"When the mind has been nourished with a comfortable breath, the body has been nourished with a comfortable breath, you’re in a much better mood, much more open to admitting the truth. It doesn’t feel so threatening, because you realize at the same time that you’re developing the mental qualities you need not to give into to greed, anger, and delusion again. So the insights come not in a threatening way, but with a certain sense of relief. You’ve gotten past something, you’ve outgrown a dishonest way of behaving. You don’t have to cause yourself that kind of suffering anymore. When you’re not causing yourself that kind of suffering, you’re not causing other people that kind of suffering either." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Sowing Good Seeds"

"Then choose any one spot in the body that seems most congenial or most interesting. Allow your attention to settle there and then to spread out to fill the whole body, so that you’re aware of the whole body breathing in, the whole body breathing out. As your awareness spreads, think of it as exerting no pressure at all on your body. It’s like the light of a candle in an otherwise dark room: The flame is in one spot, but the light fills the entire room. Or like the spider in the middle of a web: The spider is in one spot, but it’s sensitive to the whole web. Try to maintain this sense of centered but broad awareness all the way through the in-breath, all the way through the out. Maintain this quality of awareness as long and as steadily as you can. Try to master it as a skill. Your attention will have a tendency to shrink, especially during the out-breath, so each time you breathe in and out remind yourself, “Whole body, whole body.” Allow the breath to find whatever rhythm feels...

"So play around with the breath. Think of fabrication as playing, and you have permission to play. Don't think that playing around in this way is going to get in the way of insight. It actually helps create the conditions for insight to arise. For one, it gives stamina to the practice. If you're simply sitting with whatever comes up, meditation becomes an exercise in brute endurance. If no pleasure's coming up in the meditation, no sense of rapture or gratification, it becomes dull and unattractive. You find it harder and harder to actually sit down and keep up with the practice day after day. But if you allow the meditation to be a process of exploring, of finding what's really comfortable right now, you can stick with it. It becomes something interesting, something you want to do." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Permission to Play" (Meditations5)

"So play around with the breath. Think of fabrication as playing, and you have permission to play. Don't think that playing around in this way is going to get in the way of insight. It actually helps create the conditions for insight to arise. For one, it gives stamina to the practice. If you're simply sitting with whatever comes up, meditation becomes an exercise in brute endurance. If no pleasure's coming up in the meditation, no sense of rapture or gratification, it becomes dull and unattractive. You find it harder and harder to actually sit down and keep up with the practice day after day. But if you allow the meditation to be a process of exploring, of finding what's really comfortable right now, you can stick with it. It becomes something interesting, something you want to do." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Permission to Play" (Meditations5)

"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...