Thanissaro Bhikkhu on Refreshing Breathing

"The perception you hold in mind will have a huge impact on how you experience things. So trust in the fact that holding on to this perception of “breath, breath, breath” as you breathe in, as you breathe out, “whole-body breath” as you breathe in, as you breathe out, “calming the breath” as you breathe in, breathe out, can take you to a sense of ease, a sense of well-being, a feeling in which you can really settle down in the present moment and be very clear and alert about it. It really can make a change in what you’re experiencing. That’s a very important lesson right there: that what you choose to focus on and how consistently you hang on to that focus can have a huge impact on what you’re experiencing. Then you learn how to take this lesson and apply it to other aspects of life: When you’re sick, when you’re bored, when you’re anxious, whatever the situation outside, you realize, “I may not be able to change the situation outside, but I can change my perception so that I ...

"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"

"Focus on the breath. Take a couple of good long deep in-and-out breaths first, to highlight your sense of the body as you feel it from within. And if long breathing feels good, keep it up. If it doesn’t, you’re free to change. Try shorter breathing, or in short, out long; in long, out short; fast, slow; heavy, light; deep, shallow. Try to get sensitive to what the body really needs right now. In this way, you’re showing goodwill for yourself, of course, and it spreads out to others. If you can create a sense of well-being, a sense of being centered inside, people will find you a lot better person to be around. So as we work on showing goodwill to ourselves in this way, we’re learning some important lessons about goodwill, and, in fact, all of the brahmaviharas in general. One of the first lessons is that happiness doesn’t have to be a zero-sum game. There are so many areas out in the world where it’s just that. One person gains, another person has to loose. But here it’s gaining ...

"Start with the breath in and of itself. That’s pretty neutral. And ask yourself, “What’s going on in the process of breathing?” You breathe in until breathing in starts getting uncomfortable. Then you breathe out until breathing out starts getting uncomfortable. Then you start breathing back in again. You’re bouncing back and forth between the discomfort of too much in and too much out. Yet you need to breathe. If you tried to stop breathing by holding your breath, that would be painful too. You’ve got to breathe, yet it’s breathing between one extreme of breathing out too long, and the other extreme of breathing in too long. The breath is an impersonal process, something you can watch in and of itself, and it teaches you a lesson about suffering in and of itself. Fortunately for us there are not too many elaborate theories about the deeper meaning of breath. Just the fact: The breath is now coming in; the breath is now going out. You can’t watch your future breaths; you can’t w...

"Your memories of yesterday’s breath and yesterday’s meditation are going to get in the way of seeing what’s actually happening with the breath right here, right now. In that way, you have to forget, wipe the slate clean. Try to come to the meditation with the same attitude of exploration that you had when you first started meditating. Your problems right now may be the “old hat” problem. Everything seems to be kind of old, and you’re not expecting too much anymore, so you don’t feel all that encouraged to put in much effort or to pay a lot of attention. That cynical attitude is one you’ve got to put aside. You’ve got this breath right here, right now: How can you make the most of it? And remember where that cynical attitude came from. It came from the fact that yesterday’s meditation was really good, or that maybe last year’s meditation was really good, and in the meantime, things have not been so good. So you get cynical about the whole process, believing that no matter how good...

"In the process of working with the breath, you’re learning lessons in how to make yourself happy, how to develop a sense of pleasure within. Once you have that sense of pleasure, that sense of well-being, then it’s a lot easier to spread thoughts of goodwill [mettā] in an unlimited way. Because if you’re feeling put upon, feeling simply the desire to run away, it’s hard to wish happiness for anybody, much less happiness for all living beings unconditionally. Once you develop the sense of pleasure, the lessons in happiness that you can learn from the breath are that, one, you understand what happiness is all about, and, two, you’ve got it. You’re in a position where you want to share. You also understand what you’re doing when you wish happiness for other beings. You wish that they, too, could develop their inner resources." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Lessons in Happiness"

"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"

"When we focus on the breath, we focus on the sense of movement in the body, the energy-flow. When you breathe in, where does that energy-flow seem to start? How do you know when to stop breathing in? When to start breathing out? Explore these things. The more you explore them, the more you get sensitive to what’s going on here. Instead of sloughing over things and saying “Of course, of course, of course! I know this,” ask yourself, “Well, do you really know it?” A lot of the great discoveries in the history of science happen when people look again in places where everybody thought they knew everything already, and realizing that they didn’t. Think of Isaac Newton. Everybody knew it was the nature of objects to fall. Certain objects fell; other objects didn’t fall. The moon didn’t fall, for instance, which meant, they thought, that the moon was made of something different from, say, apples or rocks. But he asked a question that everybody thought was a stupid question: “Why do th...

"Years back, when I first went to stay with Ajaan Fuang, he said, "Your only responsibility in all your activities is to stay with the breath." He meant it in a way to unload my mind, to clear away thoughts of other responsibilities. What it did of course was to make the breath seem suddenly onerous. It was a weight. It was a responsibility, something I had to worry about all the time. But then as I worked with it, one of the big lessons came in learning how to be with that responsibility and not make it a weight, not make it a burden. After all, why should the breath be a burden? It's what you do to stay alive. It's the basic process, the basic force that keeps you alive. That was a good lesson in seeing how the mind can create problems out of even the simplest things, things that are in its own interest. Learning how to be with the breath comfortably, learning how to breathe comfortably: You can make that a big issue, a big weight. But if you step ...

"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"

"In the process of working with the breath, you’re learning lessons in how to make yourself happy, how to develop a sense of pleasure within. Once you have that sense of pleasure, that sense of well-being, then it’s a lot easier to spread thoughts of goodwill [mettā] in an unlimited way. Because if you’re feeling put upon, feeling simply the desire to run away, it’s hard to wish happiness for anybody, much less happiness for all living beings unconditionally. Once you develop the sense of pleasure, the lessons in happiness that you can learn from the breath are that, one, you understand what happiness is all about, and, two, you’ve got it. You’re in a position where you want to share. You also understand what you’re doing when you wish happiness for other beings. You wish that they, too, could develop their inner resources." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Lessons in Happiness"

"These two qualities of perception and mindfulness help each other along. As you get them more and more stable, you can stay more consistently with the breath. This gives you an important lesson: the power that perception has in shaping your experience. The English word, “perception,” is an awkward word to use, because it has two very distinct meanings. One is just basically registering sense data, as in being able to register data at the senses. The other is the label you put on something, identifying something, such as perceiving a dog to be a dog. The second meaning is what’s meant here. When there are feelings in the body, you can perceive them as breath feelings or you can perceive them as solid feelings. Your choice of perception will have an effect on what you can actually do with those sensations. There are things you can do with breath sensations that you can’t do with solid sensations. So perceiving them as breath sensations expands your range of possibilities. This is ...

"You look in the texts and you see that breath meditation and the development of the goodwill, the brahmavihāras, are listed as separate techniques, but in practice they really come together. In the process of working with the breath, you’re learning lessons in how to make yourself happy, how to develop a sense of pleasure within. Once you have that sense of pleasure, that sense of well-being, then it’s a lot easier to spread thoughts of goodwill [mettā] in an unlimited way. Because if you’re feeling put upon, feeling simply the desire to run away, it’s hard to wish happiness for anybody, much less happiness for all living beings unconditionally. Once you develop the sense of pleasure, the lessons in happiness that you can learn from the breath are that, one, you understand what happiness is all about, and, two, you’ve got it. You’re in a position where you want to share. You also understand what you’re doing when you wish happiness for other beings. You wish that t...

"Years back, when I first went to stay with Ajaan Fuang, he said, "Your only responsibility in all your activities is to stay with the breath." He meant it in a way to unload my mind, to clear away thoughts of other responsibilities. What it did of course was to make the breath seem suddenly onerous. It was a weight. It was a responsibility, something I had to worry about all the time. But then as I worked with it, one of the big lessons came in learning how to be with that responsibility and not make it a weight, not make it a burden. After all, why should the breath be a burden? It's what you do to stay alive. It's the basic process, the basic force that keeps you alive. That was a good lesson in seeing how the mind can create problems out of even the simplest things, things that are in its own interest. Learning how to be with the breath comfortably, learning how to breathe comfortably: You can make that a big issue, a big weight. But if you step ...

"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 want to be a connoisseur of your breathing, even though that’s not the ultimate goal of the practice. The ultimate goal of the practice is to use the breath as a means for settling down so that it can discern its defilements and gain release. But to get the mind settled down, you focus your attention completely on the breath to begin with. As Ajaan Fuang used to say, “You have to be crazy about meditation if you want to do it well.” You really have to be addicted to it; you want to cling to it for a while. They say that alcoholics, when they walk into a house, very quickly pick up on where the alcohol is in the house. They may be pretending to listen to the conversations, but they’re looking for the signs. Maybe they’re not even aware of it, but they pick up on the signs very quickly — where the alcohol is kept. It’s the same with chocoholics; they know where the chocolate is kept. When you try to become a breathaholic, whatever the situation you’re in, you want to ask, “Whe...

"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"

"Years back, when I first went to stay with Ajaan Fuang, he said, "Your only responsibility in all your activities is to stay with the breath." He meant it in a way to unload my mind, to clear away thoughts of other responsibilities. What it did of course was to make the breath seem suddenly onerous. It was a weight. It was a responsibility, something I had to worry about all the time. But then as I worked with it, one of the big lessons came in learning how to be with that responsibility and not make it a weight, not make it a burden. After all, why should the breath be a burden? It's what you do to stay alive. It's the basic process, the basic force that keeps you alive. That was a good lesson in seeing how the mind can create problems out of even the simplest things, things that are in its own interest. Learning how to be with the breath comfortably, learning how to breathe comfortably: You can make that a big issue, a big weight. But if you step ...

"You look in the texts and you see that breath meditation and the development of the goodwill, the brahmavihāras, are listed as separate techniques, but in practice they really come together. In the process of working with the breath, you’re learning lessons in how to make yourself happy, how to develop a sense of pleasure within. Once you have that sense of pleasure, that sense of well-being, then it’s a lot easier to spread thoughts of goodwill [mettā] in an unlimited way. Because if you’re feeling put upon, feeling simply the desire to run away, it’s hard to wish happiness for anybody, much less happiness for all living beings unconditionally. Once you develop the sense of pleasure, the lessons in happiness that you can learn from the breath are that, one, you understand what happiness is all about, and, two, you’ve got it. You’re in a position where you want to share. You also understand what you’re doing when you wish happiness for other beings. You wish that they, too, cou...

"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"