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"

"The more you can get interested in the breath, the easier it will be to stay here and the more snug your concentration will become. It’s not like you’re forcing the mind to stay with something that it’s not really interested in or doesn’t really care about. Your breath is your force of life. Care about that. It’s free medicine. It’s free nourishment, if you take advantage of it." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Don’t Focus on Jhana, Focus on the Breath"

"There’s enough suffering in life. You don’t have to compound it by breathing in a way that’s harsh, uncomfortable, or unhealthy. So you look at the breath and see how it’s affecting the body in different parts: where the breath energy seems comfortable, where it seems strained, what you can do to make it comfortable throughout, all the way through the in-breath, all the way through the out, and all the way through all the different parts of the body." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Goodwill First & Last"

"Close your eyes and watch your breath. Watch it all the way in, all the way out. Notice where you feel the breathing in the body, and notice if it feels comfortable. After all, the breath is the force of life, it should feel good coming in and going out. So if it doesn’t feel good, see if you can change it. Make it shorter, longer, faster, slower, heavier, lighter, deeper, more shallow to see what feels best. Think of the breath energizing the whole body, nourishing the whole body." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Weaponize Good Thoughts"

"The Buddha mentions that sometimes meditation can get dry, in which case it’s good to stop and think about themes that give a sense of refreshment and inspiration to the mind. You might want to think of all the people who have been good to you through your life. An attitude of gratitude can often give rise to a sense of ease and well-being. Then notice that the breath changes when you’re thinking thoughts that are good like this. Then let that same ease of breath continue as you drop the thought and return to the breath." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Technique & Attitudes"

"If you say, “Well, I’m just going to watch whatever way the breath comes in and goes out on its own,” you’re denying the fact that you’re actually shaping it. That means the act of shaping goes underground. When things go underground, you can’t see them. Bring them up into the light of day. As long as you’re shaping your experience, you might as well shape it consciously and well. Then, from the breath, you can transfer this skill to other areas of life, too." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Unsubscribe from the World"

"You stay with the body as much as you can. Try to make the sense of the breath as refreshing as you can. You don’t want to have just a sense of equanimity as you go through life. You want to have a sense of positive enjoyment in how it feels to have a body. One of the reasons you work with the breath is so that you feel comfortable inside your body. No matter what the world outside may say about your body, you’re perfectly fine with it inside. That way, you’ve got a friend inside. You’ve got a sense of well-being so that you’re not so hungry to go outside and look for something to snatch and grab and chew on outside. So as you’re meditating, realize that having a sense of fullness, having a sense of rapture, is a necessary part of the practice. Try to develop it as much as you can while you’re sitting. Then try to carry that through the day as your food. It’s like your lunch bag for the day. When you have the sense of feeling comfortable inside yourself, you’re less ...

"Learn how to develop an interest in the breath. After all, it is your  breath. It’s the force of life that keeps you with the body, keeps the mind and the body together. And if the breath is good, it’s nourishing. If the breath energies flowing through the nervous system and circulatory system are good, that’s going to have a good impact on the health of the body. When the body feels healthy and strong, the mind is going to find it easier to stay here. So take an interest in this and develop the ability to ask questions not only about your meditation, but also about the rest of your life." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Ask Yourself the Buddha's Question"

"When you find the mind is ready to settle down, then stay with the breath. If other things in life are uncertain, at least you can know this: When the breath is coming in, you know it’s coming in. When it goes out, you know it’s going out. If you’re going to find any certain knowledge in life, you have to start from something that’s immediate like this and then build on top of that." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Fighting Attitude"

"Just make sure that you keep at the breath and try to get on good terms with the breath. Don’t regard the meditation object as your enemy or something to be conquered. Think of it as something you want to live comfortably with. You want to be friends. So keep chipping away, chipping away, chipping away, making adjustments here and there, so that the present moment is pleasant. It may not be rapturous, there may not be any bells or whistles or lights flashing, but maybe it’s saving its bells and whistles and flashing lights for later on. Because the thing about pleasure is that if you allow it to stay just pleasant enough, after a while it begins to grow and grow and grow. Not because you pushed it, but because you’ve given it space." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Breath by Breath"

"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...

"If your time really is at a premium, remember that you don’t have to sit with your eyes closed when training the mind. As many teachers have said, if you have time to breathe, you have time to meditate even while engaged in other activities. Also, you might find it helpful to remind yourself that if you’re really busy, you’re not too busy to meditate. You’re too busy not  to meditate. You owe it to yourself and to those around you to keep your batteries well charged." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "With Each & Every Breath: A Guide to Meditation"

"In addition to the worlds we intentionally carry around, there are also lots of unintentional ones that come blowing through our minds. Those come because of the force of our old actions. As those storms come blowing through, sometimes the best thing you can do is simply hold onto the breath. Just as you would batten down for a storm, you just lie low and try to hold tight to the breath for dear life as the winds blow through. You hang onto the breath as tenaciously as you can. Even though it doesn’t fill your awareness, it at least gives you a corner where you’re still in the context of the present moment." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Worlds" (Meditations2)

"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...

"Find a way of breathing that feels good right now and allow that sense of comfort to spread through the body. Relax around the breath. We have these potentials for happiness in life and if we don’t make the most of them, then we get discouraged and we resent other people’s happiness, too. So here’s an opportunity to develop some very basic resources that you have with you all the time, so that wherever you are, you can relax into the breath no matter what the situation is, and at the very least you’ll have that amount of pleasure to nourish the mind. This ability to find pleasure where it’s skillful is an important skill to have in life, because otherwise we go looking for unskillful pleasures." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Using Your Wealth"

"I received a phone call this evening from someone who asked, “How do I stick with the breath throughout the day? Do I just not care about other people? Do I not take in what they’re saying?” I said, “No, that’s not the case at all.” When you’re with the breath, you’re giving yourself a solid place to stand as you take on your other responsibilities. And you’re actually more able to be sensitive to other people when the basis of your attention is your breath, rather than what it normally is: your moods, your preoccupations. So you look for whatever opportunity there is to practice. There’s a common phrase that you try to bring your practice into your life. Actually, it should be the other way around. You try to bring your life into the practice. In other words, the practice is the container. Your awareness of the breath should be the container for the day. And even when you can’t focus entirely on the breath, or give it your 100% attention, you can still make it the...

"There’s enough suffering in life. You don’t have to compound it by breathing in a way that’s harsh, uncomfortable, or unhealthy. So you look at the breath and see how it’s affecting the body in different parts: where the breath energy seems comfortable, where it seems strained, what you can do to make it comfortable throughout, all the way through the in-breath, all the way through the out, and all the way through all the different parts of the body." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Goodwill First & Last"

"If you say, “Well, I’m just going to watch whatever way the breath comes in and goes out on its own,” you’re denying the fact that you’re actually shaping it. That means the act of shaping goes underground. When things go underground, you can’t see them. Bring them up into the light of day. As long as you’re shaping your experience, you might as well shape it consciously and well. Then, from the breath, you can transfer this skill to other areas of life, too." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Unsubscribe from the World"

"If the breath is tight and constricted, ask yourself, “Is there another level of breath?” You can leave this level of breathing and focus on a level of breath that’s a lot more comforting, soothing. It’s there. After all, this is the force of life. Open your mind to new possibilities of what sensations in the body are actually breath sensations. Maybe you’ve been pushing and pulling liquid sensations around, mistaking them for the breath. That just gets things all mixed up." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Karma of Meditation"

"A very visceral way of showing goodwill for yourself is just this: focusing in on the breath, allowing the breath to be comfortable. If you stop to reflect, you realize that many of the things you’ve done in life that you later regret are things you did because you felt a sense of weakness, a sense of hunger. You needed something out there and you were willing to do anything you could think of to get it. But when you work with the breath like this and there’s a sense of comfort, a sense of fullness coming from within, that sense of hunger goes away, that sense of weakness goes away, and you find yourself acting more and more from a position of strength." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Friends with the Breath"