Thanissaro Bhikkhu on Refreshing Breathing

"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"

"So that the breath energy flows smoothly throughout the entire body, that’s your work. And the work gives rise to the results: a sense of ease, fullness, refreshment. That sense of well-being helps you an awful lot, because it makes it easier to do the right thing. When you have a sense of well-being you can tap into at any time, you’re not so hungry to go after unskillful ideas or unskillful motives or impulses. The reason we go after unskillful things is because part of the mind demands a hit of pleasure right away. So you try to feed that demand in a more skillful way, just by the way you breathe. This is a huge area of our awareness that most of us don’t take advantage of. When the body feels uncomfortable, we just accept the fact that it’s uncomfortable and we look outside for some ease to distract ourselves. But many times that lack of comfort can be changed simply by the way you breathe. So here’s free medicine. Take advantage of it. It doesn’t cost anything ...

"A lot of healing has to be done in the body — all the areas of tension and tightness and discomfort that you’ve allowed to take hold in the body. The breath has to very gently massage them, very gently heal them, and sometimes this takes time. Just like a wound. You can’t just say, “Poof,” and it’s gone. You have to put the medicine on and let it stay there for hours. In the same way, the process of healing your inner energy field takes time, so be patient with the breath. When things get still, stay with it. And even though things may not seem to be happening, there’s a slow, steady process of healing going on in the body." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "A Small, Steady Flame" (Meditations2)

"A large part of the health of the body and the health of the mind, the well-being of the body, the well-being of the mind, depends on the breath. For the most part, we ignore this potential. We ignore this impact to our own peril. The good news here, though, is that it’s free. The breath hasn’t been privatized, at least not yet. Nobody can hold it back and sell it to you at a profit. The breath is coming in and going out all the time, so you can take advantage of that fact, both for the health of the body and for the health of the mind. This is called Dhamma medicine. It’s free. But to work, it requires that you pay a lot of attention to it." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Dhamma Medicine for Free"

"So that the breath energy flows smoothly throughout the entire body, that’s your work. And the work gives rise to the results: a sense of ease, fullness, refreshment. That sense of well-being helps you an awful lot, because it makes it easier to do the right thing. When you have a sense of well-being you can tap into at any time, you’re not so hungry to go after unskillful ideas or unskillful motives or impulses. The reason we go after unskillful things is because part of the mind demands a hit of pleasure right away. So you try to feed that demand in a more skillful way, just by the way you breathe. This is a huge area of our awareness that most of us don’t take advantage of. When the body feels uncomfortable, we just accept the fact that it’s uncomfortable and we look outside for some ease to distract ourselves. But many times that lack of comfort can be changed simply by the way you breathe. So here’s free medicine. Take advantage of it. It doesn’t cost anything ...

"So that the breath energy flows smoothly throughout the entire body, that’s your work. And the work gives rise to the results: a sense of ease, fullness, refreshment. That sense of well-being helps you an awful lot, because it makes it easier to do the right thing. When you have a sense of well-being you can tap into at any time, you’re not so hungry to go after unskillful ideas or unskillful motives or impulses. The reason we go after unskillful things is because part of the mind demands a hit of pleasure right away. So you try to feed that demand in a more skillful way, just by the way you breathe. This is a huge area of our awareness that most of us don’t take advantage of. When the body feels uncomfortable, we just accept the fact that it’s uncomfortable and we look outside for some ease to distract ourselves. But many times that lack of comfort can be changed simply by the way you breathe. So here’s free medicine. Take advantage of it. It doesn’t cost anything and it can pre...

"Take some good, long, deep in-and-out breaths, for as long and as deep as you can manage. How does it feel? If it feels good, keep it up. You want to get in touch with how the breathing element in your body, the breathing property in your body, has an impact on how you experience the body. Breathing deep and long is one good way of highlighting that. But when you reach the point where long breathing doesn’t feel good, you can allow it to grow shorter. If deep breathing doesn’t feel good, you let grow more shallow. The important thing is finding a way of breathing that really does feel good and nourishing for the body. If you have a big knot of tension someplace in the body, for the time being just let it go. Work in the areas that do feel comfortable. Strengthen that sense of well-being, just being inside your own skin, being in your body. This is an important principle in the meditation. If the breath doesn’t feel nourishing, you’re going to be in trouble. The mind won’t stay wi...

"So that the breath energy flows smoothly throughout the entire body, that’s your work. And the work gives rise to the results: a sense of ease, fullness, refreshment. That sense of well-being helps you an awful lot, because it makes it easier to do the right thing. When you have a sense of well-being you can tap into at any time, you’re not so hungry to go after unskillful ideas or unskillful motives or impulses. The reason we go after unskillful things is because part of the mind demands a hit of pleasure right away. So you try to feed that demand in a more skillful way, just by the way you breathe. This is a huge area of our awareness that most of us don’t take advantage of. When the body feels uncomfortable, we just accept the fact that it’s uncomfortable and we look outside for some ease to distract ourselves. But many times that lack of comfort can be changed simply by the way you breathe. So here’s free medicine. Take advantage of it. It doesn’t cost anything ...

"So when you’re working with the breath, say, you have a strong sense that you are inhabiting your body, and this is your space. You get to use the breath as medicine for what may come up in the body: times when you’re hungry, times when you’re tired, times when you’re feeling flustered about things around you. In order to let go, you also need a good solid place to stand. This is what the sense of inhabiting the body provides you with. In fact, ideally, as you’re getting into concentration, you want to have a sense that the body, the mind, and the breath are all one. The breath fills the body; the mind fills the body; the mind is one with the breath. They’re all sitting here together." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Holding on Strategically"

"So that the breath energy flows smoothly throughout the entire body, that’s your work. And the work gives rise to the results: a sense of ease, fullness, refreshment. That sense of well-being helps you an awful lot, because it makes it easier to do the right thing. When you have a sense of well-being you can tap into at any time, you’re not so hungry to go after unskillful ideas or unskillful motives or impulses. The reason we go after unskillful things is because part of the mind demands a hit of pleasure right away. So you try to feed that demand in a more skillful way, just by the way you breathe. This is a huge area of our awareness that most of us don’t take advantage of. When the body feels uncomfortable, we just accept the fact that it’s uncomfortable and we look outside for some ease to distract ourselves. But many times that lack of comfort can be changed simply by the way you breathe. So here’s free medicine. Take advantage of it. It doesn’t cost anything and it can pre...

"So that the breath energy flows smoothly throughout the entire body, that’s your work. And the work gives rise to the results: a sense of ease, fullness, refreshment. That sense of well-being helps you an awful lot, because it makes it easier to do the right thing. When you have a sense of well-being you can tap into at any time, you’re not so hungry to go after unskillful ideas or unskillful motives or impulses. The reason we go after unskillful things is because part of the mind demands a hit of pleasure right away. So you try to feed that demand in a more skillful way, just by the way you breathe. This is a huge area of our awareness that most of us don’t take advantage of. When the body feels uncomfortable, we just accept the fact that it’s uncomfortable and we look outside for some ease to distract ourselves. But many times that lack of comfort can be changed simply by the way you breathe. So here’s free medicine. Take advantage of it. It doesn’t cost anything and it can pre...