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What may feel good for a couple of breaths may not be so good if you keep it up for a long time. So if one way of breathing doesn’t feel good anymore, you stop and change. Try to stay on top of the process.

"Get the mind really to settle down and be at ease with one object: the breath. Think of the breath as the energy flowing through the body that helps the air come in and out of the lungs. And you can look at that flow of energy anywhere in the body. Take a couple of good, long, deep in-and-out breaths and notice: Where do you feel that energy flow most prominently? Focus there. And then ask yourself if it feels good. If the way you’re breathing right now doesn’t feel good, you can change it. Make it longer, shorter, or in-long out-short, in-short out-long, fast, slow, heavy or light. There are lots of ways you can adjust your breathing. Try different ones for a while and see which ones seem to have the best effect, are easiest to stay with, and actually feel really good. Notice that some areas of the body are more sensitive to the flow of breath energy than the others. For some people, the most sensitive spot is in the area around the heart. For others, it’s in the a...
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Create a little space where you can put aside the madness of the world, where you feel a solid, secure sense of well-being

"You have to start here, creating this little corner and giving all your attention to this one spot where you’re focusing on the breath or whatever your meditation object is. The purpose is to create a little space, at least, where you can put aside the madness of the world — where you feel solid, secure, where there’s a sense of well-being. So you find a spot that’s relatively comfortable and you work to make it more comfortable." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Pleasure & Pain"
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The breath is the standard object of meditation, because the breath is the function in the body that you can work with most directly to create a sense of ease and well-being through the way you breathe, through the way you think of the breath.

"We have to find an object of meditation that’s pleasing to the mind — something we feel comfortable with, something we find interesting. The breath is the standard one, because the breath is the function in the body that you can work with most directly to create a sense of ease and well-being through the way you breathe, through the way you think of the breath. That way, you can have a sense of well-being that goes down through the legs, goes down through the arms, goes down through the torso, goes around your head — enveloping the body, permeating through the body." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "A Healthy Ego"
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Create a little space where you can put aside the madness of the world, where you feel a solid, secure sense of well-being

"You have to start here, creating this little corner and giving all your attention to this one spot where you’re focusing on the breath or whatever your meditation object is. The purpose is to create a little space, at least, where you can put aside the madness of the world — where you feel solid, secure, where there’s a sense of well-being. So you find a spot that’s relatively comfortable and you work to make it more comfortable." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Pleasure & Pain"
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The breath is actually leading us to the mind in a way that helps us master the processes of fabrication, knowledge that will be especially useful both in daily life and as we encounter death.

"The emphasis on fabrication means that you’re not just learning about the breath here. You’re also learning about the mind. Some people object to doing breath meditation, on the grounds that when you die, you won’t have a breath to focus on, so your meditation object will abandon you right when you need it. But given that we’re using the breath to become more sensitive to the mind’s activity of fabrication, the breath is actually leading us to the mind in a way that helps us master the processes of fabrication, knowledge that will be especially useful both in daily life and as we encounter death." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Mindfulness of Breathing"
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Create a little space where you can put aside the madness of the world, where you feel a solid, secure sense of well-being

"You have to start here, creating this little corner and giving all your attention to this one spot where you’re focusing on the breath or whatever your meditation object is. The purpose is to create a little space, at least, where you can put aside the madness of the world — where you feel solid, secure, where there’s a sense of well-being. So you find a spot that’s relatively comfortable and you work to make it more comfortable." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Pleasure & Pain"
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What may feel good for a couple of breaths may not be so good if you keep it up for a long time. So if one way of breathing doesn’t feel good anymore, you stop and change. Try to stay on top of the process.

"Get the mind really to settle down and be at ease with one object: the breath. Think of the breath as the energy flowing through the body that helps the air come in and out of the lungs. And you can look at that flow of energy anywhere in the body. Take a couple of good, long, deep in-and-out breaths and notice: Where do you feel that energy flow most prominently? Focus there. And then ask yourself if it feels good. If the way you’re breathing right now doesn’t feel good, you can change it. Make it longer, shorter, or in-long out-short, in-short out-long, fast, slow, heavy or light. There are lots of ways you can adjust your breathing. Try different ones for a while and see which ones seem to have the best effect, are easiest to stay with, and actually feel really good. Notice that some areas of the body are more sensitive to the flow of breath energy than the others. For some people, the most sensitive spot is in the area around the heart. For others, it’s in the area in the nec...
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