Thanissaro Bhikkhu on Refreshing Breathing

"We’ve talked for the last couple of days in the Q & A about different ways of working with the breath energy, and it’s important to take some time to explore this aspect of your relationship to your body. What kind of movement of the breath is actually helpful? What kind of movement of the breath makes it more difficult to stay with the body? And learn to play. Take the breath energy in the body as your playground here and be open to new ideas about how the breath energy can move. You’ll notice, in Ajaan Lee’s basic instructions, that he talks about the breath energy going down the spine and down the legs as you breathe in. But it can also do that as you breathe out. There are other times when he talks about the breath energy starting in the soles of the feet, coming up the legs and up the spine, in the other direction. You may read in manuals on Tai Chi that there’s an energy circle running from the navel down to the spot between the legs and then back up the spine, and down...

"You have the power to shape your experience. You learn how you’re already shaping it, and then you use your ingenuity to figure out new and better ways of shaping it. The Buddha gives you some help, but sometimes the particulars, like issues around the breath, are things you’ve got to learn how to explore things on your own. But we explore not just to play around; we play around not just to play around. We play around to learn. From learning, then we can shape the rest of our experience in good ways as well, even while we’re not here meditating. Learn how to inhabit your body fully, so that it is your place. Nobody else can invade it. And then you’ll go through the world with a lot more solidity, both in body and in mind." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Shaping Your Breath, Shaping Your Life"

"You hold a label in your mind and apply it to what you’re experiencing. The label can be a mental picture, a feeling, a word, or even just a kinetic sense that you have of the breath in the body. In other words, you might have a mental picture of how the breath goes into the body. Or you may create a particular feeling through the breath. You can focus on a point someplace around the middle of the chest and find a quality of feeling there that feels nice. You try to maintain that niceness, that pleasant feeling, so that nothing in the in- breath and nothing in the out-breath touches it or disturbs it. This is where the Buddha’s image of holding a baby chick in your hand comes in handy. You gently hold that nice feeling all way through the in-breath, and all the way through the out-breath, adjusting your breathing so that it doesn’t disturb the feeling. Or you can just keep in mind the word “breath,” ”breath,” “breath,” as a way of reminding yourself not to leave the breath, when ...

"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 ...

"So when you’re practicing concentration don’t be afraid of being attached to it. In fact, you should  get attached here. That’s part of the whole dynamic of the practice. Allow yourself to be attached to the breath, get to play with the breath, make the breath a really comfortable, good place to stay." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "At the Door of the Cage" (Meditations1)

"To begin with, it’s distinctive that [Ajaan Lee] taught that we can play with the breath, to try different kinds of breathing as a way of providing the mind a good place to settle down. Before I had encountered his teachings, I had always been told that you don’t adjust the breath. Just leave it as it is and then don’t do anything to it at all. I found it very boring and had difficulty staying with the breath as a result. Then when I encountered his teaching that you could adjust the breath, it felt liberating — especially when it relates to the second point, which is that we’re not just watching the in-and-out breath, but we’re also looking at the breath energies in the body. At first, I found the concept of breath energies strange but intriguing." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Ajaan Lee's Teachings"

"It’s crucial to have a center for the mind. But to maintain that center, you have to enjoy it. If you don’t, it simply becomes one more burden to carry in addition to your other burdens, and the mind will keep dropping it when your other burdens get heavy. This is why we spend so much time working on the skill of playing with the breath, making it comfortable, making it gratifying, making it fill your body with a sense of ease. When you have that kind of inner nourishment to feed on, you’re less hungry for things outside. You don’t need to feed on the words and actions of other people. You don’t have to look for your happiness there. When you can develop a sense of inner fullness simply by the way you breathe, the mind can stay nourished no matter what the situation. You can sit in a boring meeting and yet be blissing out — and nobody else has to know. You can watch all the good and bad events around you with a sense of detachment because you have no need to feed on...

"Try to content yourself with the breath right now. After all, it is a path, a path that leads somewhere good, and it doesn’t save all of its goodness for the end of the path. If you’re willing to watch the breath, get to know it, play with it a bit, try to see what kind of breathing feels good, it gives you an anchor in the present moment so that the mind isn’t running out after all kinds of things. It’s got a basic sense of well-being right here. In the beginning, the well-being may not be all that impressive, but it’s like a plant. You don’t get upset at a seed because it doesn’t give you fruit right away. You realize the seed is going to take time, so you water it, you care for it, and the seed will grow. So talk to your mind to make it contented with what it’s doing right now. This principle of contentment is very important." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Customs of the Noble Ones"

"If you think of the breath simply as the air coming in and out of the nose, that influences how you’re going to breathe and the way you experience the breath. But if you think about the energy in the body as being breath, then it can go anywhere in the nervous system. It can go through anything at all. That gives you another perception. It’s going to change the way you actually experience the breath. You can start to think of all those little tiny nerve endings going all the way out to the pores of your skin. They’ve got breath energy, too. If you hold that perception in mind, how does that change the way you breathe? How does it change the way you feel in the present moment? Does it feel more pleasant? If not, what other perception of breathing can you think of that would? So as you focus on working and playing with the breath, you’re getting some conscious experience in learning how to manipulate what the Buddha calls bodily fabrication, verbal fabrication, and me...

"This is the best thing you could be doing right now: getting the mind to settle down, getting a sense of being at home with the breath, being friends with the breath. Don’t think of the meditation as a struggle. If you regard your breath as your enemy, you’re really in bad shape, because wherever you go, there it is. Learn to be friends with it. Listen to it. Work with it. Play with it. Learn how the breath and the mind can cooperate with each other. This requires paying careful attention. As with any friendship, it takes time. But that length of time can be shortened if you’re really attentive, if you really watch." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Friends with the Breath"

 "So you focus on your breath. When the breath comes in, know it’s coming in; when it goes out, know it’s going out. As you do that, you have to bring some mental factors to the breath. The first is mindfulness, just keeping the breath in mind. Remind yourself: This is where you want to stay. And make this your frame of reference. You can forget about the world outside for the time being. Focus on this world here, the world of your breathing, the world of your immediate experience in the body. Make that your frame of reference. Thoughts that deal with other things: Put them aside for the time being. It’s not that you’re being irresponsible here, it’s simply that the mind needs some time for itself, some time when it can put down all the cares and responsibilities of the outside world so that it can get itself into shape. So, mindfulness here means remembering to stay with the breath in and of itself, right here. The next quality is alertness: You actually know what you’re doing ri...

"Playing with the breath also helps you stay in the present — and stick with the meditation over time — because it gives you something interesting and engaging to do that can show immediate benefits. This keeps you from getting bored with the meditation. As you see the good results arising from adjusting the breath, you become more motivated to explore the potentials of the breath in a wide variety of different situations: how to adjust the breath when you’re sick, how to adjust it when you feel physically or emotionally threatened, how to adjust it when you need to tap into reserves of energy to overcome feelings of exhaustion. The pleasure and refreshment that can come from working and playing with the breath provide your ardency with a source of inner food. This inner food helps you deal with the obstreperous members of the committee of the mind who won’t back down unless they get immediate gratification. You learn that simply breathing in a particular way gives rise to an imme...

"This is one of the great things about the breath. Unlike a lot of the other functions or processes in the body, you really can change it. If you want it to be longer, just think “longer” and you can make it longer. Shorter, faster, slower, heavier, lighter, deeper, more shallow: You can play with the breath for a while to see what feels good right now. Or you can simply pose the question in the mind each time you breathe in, “What kind of breathing would feel really good this time around?” and see how the body responds. To gain a sense of whether it’s really comfortable or not, try to expand your awareness to fill the whole body. If you have trouble taking the whole body at once, you might go through the body first section-by-section. When you breathe in, watch it down around the belly for a while: How does that feel? When you breathe out how does it feel? Keep watching there for a while. If you notice that one way of breathing feels more comfortable than another the...

"We’ve talked for the last couple of days in the Q & A about different ways of working with the breath energy, and it’s important to take some time to explore this aspect of your relationship to your body. What kind of movement of the breath is actually helpful? What kind of movement of the breath makes it more difficult to stay with the body? And learn to play. Take the breath energy in the body as your playground here and be open to new ideas about how the breath energy can move. You’ll notice, in Ajaan Lee’s basic instructions, that he talks about the breath energy going down the spine and down the legs as you breathe in. But it can also do that as you breathe out. There are other times when he talks about the breath energy starting in the soles of the feet, coming up the legs and up the spine, in the other direction. You may read in manuals on Tai Chi that there’s an energy circle running from the navel down to the spot between the legs and then back up the spine, and down...

"It’s crucial to have a center for the mind. But to maintain that center, you have to enjoy it. If you don’t, it simply becomes one more burden to carry in addition to your other burdens, and the mind will keep dropping it when your other burdens get heavy. This is why we spend so much time working on the skill of playing with the breath, making it comfortable, making it gratifying, making it fill your body with a sense of ease. When you have that kind of inner nourishment to feed on, you’re less hungry for things outside. You don’t need to feed on the words and actions of other people. You don’t have to look for your happiness there. When you can develop a sense of inner fullness simply by the way you breathe, the mind can stay nourished no matter what the situation. You can sit in a boring meeting and yet be blissing out — and nobody else has to know. You can watch all the good and bad events around you with a sense of detachment because you have no need to feed on them. It’s no...

" Ardency: The breath is one of the few processes in the body over which you can exert conscious control. An important part of breath meditation is learning how to make skillful use of this fact. You can learn which ways of breathing foster pleasant sensations in the body, and which ones foster unpleasant ones. You learn a sense of time and place: when and how to change the breath to make it more comfortable, and when to leave it alone. As you develop this knowledge, you can use it as an aid in developing skillful qualities of mind. This sort of knowledge comes from experimenting with the breath and learning to observe the effects of different kinds of breathing on the body and mind. You can call this sort of experimentation working with the breath, for you’ve got an ardent purpose: the training of the mind. But you can also call it playing with the breath, for it requires that you use your imagination and ingenuity in thinking of different ways to breathe and to picture the br...

"To begin with, it’s distinctive that [Ajaan Lee] taught that we can play with the breath, to try different kinds of breathing as a way of providing the mind a good place to settle down. Before I had encountered his teachings, I had always been told that you don’t adjust the breath. Just leave it as it is and then don’t do anything to it at all. I found it very boring and had difficulty staying with the breath as a result. Then when I encountered his teaching that you could adjust the breath, it felt liberating — especially when it relates to the second point, which is that we’re not just watching the in-and-out breath, but we’re also looking at the breath energies in the body. At first, I found the concept of breath energies strange but intriguing." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Ajaan Lee's Teachings"

"We were talking about sitting in a meeting. You don’t have to be bored by the meeting. You can play with your breath energies. You find that even as you get involved in more and more complex activities, you can still have some sense of the breath energy in the body. It may be too much to ask you to keep track of whether the breath is coming in or going out, but just have a sense of the general field of energy and whether it feels connected — whether it feels at ease. And any parts that are not at ease, you breathe right through. This now enables you to put up with situations that otherwise might be very unpleasant and say, “At least I’ve got a friend here.” This is the key to learning patience and endurance. You don’t focus on the bad things that are happening around you; you focus on the things that you have some control over that you can make pleasant. This way, it’s not simply a matter of bearing up, bearing up, bearing up against something that’s difficult. You’re got some fr...

"You’d like to create a good state of mind. You want to have the breath flowing nicely. What does that mean? People get all tied up in knots, reading about how the breath has to be this way or that way. They think they’re actually going to be pumping air into their nerves. That’s not the case. The breath energy is already there in the body. It’s simply that in some places it’s not flowing well, or that you’ve been breathing in a way that’s laborious or unpleasant in the body. Part of that has to do with your perception of exactly what’s happening when you breathe. So one of the important parts of meditation is learning how to play with your perceptions. Think of the breath energy coming in and out of the pores. See what that’s like. Think of it coming in at certain spots in the body where there’s a trigger point — in other words, wherever there are some knots in your muscles. Think of the breath energy coming in right there, going through the knot. Or you can think of...

"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)