Thanissaro Bhikkhu on Refreshing Breathing

"When there’s fear, you can try using the breath to deal with fear. Get in touch with the physical side of the fear and breathe right through it. Notice how the breath can help deal with boredom, how it can help deal with illness, how it can help deal with pain. There’s a lot to explore here. And as the possibilities of the breath capture your imagination, you find that this skill is useful, not only when you’re trying to sit with your eyes closed, but also wherever the present may be, wherever you may be in the present. Whatever the context, whatever the situation, you find that the breath has something to offer — if you explore it. And to explore it, you have to get a sense that it can capture your imagination. It gives you that kind of challenge, along with the sense of reward that comes when you’ve explored something and discovered something new, a valuable skill." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Imagine" (Meditations1)

" 1) You’re not concerned with your breath as it might be observed by a doctor or a machine outside you. You’re concerned with your breath as only you can know it: as part of your direct experience of having a body. If you have trouble thinking of these energies as “breath,” see if thinking of them as “breathing sensations” or “body sensations” helps — whatever enables you to get in touch with what’s actually there. 2) This is NOT a matter of trying to create sensations that don’t already exist. You’re simply making yourself more sensitive to sensations that are already there. When you’re told to let the breath energies flow into one another, ask yourself if the sensations you feel seem unconnected to one another. If they do, simply hold in mind the possibility that they can connect on their own. This is what it means to allow them to flow. 3) These energies are not air. They’re energy. If, while you’re allowing the breath energies to spread through the various parts of the bod...

"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 ...

 "There’s a story in Ajaan Lee’s autobiography of a senior monk in Bangkok who was sick and so Ajaan Lee went to visit him. Now, this senior monk had very little use for the Wilderness Tradition, so it wasn’t the case that he had a lot of faith in Ajaan Lee. But Ajaan Lee just sat in one corner of the room and meditated. After a while the senior monk began to have a sense that something was coming from Ajaan Lee’s corner, having an effect on his body. So he asked Ajaan Lee, 'What are you doing?' and Ajaan Lee said, 'I’m making a gift of quiet, a gift of silence.' And the senior monk said, 'Well, whatever it is, keep on doing it. It feels really good.' And so Ajaan Lee would go back every day to meditate in the senior monk’s room. After a while, they started talking, and he actually taught meditation to the senior monk, who had never meditated before. As a result, he changed the senior monk’s ideas about the Wilderness Tradition and about the possibility ...

"3. A third common problem is an inability to feel breath sensations in different parts of the body . This is often a problem of perception: The breath sensations are there, but you don’t recognize them as such. Part of your mind may think that it’s impossible for there to be breath energies flowing through the body. If that’s the case, treat this as an exercise in imagination: Allow yourself to imagine that breathing energy can flow through the nerves, and imagine it flowing in some of the patterns recommended in the basic instructions. Or imagine it flowing in the opposite directions. At some point, you will actually start to feel the movement of energy in one part of the body or another, and then this will no longer be an exercise in imagination. In the meantime, survey the body and relax any patterns of tension you may feel in its various parts. Start with the hands and work up the arms. Then start with the feet and work up through the legs, the back, the neck, and into the he...

"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"

"Ajaan Fuang would comment on this often, on how the ability to breathe easy is a source of nourishment. You can have all the physical food you might want, and the body can still feel starved if the breath is starved. There’s no one forcing us to breathe in a way that’s difficult. There’s no breath police. They haven’t privatized the breath. It’s all yours. So try to realize the full implications of that, expand your sense of the possibilities of what the breath can do, and it’ll be your friend as long as you’re together." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Breathe Easy"

"Even the simple stress and tension in breathing: When you begin to see that that’s not necessary, you can start asking yourself, “Well, maybe there are other things going on in the present moment that are not necessary as well.” It is possible to breathe in such a way that you feel really full all the time, with a sense of refreshment. Each breath feels really refreshing coming in because you’ve paid careful attention. And all that tense breathing you did in the past, it really wasn’t necessary. You did it because you weren’t paying careful attention. Now you give some attention to the breath and you begin to see its other possibilities, its other potentials." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Building on Certainty"

Question: In the teachings called The Basics, you talk about the possibility of comparing our attitudes to the breath to those of the brahmavihāras . The tensions that I feel in my body have developed so that in the course of my practice they now occupy principally only one part of the body. So in reciting the names of the brahmavihāras like a mantra, I find that I can address myself a bit to both sides. That permits me to better stay in contact with this difference between the two sides of the body. Is it possible that a chant that you recite internally is one of the tools you can use in meditation? And is it wise to choose a tool specifically for the difficulty you’re encountering? If so, could you please give me some examples? Thanissaro Bhikkhu: There are times when chanting a particular word will help, and this will vary from person to person. But when I talked about using the brahmavihāras or comparing them to your approach to the breath, I was thinking not only of the names...

"So it’s important that you learn how to develop this sense of absorption in the breath, pleasurable, refreshing, feels really good just being here. That changes your sense of the range of possibilities. There is a pleasure that doesn’t depend on those things outside, it’s perfectly fine right here. It’s nourishing. And even though simple concentration is not going to totally solve the problem of the way the mind causes itself suffering, it really changes the balance of power. You’ve got more allies in this revolution you are trying to create in the mind. Where the mind can live at peace with itself without causing any harm for you, any harm for anybody else. That’s your desire." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Balance of Power"

Question: Could you go into more detail on the ideas of breathing with the energy of the breath and breathing with the entire body? Thanissaro Bhikkhu: The flow of energy here refers to any sense of energy you may have in the body. Some energies are still, some move, some are trying to move but are blocked: Those are the ones you work with. We use the word “breath” because these energies are connected with your breathing. So when you’re breathing with your whole body, it’s not a matter of air coming in and out, it’s simply the energy flowing in and out of the body. This is something that’s already there in the body. It’s simply a matter of becoming more and more sensitive to it. And then once you get a sense that these sensations really are energy, and not solid or heavy, then you find that you can move the energy around more comfortably. There is also an energy that exists around the body. If you get sensitive to that, then you can make use of that as well, thinking of i...

"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 don’t have to feel compelled to get the best possible breath. Don’t turn it into a chore. Make it something you enjoy. You’re here to play with the meditation. That was one of Ajaan Fuang’s instructions that always sounded the strangest. He said to meditate playfully. Not in a desultory way, but enjoy it. Think of all the different crazy ways you can breathe right now. It’s like getting a new stereo. You turn up the treble, you turn up the bass — not because you seriously want to hear your music all treble or all bass, but because it’s just fun to see what you can do with the machine. After you’ve explored some of the extremes, then you start fine-tuning it until you get it to the point where it sounds just right. The important thing is that the breath not become a chore. If breathing becomes a chore, that simply makes life that much heavier. The breath can be something you enjoy playing with. It can become your sport. Then you have something to play with all th...

"There come times when just the process of breathing can feel really gratifying. There’s a very strong, intense feeling of pleasure that feels almost sensual. But as the Buddha says, it’s not sensual. It has to do with the form of the body, as opposed to sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and outside tactile sensations. But it can feel really good in a very visceral way. That’s important. Once you see that there’s this possibility, it’s easier to let go of your other desires as they arise. You’ve got something better. There’s a passage where the Buddha says that the reason we get so stuck on sensual desires, sensual pleasures, is because we don’t see any other alternative to pain. But when you see that there is the alternative and, as you reflect on it, you see that it has fewer drawbacks, greater rewards, and that you can learn how to tap into it when you need it, then it can be your new attachment — a much better one. If you want to call it an addiction, it’s a healthy addiction, a...

"There’s a story in Ajaan Lee’s autobiography of a senior monk in Bangkok who was sick and so Ajaan Lee went to visit him. Now, this senior monk had very little use for the Wilderness Tradition, so it wasn’t the case that he had a lot of faith in Ajaan Lee. But Ajaan Lee just sat in one corner of the room and meditated. After a while the senior monk began to have a sense that something was coming from Ajaan Lee’s corner, having an effect on his body. So he asked Ajaan Lee, “What are you doing?” and Ajaan Lee said, “I’m making a gift of quiet, a gift of silence.” And the senior monk said, “Well, whatever it is, keep on doing it. It feels really good.” And so Ajaan Lee would go back every day to meditate in the senior monk’s room. After a while, they started talking, and he actually taught meditation to the senior monk, who had never meditated before. As a result, he changed the senior monk’s ideas about the Wilderness Tradition and about the possibility of getting results from m...

"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 ...

Question: Could you go into more detail on the ideas of breathing with the energy of the breath and breathing with the entire body? Thanissaro Bhikkhu: The flow of energy here refers to any sense of energy you may have in the body. Some energies are still, some move, some are trying to move but are blocked: Those are the ones you work with. We use the word “breath” because these energies are connected with your breathing. So when you’re breathing with your whole body, it’s not a matter of air coming in and out, it’s simply the energy flowing in and out of the body. This is something that’s already there in the body. It’s simply a matter of becoming more and more sensitive to it. And then once you get a sense that these sensations really are energy, and not solid or heavy, then you find that you can move the energy around more comfortably. There is also an energy that exists around the body. If you get sensitive to that, then you can make use of that as well, thinking of it coming in ...

"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 ...

"Even the simple stress and tension in breathing: When you begin to see that that’s not necessary, you can start asking yourself, “Well, maybe there are other things going on in the present moment that are not necessary as well.” It is possible to breathe in such a way that you feel really full all the time, with a sense of refreshment. Each breath feels really refreshing coming in because you’ve paid careful attention. And all that tense breathing you did in the past, it really wasn’t necessary. You did it because you weren’t paying careful attention. Now you give some attention to the breath and you begin to see its other possibilities, its other potentials." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Building on Certainty"

"Right here at the breath is where the body and the mind meet. Your most direct experience of the body is actually breath sensations, the feeling of energy that flows throughout the whole body. So if you want to understand what you’ve got inside yourself here, both inside the body and the mind, the breath is a good place to start. Be aware of it as it comes in, aware of it as it goes out. And be on friendly terms with it, allow it to come in and out in whatever way feels really good. To find what way feels really good, you can experiment. Longer breathing, shorter breathing, faster, slower: There are lots of ways you can play with the breath, until you get a good idea of what the range of possibilities is right now, exactly how good can it feel breathing in, breathing out. And again, think of the breath as prior to everything else that you feel in the body. In other words, there may be parts of the body that feel constricted or painful, but just think of the breath going right thr...