Thanissaro Bhikkhu on Refreshing Breathing

"Appreciate the simple quality of getting the mind still, finding a sense of ease simply by the way you breathe; gaining a sense of well-being, rapture, equanimity when you need them. In this way, you nourish the mind with good food. That’s right livelihood in the highest sense. It puts you in a position where, while you’re still alive this time around, you weigh lightly on the world around you. And you’re developing the skill so you don’t have to come back and weigh the world down again. This is why the Buddha’s teachings are not selfish. They’re an act of kindness both for you and for the whole world around you." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Right Livelihood" (Meditations4)

"Regard each present moment as a gift. There’s something new that’s going to come, there’s a new potential for energy in each present moment. In this way, what’s been going through the day, the narratives you’ve been telling yourself in the course of the day, don’t have to determine the meditation right now. You’ve got this breath; you’ve got this opportunity to talk to yourself in a new way. You can breathe in a new way; you can hold new perceptions in mind. And as you change the dialogue inside, and change the pictures you hang on the wall — in other words, the perceptions that run things — you find that even though the breath may not be the best breath possible, at least you’ve got the right attitude. After all, the attitude is what you’re going to be able to take with you, even as you leave the body." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Free Sources of Energy"

"As we practice concentration, we get the mind into a different kind of pleasure. When it finally does settle down with the breath and there’s a sense of really belonging here in the body, that’s a different order of pleasure, and it’s much better than sensual pleasure. It puts you on a wavelength where — if you happened to die at this moment and didn’t lose this sense of being centered right here — you’d go to a really good place. So learn how to appreciate this pleasure and see it as higher and better and more reliable than the pleasures that come from sights, sounds, smells, tastes, tactile sensations. That allows you to think more calmly about the fact that you could go." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Think Calmly about Death"