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)

"After telling Rahula to make his mind like earth, [the Buddha] then taught him the steps for breath meditation, which involve a lot of proactive involvement with the breath, a lot of experimentation where you have to learn how to judge the results of your experiments in a reliable way. You’re not just sitting there letting the breath come in and go out any old which way. In fact, the Buddha criticized those who practiced breath meditation by just letting the breath come in and go out while trying to be equanimous all the time. In the Buddha’s sixteen steps, you train yourself to breathe being aware of the whole body, you try to calm down the effect that the breath has on the body, you breathe in a way that gives rise to rapture, that gives rise to a sense of pleasure and ease, you learn to breathe in a way that calms down the effect of feelings and perceptions on the body and on the mind. And while you’re breathing in and out, if you see that the mind needs to be gladdened, you g...

"That’s why we’re focused on the breath. We give the mind an intention: “Stay with the breath. Don’t move. Don’t go wandering off to other things.” And we give it a further intention: “Try to breathe as comfortably as possible.” That right there is an immediate exercise in the relationship between your actions and feelings of pleasure and pain. You want to develop that particular sensitivity as much as you can. What’s important is the particular combination of the stillness of your focus and the point where you’re focused, right at this issue of intention and its relationship to pleasure and pain. This is why breath meditation opens things up in the mind, for it’s focused on the real issues." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Treasure Hunt" (Meditations2)

"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)