Thanissaro Bhikkhu on Refreshing Breathing

"Remember that the breath is energy, it’s not just air coming in and out of the lungs. The air can be held, as when you hold your breath, but the energy of the breath can’t be held. It can be blocked, but you don’t really hold it. So even as you’re holding the air in your lungs, there will be a flow of breath energy in different parts of the body. This means that when we focus on the breath as energy, we’re focusing on something that’s very light, very quick, and very pervasive. It also helps to think about the breath as something that comes in and out of the body very easily. Even when you’ve got a stuffy nose or congestion from a cold, there’s still a subtle energy coming into different parts of the body. It’s like working around a traffic jam: If you know that the traffic is congested on a main street, you drive through the side streets. You can think about the breath just waiting to come in at any time, so you don’t have to pull it in. At the same time, you don’t ...

"You learn as you focus on the breath that there are different ways of perceiving the breath. You can perceive it simply as air coming in and out of the lungs, and the lungs are kind of like a big bellows. You suck the air in and you force the air out. That’s one perception of breathing. But then you can perceive the breath as an energy field that picks up energy not only in the lung area but also anywhere in the body. The whole nervous system gets involved in the breathing process. And if you hold that perception in mind for a while, you begin to see that it really does work that way. This provides a much more comfortable way of breathing, less constricted, less forceful, and more nourishing for the body. This too makes you more sensitive to the role of perception." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Enlightenment is Not a Hot Dog"

"You learn as you focus on the breath that there are different ways of perceiving the breath. You can perceive it simply as air coming in and out of the lungs, and the lungs are kind of like a big bellows. You suck the air in and you force the air out. That’s one perception of breathing. But then you can perceive the breath as an energy field that picks up energy not only in the lung area but also anywhere in the body. The whole nervous system gets involved in the breathing process. And if you hold that perception in mind for a while, you begin to see that it really does work that way. This provides a much more comfortable way of breathing, less constricted, less forceful, and more nourishing for the body. This too makes you more sensitive to the role of perception." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Enlightenment is Not a Hot Dog"