Thanissaro Bhikkhu on Refreshing Breathing

"What really feels good when you’re breathing right now? If you can’t figure out what really feels good, hold your breath for a while until the mind comes to the point where it’s screaming at you: “Breathe! You’ve got to breathe!” Then, when you breathe, notice what feels really good as you breathe in. Take that as a guide." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Start Out Small" (Meditations2)

"One perception I’ve found useful is one that Ajaan Fuang recommended. He said, there is a line of breath energy running down the middle of your body. When the breath comes in, it comes in to nourish that line, and when it goes out, it goes out of that line. So it’s not like you try to pull the breath in just through the nostrils. The breath is coming in from every direction, to fill up that line in the middle. Then you want to make sure the line doesn’t get squeezed out even as you breathe out. Keep it full, so that whatever breath energy is helpful stays in the body, and only those breath energies that seem excessive or unpleasant at the moment can go. Another useful perception is of the body as a big sponge, with all the holes in the sponge connected, so that when you breathe in one part of the body, it can connect with every other part of the body. Or you can find whatever other perceptions help to keep the breath as calm, to keep that sense of ease in the body as calm as poss...

"Each time you breathe in, think of the body as a clean slate. The breath can go everywhere, anywhere, all at once. It can go in strange directions and do all kinds of things, whatever is needed to keep the body feeling buoyant. An important point to notice here when you breathe out is that you not breathe out too long. The more you breathe out long, the tighter things become in the body. So allow the breath to go out just right, then breathe in again, breathe out again, breathe in again, and allow the breath to dissolve anything that seems uncomfortable, that seems blocked. After you’ve played with the breath like this for a while, ask yourself what feels right, what feels balanced in the body, in terms of the breath. Are things too light? Too heavy? Too warm? Too cold? See if you can use the breath to bring them into balance. In doing this, you create a sense of ease in body and mind, a sense of harmony, so that the peace that you feel inside is palpable. It’s not ...

"As the Buddha pointed out, this is a harmless pleasure — harmless in the sense that it doesn’t place any burdens on anyone else and in the sense that it doesn't obscure your vision. If our pleasure depends on things outside, we get blinded because pleasure that’s based outside has to have its drawbacks, yet we don’t want to see the drawbacks, so we close our eyes to them. But this is a kind of pleasure that doesn’t require that you close your eyes. You may need to close your eyes in the beginning, as you meditate, just to prevent distractions. But as you get more and more grounded in the breath, more absorbed in the breath, you not only keep your physical eyes open, you keep your mental eyes open as well. You see where the pleasure comes from, and you can see that it causes no harm to anyone. That allows the mind to open and be more sensitive to all kinds of areas that it used to desensitize itself to. So as long as the mind is going to feed and cling, have it fe...

"If you’re sitting here, and the breath feels really good coming in, really good going out, all kinds of other things can happen in the world and you don’t feel affected. You feel a sense of well-being that comes from within that’s not touched by those things. As Ajaan Lee says, they can come and curse your mother, and it doesn’t really affect you. You don’t get angry. It’s as if the mind is well fed. If you’re hungry and tired, people can say even the slightest thing that’s critical, and you lash out. But if you’re feeling well fed and in a good mood, you can take the criticism and actually laugh along with them, actually agree with them: “Yeah, that’s right.” Then maybe you can do something about what you’ve been doing wrong. This is why it’s good to have the breath as an ally. When feelings of greed or anger come welling up from the mind, instead of feeling that restraint bottles them in, you can think of allowing whatever pressure you feel in the body as a result...

"The Buddha’s not saying that when you practice renunciation you should simply do without. He provides you with an alternative pleasure: the pleasure of right concentration, the pleasure of jhana. The absorption you get in when you’re fully inhabiting the body, the sense of ease that comes with the breath, the sense of fullness that comes with the breath as you allow it to spread throughout the whole body: When you have this alternative pleasure, you learn how to cultivate it, enjoy it, and then you can use it for getting the mind into even deeper concentration." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Sense Pleasures & Sensuality" (Meditations12)

"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 ...