How can you see suffering in the breath? In his book Breath by Breath, Larry Rosenberg says that being mindful of the breath, as in the Anapanasati Sutta, is a complete practice and can lead to complete liberation. Following on from that I would think it should be possible to experience all three marks of existence in the breath.

From my own practice I can feel both the impermanence and no-self aspects of the breath. They seem fairly evident even with access or just momentary levels of concentration. However I don't see the other mark of conditioned existence i.e. suffering. How can one see suffering in the breath? How does this come about? Are there any traditional or contemporary writings on the subject?

Many thanks for any all help
The three characteristics are very deep and profound subjects, and often our understanding of them is very superficial. For example, people often think that they understand impermanence because they understand it to mean that all conditioned things will eventually end, when in fact impermanence means much more than that.

In order to see the three characteristics through anapanasati it is nessisary to make sure that one is practicing it in a way that is specifically developing insight, and to do this it is necessary to meditate just on the bare experiences of breathing rather than on the breath itself. For example, one could use the feelings of air moving against the inside of the nose and the subtle feelings of heat and cold, or on the throat, or the expansion and contraction of the body during breathing.

After one is able to meditate like this then one will be able to start to see the three characteristics in a deeper way than before. One will be able to see how all experience is made up of parts that arise and cease, and gradually a person will be able to understand impermanence through direct perception in meditation instead of the conceptual way that most people are used to, and as this direct understanding of impermanence ripens the meditator will be able to directly perceive the characteristics of dukkha and nonself.