meditation.. do you watch the breath or force it?

[Future_Prodigy]

It seems a lot of buddhist meditations are concerned with ‘watching’ the breath whereas yoga and other meditations geared towards martial arts seem to force the breath (your told to inhale huge breaths and hold them then exhale, etc). What is the purpsoe of this difference and why does it exist

 

[Hastrman]

It seems a lot of buddhist meditations are concerned with ‘watching’ the breath whereas yoga and other meditations geared towards martial arts seem to force the breath (your told to inhale huge breaths and hold them then exhale, etc). What is the purpsoe of this difference and why does it exist

You watch your breath in order to be aware of something without really thinking about it–you don’t think, “Breathe In, Breathe Out”; you just breathe. That’s called the Mind of No Mind: not thinking, but not being unconscious, either.

But watching the breath involves, AFAIK, the same actual breathing techniques as yoga, just with a different mental attitude. The MA ones are Buddhist.