Is conscious breathing better than passive?

Counting breaths and observing breath are both considered foundational breathing techniques in many schools of meditation and qigong. What many people miss out on is that these are far more than a stepping stone for beginners before they get to "the good stuff". Counting breaths and controlling breath strengthens the hun 魂, the aspect of consciousness related to planning and vision. Passively observing breaths is much harder for many people. It requires you to observe without controlling. At first it seems simple and yet your goals tend to reveal themselves. Is your goal to take deep soft breaths? This can interfere with your observation. The goal of observation is to have no goal. You watch as you might watch waves come to shore. Abandon even the desire to take another breath, just appreciating them as they come. Your breathing is just as much as force of nature as the ocean. The way you are automatically breathing is intelligent. Trusting this enough to learn from it can be difficult, but this approach will deeply strengthen your po 魄. This is the earthly aspect to your consciousness. It is your animal cunning. It is the wisdom of your skin and carries with it another path toward intuition. It connects to your body, to the Earth, and to your subconscious.

The breathing method you use should reflect who you are. If you are very driven and organized, then it is better to use the passive breathing approach to balance it and allow your yin to flourish. If you are scattered and lack a clear vision then the active breathing is best.

In these time of zoom meetings your hun is busy. Your eyes go into different living spaces divorced from scent. The hun is going where the po cannot and it creates a degree of division. Your skin can not feel into the aerobiome and space of those you are seeing. It is becoming easier to lose your connection to the Earth.

If this have been your experience, then I encourage you to observe your breaths without controlling them. In doing so you will bypass some fear of death and trust in the process of observing your life unfold and change. The great irony is that in not trying to control breathing, the breath becomes deep and soft. It may pause at times to seal and tonify, but quickly it softens as you step out of it's way.

With this practice you also learn to follow your fate. You learn to get out of your own way and learn by watching yourself act. Your subconscious is faster and smarter than people give it credit for. When you suddenly defend yourself using martial arts, it is not an act of planning. It is a sudden reaction. By the time you notice the threat, they are already down. This is the wisdom of the po and it can be used for far more than combat. It allows you to connect or retract from the wrong people. It helps you make decisions far faster than you can think. It allows you to trust split second decisions and follow through with them toward fruitful results.

As you practice active and passive breathing for a while, you may come to a place where the hun and po start to merge into one. On Chinese temples both Buddhist and Taoist deities are depicted as a general riding a tiger. This is a symbol of the hun, directing a strong and intuitive po, it is the General riding the Tiger. At this stage there is a comfortable convergence. It becomes hard to tell if you are controlling it or simply following the breath. As this happens in your breathing practice, it starts to happen in your life as well. You begin to follow your fate and it becomes hard to tell what you are doing intentionally and what is unfolding by itself. At this pivot point between opening and closing you may find a lot of beauty and simplicity in your life. Your clarity of purpose comes to rest warmly in your dan tian, extending deeply into the Earth and connecting to Heaven.