I don't see how the quote from Suzuki contradicts Culadasa. When concentrating on the breath, the skill is the concentration itself (in fact Culadasa teaches br

I don't see how the quote from Suzuki contradicts Culadasa. When concentrating on the breath, the skill is the concentration itself (in fact Culadasa teaches breath meditation). You're not trying to do something specific with the breath, you're "doing" something only with attention and awareness. You're learning to control the "muscle" of attention and awareness. And samadhi or meditative state, is nothing more than stable attention and powerful awareness. So there's no intermediate action involved. You confirm it yourself by pointing out that one merely 'watches' the breath. Indeed proper watching _is_ the skill of concentration. On the other hand you can't play Flappy Birds by merely watching it, you have to actually play it. In this case concentration arises as a consequence of repetitively and successfully achieving the game goal (not hitting the pipes). In case of meditation the reward and meditative joy are the results of the concentration (successfully sustaining attention) itself. The handout linked above and Culadasa's book explain it in great detail. BTW I agree that the distinction is far from trivial.