The difference between mindfulness and meditation

The essence of the two is an inclusive relationship - meditation is the collective name for all physical and mental practices that actively regulate attention and adjust the state of consciousness, while mindfulness is one of the most widely spread meditation branch technologies in the world. The reason why the two are often compared together in the market is essentially to distinguish between "mindfulness practices that are de-religious and adapted to the needs of ordinary people" and "traditional meditation practices with clear practice or spiritual goals." The core differences mainly lie in practice goals, attention operation logic, and applicable boundaries.

The first time I had a real sense of the difference between the two was at the Vipassana camp in Kathmandu, Nepal, in 2018. At that time, I had to get up before dawn every day to meditate, and could not speak for ten days. All attention had to be anchored on breathing or body feelings. Once the mind wanders, it must be pulled back immediately, and even the movement of fellow practitioners turning over next to it must be dismissed as interference. At that time, I thought that all meditation must be like this: it must be quiet, it must sit upright, and it must have no distracting thoughts. It was not until I came into contact with Kabat-Zinn’s Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) that I discovered that there was a completely different way of thinking.

The core difference is actually the goal. Traditional meditation, whether it is Vipassana from Theravada, Indian Vedic meditation or Tibetan visualization, mostly has clear spiritual or spiritual goals, such as getting rid of self-grasping, entering a state of calm samadhi, and pursuing inner awakening. The essence of practice is the path to long-term spiritual goals. But mindfulness has been serving clinical scenarios since its birth. Kabat-Zinn separated it from the Buddhist meditation system and removed all religious elements in order to help chronic pain patients relieve their pain and help ordinary people regulate their anxiety. There are no metaphysical requirements. To put it bluntly, it is a useful psychological adjustment tool.

Regarding the positioning of the two, there are actually quite a lot of differences in different circles: several practitioners of Theravada Buddhism I know always feel that the popular mindfulness on the market is a "castrated version of meditation", which strips away the core goal of "renunciation" in traditional meditation, leaving only the tool attribute of regulating emotions, and cannot be regarded as "real practice"”； But in the eyes of colleagues in the field of clinical psychology, it is this kind of de-religious and demystifying transformation that has allowed the originally limited physical and mental exercises to enter the pain department and psychiatric department of general hospitals and the lunch break rooms of Internet companies, helping thousands of ordinary people who have no religious appeal and are just tortured by stress. Both views are actually valid, it just depends on where you stand on the issue.

At the practical level, the logic of attention operation between the two is completely different. When I was giving a meditation experience class before, a boy who worked on the product said that he became more and more irritable the more he practiced traditional meditation. "When I sit down, my mind is full of to-do lists, and the more I try to push down my thoughts, the more chaotic I become. Sitting for 10 minutes is more tiring than sitting in a three-hour meeting." This is a typical requirement of traditional meditation: What traditional meditation pursues is "single-focus of attention." It is necessary to eliminate external interference as much as possible and always anchor the attention on a single object. Wandering is equal to "practicing wrong." But mindfulness does not require you to suppress thoughts at all. It doesn't matter if there are to-dos popping up in your mind, you hear the sound of your colleague typing on the keyboard next to you, or you smell the aroma of coffee. You just need to be aware of "Oh, I am thinking about the to-dos now" and "Oh, I heard the sound of typing on the keyboard." You don't need to judge yourself for "why your mind wanders again." Just gently bring your attention back to the current breathing or touch. Even these thoughts and external sounds can become the objects of your awareness.

The difference in applicable scenarios is even more obvious. Most traditional meditation requires a specific environment: a quiet space, an upright sitting posture, and at least 10 minutes of complete time. It is best for novices to have a teacher to guide them, otherwise it is easy to become agitated or go astray while sitting. But mindfulness can be embedded in almost all life scenes: you can be mindful when washing dishes, feel the temperature of the water flowing through your hands, the slippery touch of the dishwashing liquid foam, and the frosted edge of the porcelain bowl. ； When queuing up to do nucleic acid tests, you can be mindful and feel the weight of your feet on the ground and the coolness of the wind blowing across your ears. ； Even when you are about to get into an argument with a colleague, take three deep breaths and notice that your emotions are rising. This is also righteousness. I once had a client who worked in operations and was so anxious that she had insomnia for a week. She tried meditation and couldn't sit still. Later, I asked her to practice mindful walking for 15 minutes every day when she walked home from get off work. She concentrated on feeling the force of lifting and lowering her feet, the crisp sound of stepping on the fallen leaves, and the aroma of the sweet-scented osmanthus tree on the roadside. After half a month, she told me that the quality of her sleep had improved by half, and even her previous problem of being unable to resist turning over work groups had improved a lot.

To use an inappropriate analogy: Meditation is like the category of "fitness", which includes a variety of projects, including weight lifting for muscle growth, yoga for flexibility, and rock climbing for extremes. Different projects have different thresholds and goals, and require different investments.； Mindfulness is the equivalent of jogging. It does not require professional equipment or a specific venue. Ordinary people can just put on shoes and run. Whether you want to lose two pounds or just move to stay healthy, you can practice it and it is the most adaptable.

Oh, and don’t think mindfulness is “inferior” to traditional meditation. I have seen many old Zen masters who have been practicing for more than ten years. They eat and walk with a state of mindfulness. Zen Buddhism says that "moving firewood and carrying water is Zen." The essence is the same thing as what we talk about now, "moment awareness without judgment." The two are not so distinct. Many traditional meditation practices incorporate elements of mindfulness awareness. Many people who have practiced mindfulness for a long time will gradually begin to try to sit still for longer periods of time to explore deeper states of consciousness.

I have struggled with this issue before, and even argued with my colleagues for half an hour about who was more "authentic." Later, after meeting more visitors, I realized that there is no point in worrying about names. If you are interested in exploring consciousness and have time to meditate, then try different traditional meditation schools. ； If you are so busy that you don’t even have time to drink water, and you just want to reduce internal energy and have a good night’s sleep, then fragmented mindfulness practice is enough. In the final analysis, whether it is mindfulness or meditation, it is essentially a "pause button" for our constantly spinning brains. It can help you feel more settled in the hectic life, which is easy to practice.