The difference between mindfulness and meditation is

The difference between mindfulness and meditation is that the former is a mental state and training method that consciously anchors attention in the present moment without judgment, while the latter is a collective term for all practices including mindfulness that consciously adjust mental models. Simply put, mindfulness is a branch of meditation, and the scope of meditation is much larger than mindfulness.

I guess many people will be confused when they see this. Isn’t it the same as not saying anything? I met many friends who came to the offline meditation class for the first time before. When the teacher said, "Today we will practice mindful breathing meditation," I asked on the spot: Aren't mindfulness and meditation the same thing?

It’s interesting to say that the confusion between the two concepts actually happened in the past few decades. In the earliest Pali Buddhist scriptures, the corresponding word for "mindfulness" is sati, which translates as "mindfulness" and is one of the branches of the Eightfold Path. The core requirement is to focus on the current feelings, thoughts, and body reactions, and pull it back when your mind wanders, without making any "good/bad" judgments on any thoughts that arise. At that time, the corresponding "meditation", which is what we often call meditation, was much larger than this: there was samatha meditation to focus on a single object and practice concentration, vipassanā meditation to observe the flow of thoughts, and loving-kindness meditation to express kind thoughts, and even imagery exercises with specific visualizations. These are all considered meditation (that is, meditation in a broad sense), but only the part that involves "anchoring the present moment without judgment" is linked to mindfulness.

I also encountered a pitfall when I first came into contact with mental exercises. At that time, I saw a lot of "meditation" courses while browsing short videos. Some taught you to visualize the light of your chakras, some said they could help you connect to your higher self, and some said that doing it before going to bed can eliminate the karma of the past life. I followed it for two months in a daze. The more I practiced, the more anxious I became - I always felt that my inability to visualize the chakras glowing was because I had no wisdom. Later, I went to a clinical psychology department for cognitive intervention, and the doctor prescribed mindfulness training for me. Only then did I realize that what I had practiced before was indeed meditation, but it had nothing to do with mindfulness.

Interestingly, there are now different opinions on the boundaries between the two in the industry. One group is represented by Kabat-Zinn and the mainstream academic community that dereligiously de-religiously de-religes mindfulness. In the "Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR)" they promote, all exercises are basically seated mindfulness meditation. Therefore, many commercial institutions simply equate "mindfulness" and "meditation". 90% of the public meditation classes you can see on the market are actually mindfulness-based, which is the main reason why people are confused. There is another group of practitioners whose views are more down-to-earth: they believe that mindfulness does not need to be limited to the form of "meditation" at all. When you walk, you pay attention to the touch of your feet and the ground, when you eat, you chew every mouthful of rice, and even when you queue up to do nucleic acid, you observe your own impatience. You don't criticize, just see. These are all mindfulness exercises - but you can't say that walking, eating, and queuing are also meditation, right? After all, meditation in popular perception has a ritual of "sit down, close your eyes, and be quiet".

In fact, if you compare three daily scenes, you will understand immediately. The first one is to sit cross-legged for 10 minutes when you wake up in the morning, close your eyes and follow the guidance of the APP. When your mind wanders, bring it back to your breathing. Even if your mind wanders 100 times, you don't scold yourself as "useless". This is both a mindfulness practice and a meditation practice. To be precise, it is called "mindful breathing meditation". Second, you signed up for a niche shamanic meditation workshop and swayed to the beat of drums for two hours, imagining the connection between yourself and the roots of the forest. This is meditation, but not mindfulness practice, because you are actively guiding the imagery, and the core goal is not to "anchor the present moment without judging." Third, you peel an orange at work, tear off the white strands one by one, smell the fragrance of the orange peel, and feel the sweet and sour juice exploding in your mouth when you bite it, without thinking about the unfinished KPI or checking your phone. This is mindfulness practice, but if you say it is meditation, your colleagues around you will probably think you are crazy.

Of course, many friends also say, what’s the use of picking out these definitions? As long as I don’t feel anxious after practicing, that’s true. Nowadays, I don’t deliberately mince words in my daily life. Sometimes during my lunch break, I lie down on the table with my eyes closed and adjust my breathing for 5 minutes. My colleagues ask me what I am doing. I say that meditation is fine and that I am doing mindfulness exercises. That is, when someone tells me that his meditation class can open up the Ren and Du channels and improve financial fortune, I will ask one more question: Is your class about mindfulness? Or some other category?

After all, clarifying the boundary between the two is not to appear more professional, but to pay less IQ tax and find the right practice method that suits you. After all, if you originally wanted to relieve anxiety and improve concentration, but ended up signing up for a meditation class that taught you to visualize the Milky Way, but after practicing for three months, it had no effect, and you blamed yourself for poor understanding. How unfair.