The relationship between mindfulness and meditation

Mindfulness is a state of awareness that focuses on the present moment without judgment. Meditation is the most commonly used systematic practice method to cultivate this state. The two are neither equivalent nor absolutely subordinate - you can obtain mindfulness without meditating, or you may have practiced meditation for a long time but never touched the threshold of mindfulness. In daily life, people often use the two interchangeably. In essence, "mindfulness meditation", the most popular subcategory of meditation, is directly simplified into "mindfulness" or "meditation".

Speaking of which, I made a joke when I first came into contact with these two concepts. At that time, I signed up for a seven-day mindfulness meditation card with a popular APP. I turned around and boasted to a friend who practiced Vipassana meditation that I was practicing mindfulness recently. As a result, the other party only asked: "When you had an argument with your colleagues yesterday about changing the plan, did you notice that your temples were beating and your anger was rising? ”I choked instantly - it was only then that I realized that what I had practiced was just the meditative movement of "sitting cross-legged and breathing according to the guide." It's hard to say whether I had truly gained mindfulness.

According to the current consensus in clinical psychology, the definition of mindfulness is "conscious, non-judgmental awareness of present experience" proposed by Kabat-Zinn in 1979. It is essentially a psychological trait that can be acquired through training. It has nothing to do with whether you are sitting or whether you close your eyes. The scope of meditation is much broader. It is a general term for all practices that actively regulate attention: there are concentration meditations that require you to anchor your attention on breathing and mantras, mindfulness meditations that guide you to observe the comings and goings of thoughts, loving-kindness meditations that help you spread kindness, and even visualization meditations that are used to adjust your state before exams. The categories are very diverse. To use an inappropriate analogy, mindfulness is like the "core stability" you want to practice when running, and meditation is the core strength training class in the gym. If you deliberately tighten your core when walking or moving things, you can also practice core stability. You don't have to go to the gym class. ； But if you have no idea what it feels like to tighten your core, practicing with a professional class will most likely be much more efficient than just trying to figure it out on your own.

Interestingly, practitioners in different fields actually have quite different views on the relationship between the two. Many Theravada Vipassana practitioners I have come into contact with do not agree with this separation. In their context, mindfulness is originally the "right intention" in the Eightfold Path. It is an ability that is naturally cultivated in the practice of meditation (what is now commonly known as meditation). If you sit for enough time, your awareness will naturally arise with time. There is no need to separate "mindfulness" as a concrete goal to pursue. Instead, it is easy to fall into the obsession of "I must achieve mindfulness today." I have stepped into this trap before. Every time I meditate, I judge myself in my mind, "My mind wandered just now, and I am not mindful enough." As a result, the more I practice, the more anxious I become. Later, after talking with a spiritual teacher, I realized that the moment I realized my mind wandered was mindfulness in itself.

Putting it into ordinary people's daily scenarios, there is actually no need to worry about these differences in definitions. When I was working on a big project last year, I worked overtime until 11 o'clock every day for two consecutive weeks. I couldn't spare 20 minutes to sit cross-legged and practice meditation, so I moved my awareness practice to the fragmented time between commuting and washing dishes: When I stood on the subway, I felt the hardness of the ground under my feet and the coolness of the handrails. When washing dishes, just feel the smoothness of the glaze of the porcelain bowl and the temperature of the water on your hands. You don't have to adjust your breathing or play background music. You can also bring back the mind that is wandering about "the plan to be handed in tomorrow" and "the bugs that were not fixed last week". The relaxing effect is no worse than sitting down and practicing meditation. Of course, I also have a friend who can only enter the state by sitting down, lighting incense, and following the instructions. For her, meditation is the most effective way to gain mindfulness, and that’s totally fine.

In fact, many people struggle with the boundary between these two concepts, simply because they are afraid that they have "trained wrongly" or they want to use professional terms as labels. But in the final analysis, whether it is mindfulness or meditation, it is ultimately to help you get rid of the mental internal friction of "catching fish at work and thinking about getting off work, lying down after get off work and thinking about KPIs", and live a clearer life. As long as you find a method that suits you, it doesn’t matter whether it is mindfulness or meditation.