On the relationship between mindfulness and meditation

Mindfulness is a state of awareness of "focusing on the present without judgment", and meditation is the most commonly used systematic tool to reach this state. The essence of the two is the relationship of "goal-path", but in the context of different spiritual practices and academic schools, the boundaries will overlap or even exchange, and there is no absolutely unified standard answer.

When I first came into contact with mental exercises, I couldn't tell the difference between them at all. I signed up for a 21-day meditation camp and sat for 10 minutes every day to count my breath, so I felt that I was practicing mindfulness. Until later, because of anxiety, I went to do clinical intervention. The psychologist asked me to put down my mobile phone at lunch, chew enough rice for 20 times, feel the sweetness of rice grains, the crispness of vegetable leaves, and even the temperature of the bowl edge touching my lips, saying that this was also a mindfulness exercise. I was still confused at that time: I didn't meditate, did it count?

Later, I turned over a lot of information and talked with practitioners from different backgrounds, only to find that in the context of mainstream clinical psychology, the boundary between the two is actually relatively clear. I have compiled a simple comparison:

Originally, I always thought that this division of "goal-tool" was the standard answer. It was not until last year that I chatted with a friend who taught me how to spread from the south to the inside that I found that the difference in different contexts was not a little bit. For them, mindfulness is the core practice element of the Eighth Path, and Vipassana (also known as Vipassana meditation) itself is the concrete embodiment of mindfulness. You can't split the state of "keeping awareness" and the practice of "observing breathing and feeling" into two halves, unless the latter is a tool and the former is a goal, which is too split-for practitioners, mindfulness and meditation are two sides of the same body. This statement has actually influenced the mainstream mindfulness therapy system. If you look at the curriculum outline of MBSR (Mindfulness Decompression Therapy), it also counts daily exercises such as mindfulness diet and mindfulness walking as a kind of "mobile meditation". At this time, it makes no difference whether you are doing mindfulness exercises or meditation exercises.

It's funny to say. I saw someone quarreling about these two words on social platforms before, saying that the other party didn't even understand the basic definition and came out to teach people. In fact, the contexts they stood in were different, so it's worthwhile.

For ordinary people, the easiest pit to step on is not to confuse the definition, but to draw an equal sign between the two: either I think that I can definitely get mindfulness as long as I meditate every day, or I think that I can't practice mindfulness if I can't sit still. I used to have a student who sat in meditation for 20 minutes every day, but when he was distracted, he scolded himself for being useless. After sitting for half an hour, he played eight dramas about KPI in his head. Do you think he was meditating? Formally, it is, but he has been judging himself all the time, trapped in the anxiety of the future, and has never touched the edge of mindfulness. On the other hand, I know a big brother who drives a taxi. Without learning any relevant theories, he focuses on feeling the matte texture of the steering wheel and listening to the sound of the engine when driving. He doesn't want yesterday's ticket or tomorrow's money. He said that he has never been angry after driving for more than ten years. This is actually living in mindfulness, which is much better than many people who meditate hard.

In fact, there is really no need to argue about who is right and who is wrong by definition. For us ordinary people, whether we take 10 minutes to sit down and count our breaths or feel the coolness of two downwinds blowing across our faces when walking, this exercise is useful as long as it allows you to get out of your messy thoughts and not regret the past and worry about the future. After all, whether it is mindfulness or meditation, the ultimate goal is to make you live a more practical life.