The difference and connection between mindfulness and meditation

Mindfulness is essentially a mental state of "consciously and non-judgmentally anchoring attention in the present moment", while meditation is a collective name for a series of systematic exercises that can help you enter this state. The two are a cross-relationship between "goal/state" and "core implementation path", rather than an either-or parallel concept. Of course, this is the current consensus among mainstream academic circles and spiritual practice circles. There are also some schools that classify mindfulness as a subcategory of meditation. We will talk about the sources of different opinions later.

The biggest pitfall I encountered was that when I first got into it, I completely equated the two: I couldn't help but sit for 20 minutes in the morning every day, my legs were so numb that I didn't dare to move, and my mind was still looping in my mind that my boss had changed the eighth version of the plan the day before. After sitting for half a month, my mood got worse. I always felt that I "can't even sit still for meditation, and it's so useless." It was only later that I realized that during the dozens of minutes of meditation, I was self-criticizing the entire time, and I didn’t experience any “non-judgmental present awareness”. It was essentially just sitting in a different place and wandering away.

If you really can't tell the difference, it's easy. Here's a common example: I was queuing up at a coffee shop last week, and the person in front of me accidentally poured an iced American on my sleeve. My first reaction was that I was furious. Suddenly, I noticed that my teeth were clenched, and the muscles in the back of my neck were tense. I could even feel " I'm very angry now, I want to scold him." This thought was floating around. I didn't follow this thought and think about it, "Why is he so careless about the white shirt I just bought?", nor did I scold myself, "How big of a deal is it to get angry? It's so rude." I just stood there and felt the feeling of anger for two seconds, and most of the anger disappeared by itself. During this process, I didn’t cross my legs, close my eyes, or adjust my breathing, and I didn’t do any meditation-related rituals at all, but I was indeed in a state of mindfulness.

Speaking of which, this cognitive bias is actually related to the differences in definitions of different schools. In the tradition of Theravada Buddhism, mindfulness is the seventh branch of the Eightfold Path, and it is the core state that practitioners should approach for a long time. The corresponding practice methods are not only sitting meditation (which is what we now call meditation), but also walking meditation, life meditation and other dynamic exercises. ； When Dr. Kabat-Zinn launched Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) in 1979, in order to facilitate clinical promotion, "mindfulness meditation" was packaged into a standardized 8-week practice course. It was from this time that many people who were new to the practice began to equate mindfulness with meditation.

Of course, it is not unreasonable for the two to be so deeply bound. If you want to achieve a stable and sustained state of mindfulness, meditation is indeed the most efficient path, bar none. To use an inappropriate analogy: mindfulness is like a bowl of cold water you want, and meditation is the most common electric kettle. You can boil it in a health kettle, use a gas stove, or even leave it in the sun for an afternoon, and you can still get drinkable water, but an electric kettle is the fastest and most worry-free option. But you can’t say that an electric kettle can only be used to cool down and boil. You can use it to make health tea or boil snail noodles. The same goes for meditation: among common meditation practices now, compassion meditation is to train your kindness towards yourself and others, and concentration meditation is to train your concentration on a single goal. There are even many Western schools that use meditation to explore the subconscious. The goal of these exercises is not to cultivate "non-judgmental present awareness", and naturally has nothing to do with mindfulness.

There are currently two completely opposite views on the relationship between the two in the circle. No one is right or wrong, they just have different positions. One type is practitioners who are deeply involved in traditional spiritual practice. They believe that for people who have not undergone long-term formal meditation training, the so-called "mindfulness moments" are accidental and fragmented, just like the sparks you get when you occasionally strike a match. The other type is clinical psychology practitioners. Many of the clients they come into contact with have severe anxiety and depression problems. As soon as they sit down to meditate, they can't help but start thinking and ruminating. The more they think about it, the more painful it becomes. Instead, it is better to start with active meditation, first practice mindful eating and mindful walking, so that the clients can first feel that "living in the present" is not difficult, and then slowly introduce formal meditation practice, which will have better results. There are people around me who have practiced these two paths, and both have achieved the results I want. There is really no need to compete.

To be honest, I think most people struggle with the difference between the two. Essentially, they want to find the "most correct" practice method. Instead, they forget that the core purpose of whether it is mindfulness or meditation is to help you escape from the distracting thoughts in your head and feel more about the real life in the moment. If you have time and conditions, just find a quiet place to sit for 10 minutes to regulate your breathing. If you don't have time, don't check your mobile phone while eating. Chew a few mouthfuls of rice to taste the fragrance. Don't think about working while walking. Just look at the cats on the roadside basking in the sun. That's already good. As for whether it is mindfulness or meditation, does it matter what the name is?