What is the relationship between mindfulness and meditation?

To put it simply, most practitioners of contemporary mindfulness systems regard mindfulness as a core branch of meditation. Some inheritors of traditional meditation contexts believe that mindfulness is the state that all meditation practices ultimately reach. The relationship between the two is "path" and "goal". It all depends on the context in which you discuss it.

Among the meditation classes that are most popular among the public now, nine out of ten are mindfulness exercises - such as following the instructions to focus on breathing, and gently pulling back when your mind wanders, without scolding yourself "Why are you so unfocused?" After all, the scope of meditation is much broader than mindfulness. There are transcendental meditations that specifically recite mantras, healing meditations that guide you to visualize specific images, and there are also concentration meditations and compassion meditations in many traditions. The core logic and mindfulness are different.

When I first started practicing, I couldn't figure out the boundary between the two. It wasn't until last year that I attended a short-term camp of Theravada Zen. The teacher didn't let us sit for an hour at all. It was soreness - that's when I realized that in the context of practical practice, mindfulness is an ability that can break away from the meditation form of "sitting with eyes closed". Even if you are walking, eating, or taking the subway, as long as you can maintain this non-judgmental awareness, you are maintaining mindfulness. On the contrary, sometimes you sit for half an hour, thinking about what to eat in the evening and unfinished work in the afternoon. That is not a mindfulness practice at all. At most, it is just sitting in a daze for a while.

In fact, the relationship between the two is a bit like swimming and cardiopulmonary ability. You said that swimming is a kind of exercise that improves cardiopulmonary ability. You are definitely right. Just like mindfulness in the popular context is a type of meditation.； You said that one of the goals of swimming is to develop a good cardiopulmonary function. Even if you don't swim, you can still use your strong cardiopulmonary function when climbing stairs or playing ball. This is also true. Just like mindfulness in the context of practical practice is the core ability to be polished in meditation, and it must eventually be used in all scenes of life.

If you just want to reduce stress on a daily basis, you don’t have to worry about these concepts at all. Just search for 10 minutes of mindfulness meditation and practice it. If you practice it for a long time, you will naturally touch the state of "being aware without sitting down", and then you will naturally understand the difference between the two.