What is the difference between mindfulness and meditation?

At present, the most common consensus in the circle is that meditation is a general category that covers dozens of different mind-cultivation techniques. Mindfulness is a branch that originated from the practice of the Four Mindfulness Foundations of Theravada Buddhism and is now widely stripped of religious attributes and applied to secular scenes.； However, there are also many senior practitioners and researchers who believe that the two cannot be simply summarized by an "inclusive relationship". The differences in core appeals and applicable scenarios are actually far greater than the commonalities.

I was confused when I first came into contact with the two. I signed up for a so-called "21-day mindfulness meditation training camp." The first three days were all about traditional meditation content of sitting and awareness of breathing. On the fourth day, the teacher suddenly assigned an assignment and said, "When buying milk tea today, carefully feel the feel of the straw breaking the plastic wrap and the sweetness of the chewed pearls, and don't drink and check your phone at the same time." It was then that I realized that mindfulness does not need to be limited to the form of meditation at all. If you have been to an offline meditation experience class, the feeling will be more obvious. In the same venue, there may be healing meditation that asks you to sing along with the beat and visualize the light, as well as mindfulness meditation that does not provide any guidance and only asks you to focus on your breathing and then pull back if you get distracted. There are even Walking meditation that allows you to slowly walk around the room and focus on feeling the touch of your feet and the ground - the first two are so different that you won't be confused at all, but only mindfulness, regardless of whether it is paired with static or dynamic forms, the core requirement is always "to be aware of the present moment without judgment."

This kind of definitional controversy is nothing new. I talked about this with a friend who practices Southern Zen meditation before, and he disagreed with the statement that "mindfulness belongs to meditation." In his opinion, most of the meditation in the traditional context has a clear goal of practice, which is to ultimately achieve "selflessness" through long-term concentration. The realm of secular mindfulness that everyone often talks about now is essentially a psychological tool for regulating emotions. For example, when you are stuck at work, take 3 minutes to feel your breathing to calm anxiety. When eating, don’t check your phone to taste the taste carefully. It does not even require formal meditation postures. It does not meet the threshold of traditional "meditation" at all.

In fact, it’s no wonder that people are confused. Nowadays, mindfulness is so popular that many people’s first exposure to it is not in a meditation class at all, but in the “tips for relieving anxiety during meetings” shared by workplace bloggers, or the insomnia intervention methods given by psychologists. It is very different from the stereotype of meditation of “sit cross-legged and close your eyes for half an hour”. If you have to find an easy-to-understand analogy, it’s probably like the relationship between “exercise” and “brisk walking” - most of the time, no one will refute you when you say brisk walking is exercise, but there are also professional fitness coaches who will tell you that brisk walking like a daily walk simply cannot meet the heart rate requirements of exercise and cannot be considered a serious exercise. The essence is that the definition standards are different in different contexts.

For ordinary people like us who just want to relax and reduce internal friction, there is no need to worry about whether the classification is accurate. If you want to find a whole block of time to calm down and adjust your state, find suitable meditation exercises and follow them. If you want to bring back your wandering thoughts while squeezing in the subway or waiting for takeaways, learn two mindfulness techniques. As long as they can help you, it doesn’t matter what they belong to.