The difference and connection between mindfulness and meditation

Mindfulness is essentially a state of mind that is non-judgmental and anchored in the present moment. Meditation is the mainstream deliberate practice method to cultivate this kind of state of mind. However, the boundary between the two is not absolute. Different contexts and different schools define the two very differently, and there is no binary standard of either/or.

When I held a mindfulness experience camp in Hangzhou two years ago, I met too many friends who confused these two concepts. There is a boy who works in Internet operations. He said that he bought several annual passes for meditation apps and sat there with his eyes closed for 20 minutes every day. However, when it came time to change the plan, he couldn’t help but feel so anxious that his hands were shaking and he asked me if I was not practicing “mindfulness correctly.” In fact, his problem was that he equated meditation with mindfulness: he was indeed meditating attentively during those 20 minutes, but when he returned to the work scene, his mind was still distracted by the thoughts of "Will this plan be rejected?" and "Should I work overtime tonight?" He did not use the state of mindfulness in his life at all.

To clarify the boundary between the two, it depends on the context in which you speak. If it is in the context of modern clinical psychology, when Kabat-Zinn founded Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), he clearly defined mindfulness as "consciously and non-judgmentally maintaining attention in the current state of mind" - to put it bluntly, this is a state that you can enter at any time, regardless of It requires any specific posture or specific scene: when you are eating, feel the aroma of the rice and the crispness of the vegetables, and do not think about the meeting you are going to have later. This is mindfulness; when you are commuting, feel the touch of the wind blowing on your face, the weight of your feet on the ground, and do not scroll through your phone to think about unread messages. This is also mindfulness. Meditation is a collective name for a set of techniques for deliberately training the mind. You can think of it as strength training in the gym. What you practice is the "concentration muscle" that allows you to stay in a state of mindfulness. Common breath watching, body scanning, and loving-kindness meditation all belong to this type of practice. Even dynamic practices such as walking meditation and yoga meditation are essentially branches of meditation.

But if placed in the context of traditional practice, the difference is even greater. "Mindfulness" in Theravada Buddhism is the seventh branch of the Eightfold Path and one of the core goals to be achieved in practice. It requires practitioners to maintain awareness of the body, feelings, mind, and dharma at all times. It cannot be touched without years of practice. And what we often call meditation now corresponds to "samatha and insight meditation" in the traditional context, which is the path to achieve the state of mindfulness. The two are completely different in terms of positioning. Of course, there are also schools that don’t pay so much attention. Nowadays, many meditation apps for the public directly package “mindfulness meditation” as a fixed product, which refers to those meditation exercises with the goal of cultivating mindfulness. No one will say you are wrong if you use it this way. After all, mass communication will simplify the concept and make it easier for everyone to get started.

To put it bluntly, the relationship between the two is a bit like the relationship between "being able to swim" and "going to the swimming pool to practice holding your breath": mindfulness is the state in which you can float on the water without sinking, while meditation is the process of repeatedly practicing breathing and paddling in the swimming pool. I once had a student who was a delivery boy. He couldn't take 20 minutes to sit quietly and meditate every day, so he figured out a method on his own: every time he waited for 30 seconds at a red light, he didn't think about how many orders were yet to be delivered. He just felt the touch of the handlebars and the rising and falling rhythm of his chest. He practiced this for half a year. He said that he couldn't help but quarrel with customers when he encountered negative reviews. Now when he is scolded, he can freeze for two seconds and think about what he wants to do at the moment, so as not to be carried away by anger. Do you think he didn't meditate? His 30-second practice is essentially a miniature mindfulness meditation, which is much more effective than many people who sit with their eyes closed for 20 minutes while still thinking about KPIs in their minds.

Of course, some people disagree with this statement. I talked to a traditional meditation teacher before, and he said that people today talk about mindfulness too lightly. Real mindfulness is not just about feeling the wind blowing on your face. It is about maintaining awareness of body, speech, and mind at all times. It is impossible to do it without long-term meditation (that is, meditation) training. This is true, after all, different people have different needs: if you just want to reduce daily internal consumption, then taste the food when eating, and feel the footsteps when walking. Even if you don't deliberately meditate, you can still get the benefits of mindfulness; if you want to go deeper into self-exploration, or even follow the path of spiritual practice, then systematic meditation practice is definitely a path that cannot be avoided.

In fact, there is really no need to worry about which one is which, the concepts are all determined by people, and the one that suits you is the best. Now I don’t deliberately say “I’m going to meditate.” Sometimes when I’m tired of writing a manuscript, I just stare at the sycamore tree outside the window for 30 seconds, feel the rhythm of the wind blowing through the leaves, my mind is empty, and when I come back to my senses, I feel much more relaxed – do you think this is mindfulness? Is it meditation? Either way, it can help you get away from the messy thoughts and take a breath, which is better than anything else.