Essay on the differences and connections between mindfulness and meditation

Many people often confuse mindfulness and meditation. In fact, the two are the intersection of "goal state" and "realization path" - mindfulness refers to consciously and non-judgmentally focusing on the current state of mind, while meditation is the general term for a large category of active mind-control techniques including mindfulness practice. The two are neither equivalent nor completely separated.

When I first came into contact with mental training, I couldn’t figure out the difference between the two. In 2011, I signed up for a Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) class under the Kabat-Zinn system. The teacher spent half an hour in the first class talking about these two concepts. I thought it was superfluous at the time. Later, I went to several meditation camps of different schools and participated in mindfulness intervention workshops in clinical psychology. I discovered that, let alone ordinary enthusiasts, even practitioners sometimes quarrel over the boundaries between these two terms.

Seriously, you don’t need to read a thick academic book to understand the difference. Just think of two common scenes in life: someone stepped on you on the subway during the morning rush hour. You were about to frown and curse, but you suddenly paused and realized that your chest was tight and anger was rising. On the other hand, you deliberately set aside half an hour on the weekend, laid out a yoga mat, sat cross-legged, and followed the guidance of the APP to meditate, but your mind suddenly wandered to the plan you were due to submit in the afternoon, and sometimes you wondered whether you had gone too far in the quarrel with your friend yesterday.

What’s interesting is that practitioners in different fields have really different opinions on the boundaries between the two. Most people who engage in traditional spiritual practice will draw stricter boundaries. Last year, I met a lay Buddhist who had been practicing meditation for 12 years at a Vipassana camp in Fujian. He insisted that "without formal meditation practice, there is no mindfulness." In his understanding, the occasional awareness that pops up in daily life are "wandering thoughts" and are not true mindfulness. Only through regular daily meditation exercises such as sitting meditation and walking meditation, and training to be able to stay in the present moment at any time, can a stable state of mindfulness be achieved. I specifically asked him at that time, would you be angry if you encountered someone blocking traffic jams while driving? He scratched his head and said that he had been able to do it for the first five years since he started practicing. Now he can basically detect the anger first, and then slowly relax, and he will not follow the curse, which makes me very amused. But researchers in clinical psychology don’t see it that way. The public materials of the Oxford Mindfulness Center clearly mention that mindfulness interventions for patients with anxiety disorders and chronic pain often do not require them to do formal meditation exercises at all, but start with daily small things such as “eating raisins mindfully” and “brushing teeth mindfully”. Even if the patient has never sat cross-legged for a minute, as long as he can be aware of these small things without judgment, he is already cultivating mindfulness. Both of these statements are actually correct, but the former refers to the stable and continuous quality of mindfulness, while the latter refers to the fragmented and current state of mindfulness. The footing is different.

Many people think that since mindfulness does not necessarily rely on meditation, is meditation still useful? I had this question before, until last year when I was busy working on a project for more than half a month, my mood was so bad that I would explode at every turn. The scattered awareness of eating and walking could not control my emotions at all. I tried to get up 10 minutes early every day to do mindful breathing meditation. After only a week of practice, the ability to "pause first when the mood arises" came back. To use an inappropriate analogy, mindfulness is like a "steady hand" state that you need to maintain. You can also practice steady hands when cutting vegetables and threading needles. But specifically standing in a military posture and practicing calligraphy (like meditation) will definitely be much more efficient than practicing in scattered ways. Moreover, meditation is not just for practicing mindfulness. There are many other types of meditation on the market, such as body scanning meditation for relaxation, visualization meditation for stimulating creativity, and even Taoist sitting and forgetfulness and yoga chanting meditation. They are essentially within the category of meditation, but they have nothing to do with mindfulness. This is the core reason why the two cannot be equated.

Nowadays, many online celebrity courses deliberately tie mindfulness and meditation together in order to sell goods, saying that "you can gain mindfulness by practicing meditation" and "mindfulness is meditation". In fact, it has caused unnecessary obstacles to many people. A friend around me said that he "cannot practice meditation at all" "If your mind wanders after sitting for five minutes, you will definitely not be able to learn mindfulness." In fact, this is not the case. Mind wandering is so normal. The core step in meditation practice is actually "finding that the mind is wandering, and then bringing the attention back." This process of bringing the mind back is to practice the ability of mindfulness. Even if you don't meditate at all, don't check your phone when drinking coffee, just feel the temperature of the coffee and the feeling of the bitter taste spreading on the tip of your tongue. Don't think about working when walking, just feel the hardness of your feet on the ground and the feeling of the wind blowing by your ears. This is also practicing mindfulness.

In fact, in the final analysis, it doesn’t make much sense to argue about the difference between these two concepts. Whether it is sitting down to meditate, or leaving more awareness for myself every day, isn’t the ultimate goal to have less regrets about the past and anxiety about the future, and to live well in this moment? If we hold on to concepts and insist on arguing over who is right and who is wrong, we will fall into the trap of "judgment" and get further away from righteous thoughts.