What is the difference between mindfulness and meditation?

To put it simply, the two are not parallel. Mindfulness was originally a branch technique of meditation. It has now evolved beyond the fixed meditation practice scene and has become a state of consciousness that can be integrated into daily life. Meditation is more of a general term for all spiritual practices with the attribute of awareness.

Many friends who are new to this type of practice confuse the two at first. When I first got into it, I thought mindfulness was just a "foreign name" for meditation. It wasn't until I followed the MBSR (Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction) course for more than two months that I slowly figured out the boundaries between the two.

For example, if you take 20 minutes on weekends to lay out a yoga mat and sit by the window, follow the guidance sound to anchor your attention on your breathing, and pull it back without judgment when your mind wanders, what you are doing at this time is "mindfulness meditation," which is a type of meditation practice.； But if you are criticized in public by your boss during the weekly meeting at work, and you are about to clench your fists and fall into self-denial, you suddenly realize that "I am falling into the inertia of self-attack." You neither follow the emotion to get into trouble, nor blame yourself for being so unable to bear it, but just calmly watch the emotion come up and fade away. At this time, you are not doing any meditation practice at all, but you are already using mindfulness to regulate your state.

To give a very vivid analogy, meditation is like the general term for all "water sports", including surfing, paddle boarding, and free diving. Mindfulness was originally a "snorkeling" item. It originally required you to put on the equipment and find a special diving spot to practice as required. Later, people discovered that even if you bury your face in the basin when washing your face and concentrate on feeling the touch of water flowing through your skin and feeling your heartbeat when you are holding your breath, you can achieve a similar relaxing effect. Gradually, mindfulness has derived a large number of uses that are outside the formal meditation scene.

At present, there is no completely unified view on the boundary between the two in academic circles and spiritual practice circles. Most researchers in the field of traditional spiritual practice believe that mindfulness is the core content of the Eightfold Path of Buddhism, which is inseparable from the root of the meditation practice system. Nowadays, the secular promotion of mindfulness as a "workplace stress reduction tool" on the market has actually eliminated its original spiritual core.； Scholars in the field of clinical psychology believe that the widely used mindfulness-based cognitive therapy and mindfulness-based stress reduction therapy have long been stripped of all religious attributes. They are psychological intervention methods that have undergone a large amount of clinical evidence. They are two completely different categories from traditional meditation with spiritual attributes.

I have been practicing for almost four years. In fact, I rarely struggle with the definition of the two. When I am so busy that I can't even spare 10 minutes, I will put my mindfulness into the fragmented time of eating, squeezing on the subway, and making coffee. It is a good practice to carefully feel the chewing feeling of each mouthful of rice and the temperature of the wind blowing on my face.； When you have plenty of time, sit down and do 40 minutes of traditional meditation practice, and calm down to sort out your recent emotional state. For ordinary practitioners, it can help stabilize your emotions and reduce internal friction. It is actually much more meaningful than fussing over definitions.