What is the difference between mindfulness and meditation?

To put it simply, in current mainstream psychology and public context, meditation is a large category with extremely wide coverage. Mindfulness is the most popular and most mature specific practice method in this category. However, there are also many practitioners in the traditional practice field who do not recognize this inclusive relationship and believe that the core logic of the two is completely different.

Last month, a newbie came to me to complain. She said that after following the "mindfulness meditation" guide on the Internet for half a month, she became more and more tired. Every time the guide asked her to visualize herself being wrapped in golden light, she either couldn't think of it at all, or if she thought about it, she couldn't help but worry about whether something bad would get in, and it became tighter and tighter. I flipped through the guidance content she used and told her directly that this was not a mindfulness practice at all. It was a visualization type of meditation and was completely inconsistent with the core requirements of mindfulness.

Mindfulness was originally a de-religious psychological intervention technique extracted by Dr. Kabat-Zinn from the Four Mindfulness Foundations of Theravada Buddhism. It has three core principles: conscious awareness, anchoring in the present moment, and non-judgment. All meditations that require you to actively create images and pursue special experiences have nothing to do with mindfulness. The "10-minute mindfulness-based stress reduction" and "mindfulness-based relaxation during work breaks" that you often read about usually lead you to count your breaths, feel the body's touch, and gently pull back when your mind wanders. Don't even have the thought that "your mind is wrong." This is a standard mindfulness practice.

However, many of my friends who practice traditional Vipassana do not agree with the statement “mindfulness is a type of meditation” at all. In their system, mindfulness is a state that runs through all daily life: when eating, concentrate on feeling the taste of rice grains, without scrolling through your phone or thinking about your afternoon meeting. This is mindfulness. ； When someone steps on your foot while squeezing in the subway, your first reaction is to realize "I'm a little angry now" instead of yelling back immediately. This is also mindfulness. There is no need to find a quiet place to cross one's legs and close one's eyes to "meditate". On the contrary, the current mass media has narrowed mindfulness into a branch of sitting meditation, which has caused so much confusion.

To put it bluntly, it is actually a bit like everyone’s understanding of “tea” and “oolong tea”. Ordinary people think that oolong tea is a type of tea, and there is nothing wrong with it. However, experienced tea drinkers who have been making tea for decades will say that the craftsmanship and flavor of oolong tea are completely different from other teas, and even the brewing techniques are completely different from other teas. They cannot be simply lumped into the category of “tea”. Both opinions have their own basis, and there is no way to say who is right or wrong.

I have been practicing for almost seven years myself, and when I teach newbies, I rarely bother with definitions first. If you want to improve anxiety and improve concentration, you don’t have to worry about whether to call it mindfulness or meditation. First, find a 10-minute guide that conforms to the logic of “non-judgment, anchoring in the present.” If you practice it enough to bring the habit of awareness to the moment when you change plans, pick up children, or even quarrel with family members, you will naturally be able to figure out the boundaries between the two. I always pick up definitions for nouns, but I fall behind.