What is the difference between mindfulness and meditation?

If we have to give the most direct answer, meditation can actually be understood as a large category that encompasses dozens of mental training methods, and mindfulness is currently the branch with the widest spread and the most clinical evidence in this category. However, this division has always been controversial in practice circles and academic circles. There are also many people who believe that mindfulness is essentially a state of mind and should not be included in meditation techniques at all.

The things you usually come across like sitting cross-legged and focusing on breathing, following the guidance sounds to do body scans, and even the singing, walking meditation, and visualization in traditional practice, actually belong to different categories of meditation. The goals of different meditations are very different. Some are to relax and help sleep, some are to improve concentration, and some are to train compassion, or even serve specific religious practice goals. There is no unified practice standard.

People often confuse the two, in fact, because the most popular "mindfulness meditation" on the market now happens to be a type of meditation that uses the core requirements of mindfulness as a practice criterion - according to Jon Kabat-Zinn's classic definition, mindfulness is "the awareness generated by focusing attention on the present moment purposefully and without judgment." This requirement happens to be the core of this type of meditation practice.

When I first started practicing, I thought the two words were the same thing. Until I stayed up until three o'clock on a project and was so annoyed by the code on the screen that I almost dropped the keyboard. Suddenly, I subconsciously turned my attention to the breathing at the tip of my nose, instead of following the negative thoughts of "Why am I so miserable?". In just ten seconds, the tightness in my chest relaxed a little - at that time, I neither crossed my legs nor You haven’t closed your eyes, and you haven’t deliberately found time to do the so-called “practice”, but you are already in a state of mindfulness. This is why many practitioners do not recognize mindfulness as a subcategory of meditation: most meditation requires you to deliberately set aside time and find a relatively quiet scene to complete, but mindfulness can be incorporated into all daily states of eating, walking, and meetings, regardless of the scene.

To be honest, it's actually a bit like the relationship between "fruit" and "Red Fuji Apple". Usually when you say "I'll eat a fruit" with an apple in your hand, no one will find fault with you. If you really want to define it, the category of fruit is obviously much larger. For people who just want to rely on this method to relieve anxiety and improve their mood, there is actually no need to worry about the difference in naming. Whether it is taking 10 minutes a day to do mindful breathing meditation, or specifically feeling the aroma of rice and the taste of vegetables when eating, it can help you withdraw from the messy thoughts, which is enough.