Thesis on the relationship between mindfulness and meditation

Mindfulness is a state of non-judgmental current attention regulation that can be embedded in all daily activities. Meditation is the most commonly used systematic carrier for mindfulness training. The two are neither completely equivalent nor strictly subordinate. The specific definition will vary significantly depending on the context of use.

When I first came into contact with these two concepts, I also took a long detour. I would practice breathing meditation for 10 minutes with the APP. My legs were numb while sitting and my mind was always wandering. I always felt that I had no talent. It was not until I accompanied my family for postoperative rehabilitation. The rehabilitation doctor told me to chew each mouthful of rice 20 times and to carefully feel the process of the rice grains changing from bland to sweet. He said that this was also a mindfulness exercise. My first reaction at the time was: Huh? Is it okay to meditate without crossing one’s legs?

If we take time back to the original context of the two concepts, which is the meditation system of Theravada Buddhism, the boundary between the two is actually very clear. "Meditation" here corresponds to systematic meditation training, which includes two core parts: "Samatha" and "Vipassana". The former requires practitioners to anchor their attention on a single object to achieve the stability of the mind, while the latter requires the practitioner to be aware of changes in the body and mind without judgment on the basis of stability. "Mindfulness" is one of the core abilities to be achieved by "Observation Zen" training. Until now, many practitioners who adhere to the traditional path of practice still believe that scattered daily attention awareness cannot be considered mindfulness at all. Only through long-term and systematic meditation training, and can continuously maintain a state of non-adhesion and non-judgmental awareness, can one truly possess the ability of mindfulness. This view has always been mainstream in the context of religious practice.

But this definition changed in the 1970s. In order to help patients with chronic pain relieve their pain, Professor Jon Kabat-Zinn of the University of Massachusetts Medical School de-religiously transformed the awareness training in the meditation system and developed Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR). In his definition, mindfulness is “awareness generated by consciously and non-judgmentally anchoring attention in the present experience.” Meditation is just one of dozens of ways to train this awareness. A meta-analysis covering 127 clinical studies of mindfulness intervention published in JAMA Psychiatry in 2022 also supports this view: 32% of the effective interventions did not include a meditation session of cross-legged sitting at all. Mindful walking, mindful eating, and even mindful housework can all achieve the same emotional regulation effect as sitting meditation. I have a friend who is an Internet product manager. He is so busy with requirements review that he cannot spare 20 minutes of meditation every day. His mindfulness practice is to stare at the gel pen in his hand for 30 seconds before each meeting, carefully feeling the frosted feel and weight of the pen body, and not predicting whether he will have an argument with the developers next. He said that the effect of these 30 seconds is much better than the previous 10 minutes of mindless meditation when he forced himself to sit for 10 minutes. According to the definition of clinical psychology, this is of course an effective mindfulness practice, but it does not use meditation as a carrier.

Many opinions on the Internet now equate mindfulness and meditation, but in fact, the essence is to confuse the path and the result. To use an inappropriate analogy, the relationship between the two is a bit like running and cardiopulmonary ability: if you want to improve your cardiopulmonary ability, you can choose running, swimming, or climbing stairs. Running is the most universal method with the lowest threshold, so the first thing most people think of when practicing cardiopulmonary training is running. But you can’t say that running equals cardiopulmonary ability, nor can you say that running is necessary to improve cardiopulmonary ability, right? Nowadays, most of the mindfulness training that the public is exposed to is achieved through meditation. Over time, the two have been equated. There has even been a fusion category of "mindfulness meditation". In fact, it is a meditation practice specifically aimed at training a state of mindfulness, which is different from the traditional meditation path that targets visualization and mantras.

To be honest, I have come across many new practitioners who are obsessed with the definition. They either think that if they do not sit down for 20 minutes to meditate, they are not practicing mindfulness, or they think that just being in a daze is mindfulness. Instead, they forget that the core purpose of these two things is to help people get out of the "autopilot" state-the kind of people who go to the sofa after get off work. I was paralyzed, scrolling through the short video in my hand, and my mind was still thinking about the day's work. Half an hour later, I didn't even know what I was watching. Whether you sit for 5 minutes and meditate to pull yourself out, or pick up a water glass and drink water and carefully feel the changes in the water temperature to pull yourself out. As long as it works for you, there is no need to worry about whether it is mindfulness or meditation.

Of course, if you are doing academic research or systematic practice, it is still necessary to clearly define the two. The former needs to unify variables for clinical research, while the latter must practice in order without skipping steps. However, for ordinary daily practitioners, instead of talking about terms and words, it is better to find a method that suits you and practice more. After all, it can make you less internally consumed and more aware of the present, which is more effective than any definition.