What is the relationship between mindfulness and meditation

For most ordinary practitioners and the contemporary psychological context, mindfulness is one of the most popular meditation branch techniques at the moment. The two belong to the relationship of inclusion and being included, but in different practice contexts, the boundaries between the two have always been blurred and controversial.

Many people first come into contact with meditation and do a 10-minute breathing awareness exercise along with the audio: sit in a corner of an unoccupied workstation, straighten your back, close your eyes and focus on the breath touch at the tip of your nose. When your mind wanders, gently bring your attention back without blaming yourself for thinking wildly. This most common introductory meditation is actually a typical mindfulness meditation. The current mainstream psychological intervention programs, such as Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), are all designed with mindfulness practice as the core module of meditation intervention. Many of my friends who have started meditating to relieve anxiety, their practice content in the first one or two months was almost all seated mindfulness, and even they themselves would talk about "meditating" and "practicing mindfulness" interchangeably.

However, in the context of traditional practice, many senior practitioners do not agree with the definition of "mindfulness belongs to meditation". In their understanding, mindfulness is a mental method of "living in the present moment without judgment". It is a state that runs through all life scenes. There is no need to rely on the form of meditation of "finding a place to sit, close your eyes, and set aside time to practice". When you eat, you chew slowly, and you are aware of the softness, hardness, sourness, and sweetness of each bite of food. When you walk, you pay attention to the feeling of force between the soles of your feet and the ground. You can even suddenly jump out and notice "Oh, I am angry now" when you are arguing with someone. These are all applications of mindfulness, but they are not meditation exercises in the conventional sense.

There is actually nothing right or wrong with this cognitive difference, it is just a matter of different definitional scales in different contexts. To use an inappropriate analogy, meditation is like the entire category of "beverage making", whether it is making tea, coffee, or milk tea, and mindfulness is like the most popular "cold brew" process. It is indeed a common technique in beverage making, but if you usually just take cold water to make a tea bag and use the idea of ​​​​cold brewing, there is no need to say that you are making serious drinks, right? For ordinary practitioners, there is actually no need to worry about defining boundaries. As long as it can help you get back to the present moment from chaotic thoughts, whether it is sitting for 10 minutes of mindfulness meditation or deliberately noticing your steps while walking, it is a useful practice.