The meeting of meditation and mindfulness

“What’s the difference between meditation and mindfulness?”

I’m frequently asked this question — and I love it, in part, because it transports me back more than 40 years, to the beginnings of my own practice.

It was March, 1975, when I first sat in meditation.

I was enamoured with it. I felt calm, and for the first time in memory, I was unconcerned about perceived threats within the home.

This sense of peace was attainable when I was in meditation, almost without fail. But when I got up, the benefits faded.

It wasn’t long after a sit that I was tiptoeing around the house, once again in a state of hypervigilance — jumping at shadows, so to speak.

Where was that delicious moment-to-moment experience from my sitting practice? Where was my great sense of calm?

Scrambling back to sit, I’d find it once again.

Surely there had to be something longer lasting and more portable than simply sitting.

I was going to have to live my life, after all, and I deeply wanted some semblance of peace.

I soon found the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Zen monk, who taught the portability of this practice — something he called “mindfulness.” At this time, the word was foreign to most.

He wrote about different meditative entry points for a moment-to-moment appreciation for all things around us.

This included bringing new attention to walking, eating, drinking tea, communication, washing dishes, or myriad other tasks we might undertake.

I followed his prolific writing closely, and sought as many meditative entry points as possible.

It wasn’t long before I stitched together some small stretches of mindfulness, during which I was really showing up for my own life.

I continue to meditate, because of the depth of ease it brought me, but to also increase my meditative concentration. This greater focus allowed me to bring even more moments of my life into present awareness.

So what’s the difference between meditation and mindfulness?

I like to think of the difference as similar to that of parts of a tree. The meditative roots provide a strong foundation, along with a deep stabilization. Those meditative roots also nourish the rest of practice of mindfulness. 

So, there is a difference between meditation and mindfulness, but both are inextricably reliant.

For mindfulness to be in full bloom, it must have its roots in meditation.

When both are deeply practiced, the benefits are far reaching.

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