Meditation basics
Mindfulness vs. Meditation: What’s the Difference?
Understand how mindfulness and meditation overlap, where they differ, and how to practise each in ordinary daily life.
The terms overlap, but separating them can make practice easier to understand. You can meditate without using a mindfulness technique, and you can practise mindfulness without sitting for a formal session.
What mindfulness means
Mindfulness involves noticing current experience with less automatic judgment: sensations, thoughts, emotions, sounds, or actions. It can be formal or woven into eating, walking, and conversation.
What meditation means
Meditation is a planned practice that trains attention or awareness. Examples include focused attention, mantra, loving-kindness, visualization, body scan, and mindfulness meditation.
How mindfulness and meditation work together
A ten-minute mindfulness meditation is formal practice. Noticing the sensation of washing your hands later is informal mindfulness. The formal session can make the same quality easier to remember during the day.
Which should you practise?
Choose meditation when dedicated structure helps. Choose informal mindfulness when you need a brief connection to an ordinary activity. Many people use both.
Common questions
Is breathing meditation mindfulness?
It can be when you observe present-moment breathing and return without judgment.
Is mindfulness religious?
Mindfulness appears in contemplative traditions and in secular settings. Respect the context of the specific teaching you follow.