Mindfulness vs. Meditation: What’s the Difference?

A few years back I was invited to speak on a panel about mindfulness. Joining me was a Vedic practitioner, a well-established yoga teacher, and a shamanic meditation guide.

Question #1: “What does mindfulness mean to you?” As the microphone went around, each individual very humbly explained their personal practice and how it’s not primarily mindfulness. Then they offered approximately the same traditional definition of that word, noting that mindfulness stems from the Buddhist tradition. When it was my turn, I did feel compelled to be a stick in the mud and point out that mindfulness and meditation, while intimately related, are not the same and both do, in fact, have common definitions.

What is Mindfulness?

The Tibetan Buddhist teacher Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche had an amazing ability to work with the English language, and would often come up with new words to articulate the meaning of another, more established term. For example, he coined the word “nowness” — as in the essence of being now, in the present. That is one clear way to think of the term “mindfulness.” The “ness” aspect is “the essence of,” so we are saying that mindfulness is the essence of bringing your mind fully to one thing that is happening in the present moment. Some teachers would add that when we are present with what is occurring it…