Meditation, Mindfulness and Mindfulness Meditation

[Tine 695]

I find these 3 words thrown around almost synonymously quite often. I think it hurts the cause, and it might create false expectations and also confusing claims of the benefits.

In their book "Altered Traits: Science Reveals How Meditation Changes Your Mind, Brain, and Body" Daniel Goleman (PhD graduate in psychology from Harvard University) and Richard Davidson (professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin–Madison) provide a meta-analysis of the research done on Meditation up until now. One of the main problems they identify is that in the studies, every kind of Meditation gets thrown together. While different types of Meditation have different effects and influence different traits and areas of the brain. So being clear about which kind of Meditation does what with which goal helps archiving those goals.

While Meditation refers to a wide range of different mental exercises like Bodyscan, Mantra Meditation, Vipassana Meditation, Loving Kindness, Visualization, ...

Mindfulness, according to Wikipedia, is "the psychological process of bringing one's attention to experiences occurring in the present moment, which one can develop through the practice of meditation and through other training."

So Meditation is only one path of many towards Mindfulness, and the types of Meditation used to develop mindfulness are called Mindfulness Meditation.

On the other hand, Mindfulness Meditation refers only to a specific subset of meditation techniques. The body scan is one of the methods used to develop mindfulness.

 

Did this help clarify?

What is your take on the difference?

[AnandKoodali 57]

All the sufferings are created through Body or Mind . Meditation is a technique to create a space between you and the body, you and the mind so that you become fearless. Everything runs in Harmony and no suffering can enter in to your body or mind.

[Vitkov 0]

In Givin School we are learning to meditate indoor and outdoor, in activity and in calm. So in each time you have instruments to get out from the frames of your mind and to enter to the present moment. If you want to know more about conscious life beyond the mind borders visit https://en.givinschool.org . Happiness are hidden in your heart. When you open up your heart and remove suspicious evaluative mind control you will find joy and happiness. Retrit in Givin School is complex of meditative practices and is very good in open up ones heart https://retrit.org/en. It does not matter how you will force your heart to live, to feel, to breath but you need to do that to be able to move to the happiness life. Good Luck!

[Alberto 12]

For me staring at new smyrna beach webcam live is already a good meditation. I guess, it works when you can free your mind. That's the only way to relax properly.

[vind111 26]

Mindfulness is truly a technique. A technique to find something so much closer to you than your own breath. 

It is a technique that can be used to find true stillness of mind, which is ever present within us. We must find a teacher who can guide us to this state as an experience, not as a mere understanding.

Then one will know it by experience the calmness I am talking about. One will know true happiness and may even know what is beyond the body mind.

There are such teachers, extremely rare I would say but there is. And at "Nisala International Meditation Centre" I have found such a capable unique teacher. 

Following is the description given on its website home page: (www.nisala.org) Hope this will be useful.

 

"At the Nisala Meditation Center you will be guided to the natural awareness and stillness of the mind directly by the meditation teacher, after an initial preparation through meditation.

The mind is intrinsically still and aware. This state, or a state that is a prelude to this and yet is very still, can be instantly recognised when the right guidance is available. A mind that recognises such a state will attain to peace in a rapid manner compared to practicing meditation alone, with or without guidance.

When you attain to a sufficient level of stillness awareness in the mind, it will start letting go of various negative states such as fears, harmful desires, sadness, negative habits, anger issues, and such like. This is essentially a deep cathartic process that will bring about an immense release. Such experience will create the platform for further deepening of stillness awareness.

In this way the mind will eventually attain to its natural stillness and liberation from sorrow."