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“The real mediation is how you live your life.” —Jon Kabat-Zinn

For over two decades, meditation has been one of my primary personal practices for maintaining equanimity and enhancing creativity and happiness in the face of immense challenges. 

I remember reading the cover story of LA Yoga magazine several years ago about how, because of its growing popularity, meditation was becoming the “New Yoga.” Since that time, a great deal of scientific research validating the benefits of meditation has emerged, bringing it into the mainstream in the West in ways we have never seen before. 

Two key factors in this escalating interest in meditation are: 

1. the increased need and demand by the individuals for new and healthier ways to cope with increasing levels of sensory overwhelm and disruptive stress
2. advancements in neuroscience and technology that have allowed the scientific community to measure and prove the positive effects of meditation on the function of the human brain

Technology has run with the ball, creating apps like Headspace and Calm, boasting nearly $150 million in gross revenues between them last year alone. 

At the same time, there has been an explosion in the field of mindfulness—making its way into the halls of Silicon Valley giants like Google and Facebook as standard employee development programs and management trainings. Mindfulness found itself center stage at major conferences and inside educational institutions where meditation was still considered to be too esoteric to keep all the stakeholders happy.

So what is the difference between meditation and mindfulness, and how are they related? Can someone be mindful without meditation?

What is Mindfulness?

Mindfulness is a popular contemporary term that evolved out of the intersection of contemporary psychology and contemporary spiritual practices, like Buddhism. There are numerous definitions of mindfulness, and they differ quite a bit depending what source you look at.  

For the purpose of this article, we will differentiate in the following way:

Mindfulness is a state of presence and awareness through which we are able, moment to moment, to observe our thoughts and emotions, without judgment or attachment. Mindfulness is being fully present with whatever is occurring to us or within us at any given moment.

“The present moment is filled with joy and happiness. 

If you are attentive, you will see it.” – Thich Nhat Hanh

 

How is Meditation different from Mindfulness?

While mindfulness is an ongoing state of awareness we strive to achieve as we raise our consciousness, meditation is a practice that helps us to achieve and maintain that state. 

To add to our confusion, there are multiple kinds of meditation, such as mindful meditation, in which we simply observe our breath and our passing thoughts, letting them move through us, without action, judgment or reaction, until they dissipate and begin to reside. There are different forms of moving mediation, like Tai Chi and some forms of yoga or dance. These forms of moving meditation could also be called mindful movement practices – sequences or gestures in which we consciously connect our intention, breath and the movement of our body. (A combination I often refer to with the east-to-remember acronym IBM).

As Eckhart Tolle sums up in the Power of Now, and spiritual traditions have taught us for thousands of years, we can only live in the present moment, and we can only truly experience our wholeness by being fully present in each moment.

“Within you there is a stillness and sanctuary

to which can retreat at any time and be yourself” – Herman Hesse

 

The more we practice this – through a dedicated meditation practice that helps us to strengthen that ability, through mindful movement practices, and by being ever-mindful as we move through our day, the more we will fully experience an almost meditative state of awareness and presence. It is in this state of presence that we are able to transport the benefits and experiences from our meditation practice out into the real world, bringing greater ease, contentment and wellbeing in our lives.

Like any skill we aspire to master, maintaining both a meditation practice and an ongoing state of mindfulness takes willpower and consistent practice, especially in the midst of intense stress, chaos and overwhelm.

“Mindfulness isn’t difficult. We just need to remember to do it.”- Sharon Salzberg

Getting Started with Mindfulness and Meditation

So where can we start? How about with one simple, fully present, mindful breath? Even the busiest among us can manage that. You have to breathe anyways, why not bring your awareness to your breath—make it a mindful breath. Try it now. 

Close your eyes, or steady your gaze on a point. Breathing in and out your nose, take one slow deep breath into your belly. Let it rise up and fill your diaphragm. Pause. Then exhale as slowly as you can, letting your entire body relax. 

Karen May, Google’s vice president of people development, uses the concept of the Mindful Breath, to bring herself to full presence and attention before starting a meeting. This quick mind/body reset can help us become more centered, reconnect us to our intuition and capacity for greater presence, intelligence and creativity. 

This ability to regain composure and think calmly is key to becoming a great leader. Being ever-mindful of our breath and to that short one-breath gap—between the stimuli and our response—is also the key to self-mastery and personal freedom.

I highly recommend making an effort to master both meditation and mindfulness. 

For now, you can think of meditation as the training you do to stay mindful, and mindfulness as the game you play on the court of life. Or, to put it another way, mediation is an essential and life-changing practice, and mindfulness is a way to experience a more fully present and meaningful life—moment to moment. 

Ultimately, my goal is to help you live in an optimal state of consciousness where the two are intertwined seamlessly into your life and allow you to be the most radiant expression of yourself in each moment of your precious fleeting life.

Want to Learn More?

Over the next few weeks, I will be presenting a series of articles and free sessions to provide you with scientifically-proven ways to optimize and amplify your energy so you can have all the internal resource you need to navigate the unpredictability and turbulence of the external world with greater CALM, Confidence, and JOY. Sign up today for our FREE one-hour masterclass: AMPLIFIED.

To learn more about upcoming programs, books, music, and film releases,  Sign up here.

Looking to book me as a speaker? Learn more here.

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About the Author 

Frank Fitzpatrick is a Creative Visioneer, Engagement Expert and High-Performance Coach on the Faculty of Singularity University’s Exponential Medicine.

To connect, go to FrankFitzpatrick.com

To learn more about working 1-on1 with Frank, go to BeyondPerformance.Life

 

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