A conversation I have a lot with people is about the difference between mindfulness and meditation.
And I find this to be actually a very,
Very important topic because the two get conflated a lot.
And the issue with conflation is that they point to two things of which neither generally will be the place.
So,
Why I find this really important is we're going to have a conversation about something.
If we're going to even try to get to someplace,
We might say that meditation is a getting towards.
Although later we'll realize how there's actually nowhere to get towards.
It's always here,
But in the beginning it's helpful to have that idea or it can be helpful.
And so,
If we're going to try to get to a location,
Understanding what location we're talking about would be helpful.
And what I mean by that is,
Let's say I want to go to Chicago,
But I'm actually going to Dallas.
I can believe that I'm going to Chicago and that's what I keep saying,
This is the way to Chicago,
But it actually will get me to Dallas.
And I can even be in Dallas and say,
No,
No,
I'm in Chicago because the power of belief is really amazing.
And if we've been taught various things,
We think they're the case.
But the actuality is we're in Dallas,
Not Chicago.
And so,
It's really,
I find very important to start to pick apart the differences between mindfulness and meditation.
And I'll do my best to kind of point to that in the most simplistic way possible to help with that.
Although in the end,
There won't be a pointing to,
There will just be an experience.
But even that I'll have to point towards.
So,
One thing I like to tell people when I'm working with them is that mindfulness can be seen as the doorway into the house that is meditation.
But you can have a house in some regard without a door.
You can enter a house without a door.
So,
The door brings us into the house.
However,
You could take the door off the house and still just have a door.
Although,
I think from another point,
We say that's just a piece of wood,
It's not a door because a door needs that implication into it,
Going into something,
Whether it's a room or wherever it's leading in between.
And that'll be a separate sort of thing.
That's the problem.
Metaphors is they point to,
But they're not the exact.
So,
They're leading close to.
So,
Keeping with that,
That mindfulness is the doorway in,
We could say that mindfulness is the way to help us reach meditation.
But that mindfulness then is not meditation.
It's on the path to meditation.
It's a meditative process,
But it's not meditation.
And what ends up happening is we see now all over the place where people talk about meditation,
Meditation,
Meditation.
I'm reading a book and they mention micro-meditations.
And I thought,
No,
That's not it.
You couldn't actually have a micro-meditation because meditation has no time.
Meditation simply is.
Time is a construct from humans.
Meditation is pre that.
Mindfulness can have time.
You can have a micro-mindful activity,
But that's not a micro-meditation.
And some people say,
Why does it matter?
And I say,
It really matters because,
Again,
What are we pointing towards?
What are we trying to get towards?
Understanding what mindfulness is and why it separates from meditation can be helpful.
One of the easiest ways I think I can say it is that,
So mindfulness would be a thought-based,
Generally a thought-based aspect or a logical cognitive way.
So it might be something as if we're going to focus on something,
Focus on breathing,
Focus on walking,
Focus on a mantra,
Focus on a sound,
Focus on a candle or a site.
We're focusing towards something.
We're putting all of our mental faculties or our conscious mental faculties to a single point.
The theory is that the point is then to go beyond the point into a non-cognitive state,
A pure present state.
But that'll be a little later.
Just for now,
We're just saying that the mindfulness is a technique that we're using to reach a place beyond the technique,
A place beyond.
And that the meditation would be the place beyond.
Where it gets difficult is that if we're going beyond a cognitive state,
There would be no way to actually explain it because the explanation requires cognition.
And what we're talking about is pre- or post-cognition.
So we would fall into some areas.
That's why pointers come very helpful.
They can point towards the thing,
Which isn't exactly it,
But it helps us start to understand it more.
Loosely,
We could say that any sort of conscious aware place would be mindfulness.
And this pre-conscious,
Sometimes called big C conscious,
Would be the meditation.
So when we're in a place of trying to be there or even thinking about being there,
That would be.
.
.
To some extent,
Even recognizing what's happening in the moment,
That generally will be a mindfulness.
But when we just simply are,
When there is no thoughts to be had,
It's just simply life happening,
That would be meditation.
And there's other terms as well.
You might even say that's a more somatic or more embodied place of being.
I think that they're all kind of pointing to the same aspect.
And so,
Starting to understand what is the difference is helpful,
Because if you want to get to the path,
You have to actually understand what is the path.
And so,
This is just a quick,
Although not that quick,
Way of trying to help people understand the difference between mindfulness and meditation,
So that they can start to reach meditation or be in meditation easier.
And I'll start to do other videos,
Hopefully as well,
That will help in that.
So I hope this has helped in some way.
I hope we've learned something new,
But also we've unlearned some stuff we took to be that may not have been.
As always,
Just let me know how this sits with you,
How it resonates.
And question,
Like don't accept anything I say as the case,
Because I don't actually know that it is.
It's just what seems as best to be the case at this point in time,
With what I've learned,
What I've experienced.
In the meantime,
Just be awesome,
Be well,
And I'll see you next time.
Peace.
