Concentration Meditation vs Mindfulness Meditation: All That You Need to Know

Are you confused about concentration meditation vs mindfulness meditation? Or, what’s mindfulness or concentration anyway? What’s the difference between the two?

You have landed in the right place!

The mind is comprised of all of your self-perception and much more.

Consciousness, awareness, concentration, perception, thoughts, ideas, feelings, emotions, memories — all these are either inside of your mind or stem out of it.

Take, for example, memories are stored inside of your mind, but consciousness is something that stems out of your mind or is being channeled through it.

Meditation is about understanding yourself and your existence as a whole, and a large part of your existence and yourself is your mind. That’s where comes all the questions regarding various kinds of meditations and their impact on the mind.

One such issue is the subject of concentration meditation vs mindfulness meditation.

Here in this article, we will be diving deep into these two types of meditations concerning two essential functions of the mind — concentration and mindfulness.

First of all, we need to get a clear grasp of these two functions of the mind.

Mindfulness vs Concentration

The difference between concentration vs mindfulness

Concentration is a function or ability of your mind that lets your focus on a particular thing among all other things. At any given moment, you can concentrate on only one thing in particular. Like right now, you are concentrating on reading this article.

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Mindfulness, on the other hand, is the function of our mind that allows you to know exactly which thing you have to concentrate on at any given moment. It can also allow you to know when not to concentrate at all.

Let’s look at concentration vs mindfulness through an example situation —

Suppose a woman is walking by the road, and she is mindful of her environment. As a result, her mindfulness will enable her to concentrate on exactly the right things depending on the demands of the situation in front of her.

If there is a car approaching from behind, her mindfulness will direct her concentration or attention towards the movement of the car and her own movement so that no untoward incidents occur.

On the other hand, if there are no immediately attention-seeking incidents happening on the road, her mindfulness may decide to guide her attention or concentration to the beautiful sky, the weather, and the soothing wind that’s blowing through the trees as she simply enjoys her evening stroll.

On the other hand, if your mindfulness function is not working properly or has been impaired by some recent incidents, then the situation while you are walking can turn out to be a totally different scenario.

Imagine now another woman walking by the same road.

Tomorrow she has a meeting with a high-profile client for work, and she has been a bit anxious about it for the last couple of days.

The thoughts and fears associated with that meeting keep intruding on her mind every now and then — how wonderful it would be to close the deal or how sad it would be if she did not get the contract. Many other such thoughts like how she would perform during the meeting, what she should be wearing, and so on and so forth.

And, naturally, a thought about a very sensitive and critical aspect related to the job and the meeting in particular suddenly intrudes her mind, and in a matter of a second, she loses her mindfulness.

That means the mindfulness function of her mind is no longer in control of her concentration faculty. The concentration has been hijacked by that intruding thought about the meeting and she is totally immersed in thinking out all the aspects related to that specific subject. That’s exactly when a car suddenly whizzed past her, leaving her scared shitless and finally brought back to reality.

That’s how mindfulness and concentration work in conjunction to make us function the way we function.

With this clear understanding of mindfulness vs concentration, now it would be much easier to understand the dynamics of mindfulness meditation vs concentration meditation.

Concentration Meditation vs Mindfulness Meditation

Mindfulness meditation is any meditative practice that aims at strengthening the mindfulness function of your mind.

Through mindfulness meditation practices, you learn to stay in full control of your mindfulness function of the mind so that no untoward intruding thoughts or emotions can hijack your mindfulness functionalities and put you into harm’s way like the walker in the above story.

When your mindfulness has been perfected through repeated practice of mindfulness meditation, you will be more like the first walker, who was totally in control and was fully aware of her existential situation of the moment. As a result, she was able to enjoy her walk as well as keep herself safe from the speedy vehicles.

Mindfulness meditation allows us to stay above our thoughts and emotions and stay calm and peaceful no matter whatever the life situation is.

An expert mindfulness meditation practitioner is always fully conscious of their external and internal environment and knows what’s best for any given situation.

No anxious thoughts or negative emotions can get the better out of their mental peace and holistic awareness.

Concentration meditation, on the other hand, is any meditation practice or technique that strengthens and utilizes the functionalities of your concentration faculty for certain goals.

Suppose you are stuck at a crossroads in life when you need to decide between two options. Now using concentration meditation, you can sit and deeply analyze the pros and cons of both ways to come up with a clear winner.

There are various kinds of concentration meditation that you can do for various purposes.

Such as creative visualization meditation that allows you to concentrate and visualize a life situation or experience so that you can attract or manifest those in your life.

One such meditation method is the Silva Method. Silva method also utilizes concentration for ESP and healing practices.

Some concentration meditation practices also deploy the sleep function in conjunction with concentration to solve problems. In that case, you simply hold your concentration on a problem and analyze it from every possible angle before you go to sleep, and while sleeping in a dream or after waking up, you see a solution pop up in your mind.

So, we can see that mindfulness meditation is a broader meditation that encompasses the whole of existence. It makes our regular day-to-day life more aware, peaceful, and serene.

On the other hand, concentration meditation is about using the power of your concentration to achieve specific goals and objectives.

Now, if you want to delve deep into the subjects of concentration and mindfulness even more and want to strengthen and sync both the functions of your mind to greater degrees of perfection, follow the books and courses listed below.

Void Meditation: What Is the Void State & How to Get There?

Reiki Meditation and Principles Explained with Examples

Sauna Meditation: A Great Way to Achieve Fast Relaxation as a Beginner