The difference between mindfulness and flow

[Metaphysical Me]

Thanks Cheesus, "the soles of your feet" is a great suggestion too.

Not sure which animal I would be, but I think I'd have to pick a wild one - I'm waaay too bad at doing what I'm told to have much fun as a domesticated one.

[BioSattva]

Sorry I missed this thread when it happened, but I am very interested in flow states and their relationship to mindfulness and peaceful satisfaction.

Let's get some academic rigour in here via Ronald D. Siegel, Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychology at Harvard Medical School, and his book The Mindfulness Solution (2010), p321-322:

Flow

Researchers have also identified another important path to happiness that is not subject to the hedonic treadmill. Not surprisingly, this one too involves relaxing the focus on “me” and appreciating what is. We all have moments in which we are fully involved in what we’re doing. Athletes describe this as being in the zone; artists describe it as finding their muse or creative energy. The Hungarian psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi coined the term flow to describe these moments of full involvement. At these times self-consciousness drops away and we’re free from our judging mind — we are fully engaged. We are alert, awake, and attentive. You can identify flow experiences with a simple checklist:

FLOW CHECKLIST
• You lose awareness of time.
• You aren’t thinking about yourself.
• You aren’t distracted by extraneous thoughts.
• You’re focused on the process rather than only on the end goal.
• You’re active.
• Your activity feels effortless even if it’s challenging.
• You would like to repeat the experience.

These moments of flow involve being mindful while accomplishing something. We tend to experience flow when our talents are optimally engaged. Whatever they might be — athletic, interpersonal, artistic, or intellectual — when our abilities are challenged fully but not overwhelmed, we experience flow. It is not surprising that mindfulness practice increases our ability to have flow experiences. By practicing being aware of present experience with acceptance, we engage more fully in everything we do. Research suggests that these moments of flow are themselves fully satisfying. They don’t lead us to want more and more or bigger and better experiences. While engaged in flow, we aren’t thinking how much nicer it is elsewhere. Like other moments of mindfulness, moments of flow involve reduced self-preoccupation — they connect us to the world outside ourselves.

So from Siegel's perspective, which I think we can trust considering his academic and professional mindfulness-related credentials, the difference between mindfulness and flow is that with flow one is involved in doing something. However, a flow state necessarily requires mindfulness.

Here is Jon Kabat-Zinn, via a Los Angeles Times article:

"Most athletes have no control over the zone," said Jon Kabat-Zinn, an associate professor of medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester. "If you want to put yourself in the zone with any regularity, the best way to do it is to train yourself mentally using meditation.

"The feelings that you have when you're in the zone are the same ones that occur naturally in meditation," according to Kabat-Zinn, who teaches meditation techniques at the University of Massachusetts Stress Reduction and Relaxation Center. He also taught meditation to the members of the 1984 U.S. Olympic rowing team. "When you meditate, it's not that you're trying to cultivate these feelings, it's just that you can't help but develop them."

And on the soles of your feet thing - I have actually heard a traditional chinese meditation teacher explicitly teaching such a practice. Also, in the meditative internal martial art I study, awareness of the shifting degree of contact with the feet and the ground is the key to whole-body movement - lots of time is spent mindfully stepping - feeling where pressure is located in the sole, and flowing from one position to the next.

[francogrex]

From what people here are posting (things like "just shut your eyes and listen to sounds") they are describing states of flow.
As I posted above, states of flow are part of mindfulness but they do not equal mindfulness!

Flow is not mindfulness in any way, if anything it is the opposite. Flow is really nothing but being mindlessly absorbed in a rewarding task.