yoga meditation and inner life
What is the difference between concentration (dharana) and mindfulness in Hindu yoga?
What dharana means
In the yoga tradition, dharana means holding the mind on a single object without letting it wander. That object might be a flame, a mantra, a part of the body, or a concept. The mind is gathered and pointed, like a beam of light narrowed to one spot. This is described in the Yoga Sutras as a step in a longer path. Dharana comes after the body and breath have been steadied. When concentration holds without breaking, it deepens into dhyana, a flowing, unbroken attention. When even the sense of effort drops away, that becomes samadhi, full absorption. So dharana is a doorway, not the destination.
Where mindfulness fits in
The word mindfulness comes mostly from Buddhist practice, where it refers to sati, a clear, open noticing of whatever arises in the body, breath, thoughts, or feelings, without pushing any of it away or chasing after it. The attention is wide rather than narrow. Within Patanjali's system, something like this open quality does appear, but it tends to come later, once the mind has been trained through concentration. The two are not opposites. They work at different stages and in different ways.
How the two traditions differ
Hindu yoga and Buddhist meditation grew up alongside each other in India and share some common ground. Both value a calm, trained mind. But their goals are framed differently. In Patanjali's yoga, the aim is to still the movements of the mind so the true self, called purusha, can be seen clearly. In Buddhist mindfulness, the aim is more often to see clearly that no fixed self is there. These are different destinations, even when some of the practices look similar from the outside.
Today
Mindfulness as it is taught in clinics and apps today is a simplified version drawn mainly from Buddhist sources, though it has been stripped of most religious framing. Many people use the words meditation, mindfulness, and concentration as if they mean the same thing. In the yoga tradition, they are distinct steps. Dharana is the focused, deliberate fixing of the mind. Mindfulness in its original sense is something broader. Whether and how people mix these ideas varies widely across teachers and traditions.