There isn't really one "correct" way to meditate. There are a number of ways. You can observe thoughts, sounds, bodily awareness, specific bodily sensations, fe

There isn't really one "correct" way to meditate. There are a number of ways. You can observe thoughts, sounds, bodily awareness, specific bodily sensations, feelings, the breath, look at some specific object or a combination of all these. Meditation can be an active activity (you're trying to cultivate certain intentions) or it can be passive (you just let things happen). You can choose to be more narrowly focused on your meditation object or less and just let whatever comes, comes. In my view, as long as you're focused on something without judgement then you're meditating. Mindfulness meditation would be a subset of this where you're observing your own experience without judgment. I really doubt that this alone would lead to knowing what is good for you and what isn't, without an underlying philosophy (which Buddhism provides, but the westernized secular version of mindfulness meditation does not). Edit: I guess I should also add that Buddhist philosophy is influenced by insights that could be gained from meditation but my feeling is that the average person doing mindfulness meditation for 10 minutes a day is not having these insights. So my main argument here is that you can be meditating correctly and not having these insights.