i guess an analogy that could be appropriate here is to imagine there is a study that compares two interventions for treating cancer: chemotherapy as one intervention, and chemotherapy plus playing video games for several hours as another intervention. Let's say that both interventions provide the same benefit in terms of killing the tumor, helping patients live longer. Does this suggest that playing video games for several hours is an effective treatment for cancer?

The control in that study was specifically designed to "unpack" mbct into its components, and then test mindfulness + other components vs just the other components. When they did that, both arms looked equal

I meditate regularly and don't doubt it helps me, and I think if people actually committed to studying mindfulness rigorously they'd find great things, but it's a shame that most mindfulness research isn't that robust or rigorous