A side effect of the joy generation meditation is that by piggy-backing it onto the mindfulness practice, I become more conscious of how the mindfulness practice is going, i.e., how often I bring my mind to awareness, or how far away I let my mind stray to distraction.

The danger of mindfulness practice is in its becoming too general. Once the idea of "mindfulness" becomes this general "thing", it's easy for it to get neglected. It's good to have specific meditations to shock the general background to life.

So if general "mindfulness" is getting shunted to the background because I start assuming it's always there, and it is always there, but it's not good to assume it's always there, that's kinda what "mindfulness" is about, then a specific thing like the joy generation meditation gives it a little extra oomph.