Jon Kabat-Zinn
Jon Kabat-Zinn
Jon Kabat-Zinnis Professor of Medicine Emeritus and creator of the Stress Reduction Clinic and the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Kabat-Zinn was a student of Buddhist teachers such as Thich Nhat Hanh and Zen Master Seung Sahn and a founding member of Cambridge Zen Center. His practice of yoga and studies with Buddhist teachers led him to integrate their teachings with those of science. He teaches mindfulness, which he...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionEducator
Date of Birth5 June 1944
CountryUnited States of America
In any given moment we are either practicing mindfulness, or defacto, we are practicing mindlessness.
There are certain ways in which I cultivate awareness, both through mindful yoga and taking care of my body and taking time to actually drop as deeply as possible into stillness, into whatever is unfolding in the present moment.
Living in a chronic state of unawareness can cause us to miss much of what is most beautiful and meaningful in our lives.
The importance of the development of the emotional body is hardly recognized today. We are pretty much left to our own devices to come to full adulthood, whether man or woman. Our elders may have become so denatured themselves from a lack of such nurturance that there is no longer a collective knowledge of how to guide the awakening emotional vitality and authenticity of our young people, our children. Mindfulness may contribute to a reawakening of this ancient wisdom in ourselves and in others.
Peace is something that we can bring about if we can actually learn to wake up a bit more as individuals and a lot more as a species; if we can learn to be fully what we actually already are; to reside in the inherent potential of what is possible for us, being human.
A lot of harm has come in all eras from people attached to one view of 'spiritual' truth.
Meditation is really a non-doing. It is the only human endeavor I know of being where you already are.
Even though in principle we may "know better", we routinely succumb all the same to the incessant, often frantic and unexamined busyness of thinking we have to get somewhere else first before we can rest; thinking we need to get certain things done to feel we have accomplished something before we can be happy.
In letting go of wanting something special to occur, maybe we can realize that something special is already occurring.
We are continuously bombarded with information, appeals, deadlines, communications... We are continually being squeezed or projected into the future as our present moments are assaulted and consumed in the fires of endless urgency.
Mindfulness is a way of paying attention, on purpose and non-judgmentally, to what goes on in the present moment in your body, mind and the world around you.
You could think of mindfulness as wise and affectionate attention.
Awareness Is Not The Same As ThoughtMore Like A Vessel Which Can Hold And Contain Our Thinking
Most people think that to meditate, I should feel a particular special something, and if I don't, then I must be doing something wrong.