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
wind people mind
Most people don't realize that the mind constantly chatters. And yet, that chatter winds up being the force that drives us much of the day in terms of what we do, what we react to, and how we feel.
jobs wind imagination
"What is my job on the planet?" is one question we might do well to ask ourselves over and over again. Otherwise, we may wind up doing somebody else's job and not even know it. And what's more, that somebody else might be a figment of our own imagination, and maybe a prisoner of it as well.
thinking wind mind
Wherever you go, there you are. Whatever you wind up doing, that's what you've wound up doing. Whatever you are thinking right now, that's what's on your mind. Whatever has happened to you, it has already happened. The important question is, "how are you going to handle it?" .... Like it or not, this moment is all we really have to work with.
bringing buddhism buddhist clinic gates mainstream reduction tantamount tear western
I started the Stress Reduction Clinic in 1979. The idea of bringing Buddhist meditation without the Buddhism into the mainstream of medicine was tantamount to the Visigoths being at the gates about to tear down the citadel of Western civilization.
aspects except formal interface life matter meditation practice time
There are many different aspects to a formal meditation practice. But the real meditation practice is how you interface with life from moment-to-moment, no matter what's happening. Especially when you are awake, which is pretty much most of the time except for deep sleep.
accept clinic foundation intensive mainstream medical meditation training tried whether whose
Meditation had never been tried before in a medical center, so we had no idea whether mainstream Americans would accept a clinic whose foundation was intensive training in meditative discipline.
people
I don't want people following Jon Kabat-Zinn. I want them following themselves.
became buddhist discovered grew knowing loved martial practices reduction science unique ways
I loved science, and when I discovered Buddhist meditative practices and martial arts, I was able to bridge those ways of knowing the world into my own unique way. From that grew the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program, which became my karmic assignment.
capacity cultivate everybody
I'm challenging everybody on every side of every divide to be more who they are, to cultivate their capacity for awareness.
It is what makes us human, what distinguishes us from other animals. We can be aware of being aware.
buddhist matter particular paying spoken technique tradition
Mindfulness is often spoken of as the heart of Buddhist meditation. It's not about Buddhism, but about paying attention. That's what all meditation is, no matter what tradition or particular technique is used.
art cosmic dragged gave met modern museum religious science
Science gave me a cosmic religious feeling, and I would get the same feeling when I was dragged to the Met and the Museum of Modern Art.
apparatus complex entire exactly exquisite known matter might sitting
You don't need the iPhone: you have the most exquisite apparatus in the known universe sitting right in your head - the most complex organization of matter in the entire universe. And here are we, feeling a little depressed, feeling like we're not getting where we need to be, when really you might be exactly where you need to be.
call change developed happens meditation name placebo technology thousands traditions
I'll take transformational change any way it comes. One way to look at meditation is as a kind of intrapsychic technology that's been developed over thousands of years by traditions that know a lot about the mind/body connection. To call what happens 'the placebo effect' is just to give a name to something we don't understand.