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Jon Kabat-Zinn

Jon Kabat-Zinn Quotes

Professor

Jon Kabat-Zinn is an American professor known for his contributions to mindfulness meditation and Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR). Born on June 5, 1944, he is a professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the founder and director of the Center for Mindfulness.

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All Mindfulness Meditation Moments Way Life Ifs Awareness Mind Attention Practice

Famous Jon Kabat-Zinn Quotes

“Mindfulness is so powerful that the fact that it comes out of Buddhism is irrelevant.”

Facts Powerful Buddhism Mindfulness Irrelevant

Author:Jon Kabat-Zinn

“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.”

People Ifs Thinking Feels Should Special Particular

Author:Jon Kabat-Zinn

“Paying attention and awareness are universal capacities of human beings.”

Humans Human Beings Attention Awareness Capacity Universal Pay Attention

Author:Jon Kabat-Zinn

“Writing can be an incredible mindfulness practice.”

Writing Practice Mindfulness Incredibles

Author:Jon Kabat-Zinn

“I was very much a tough New York street kid. I went to a school where you had to learn how to get along with everybody or fight with everybody, and I did my fair share of both.”

Kids School Fighting Share Streets New York Tough Fairs Fair Share

Author:Jon Kabat-Zinn

“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.”

People Feels Mind Force Term Realizing Wind Chatter

Author:Jon Kabat-Zinn

“My father was a world-class scientist and my mother was a prolific painter. I could see that my parents had completely different ways of knowing and understanding the world, and relating to it. My father approached things through scientific inquiry and exploration, while my mother experienced things through her emotions and senses.”

“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.”

Knows Way Years Mind Looks Kind Body Technology Meditation Tradition Connections One Way Look At Me Mind Body Mind Body Connection

Author:Jon Kabat-Zinn

“Sometimes shutting off the sound on the television can allow you to actually watch the game and take it in in an entirely different and more direct way - a first-order, first-person experience - rather than filtered through the mind of another.”

Way Mind Firsts Persons Different Sometimes Order Games Sound Watches Television Direct First Person

Book:Mindfulness for Beginners: Reclaiming the Present Moment—and Your Life

Source: Mindfulness for Beginners: Reclaiming the Present Moment—and Your Life

“The mind that has not been developed or trained is very scattered. That's the normal state of affairs, but it leaves us out of touch with a great deal in life, including our bodies.”

Mind States Body Deals Normal Including Affair

Author:Jon Kabat-Zinn

“To drop into being means to recognize your interconnectedness with all life, and with being itself. Your very nature is being part of larger and larger spheres of wholeness.”

Mean Spheres Wholeness Being Me Interconnectedness Being Mean

Author:Jon Kabat-Zinn

“Too much of the education system orients students toward becoming better thinkers, but there is almost no focus on our capacity to pay attention and cultivate awareness.”

Pay Attention Too Much Focus Awareness Students Becoming Capacity Pay Attention Thinker Education System Becoming Better

Author:Jon Kabat-Zinn

“In its outward manifestation, meditation appears to involve either stopping, by parking the body in a stillness that suspends activity, or giving oneself over to flowing movement. In either case, it is an embodiment of wise attention, an inward gesture undertaken for the most part in silence, a shift from doing to simply being. It is an act that may at first seem artificial but that we soon discover, if we keep at it, is ultimately one of pure love for the life unfolding within us and around us.”

Source: Coming to Our Senses: Healing Ourselves and the World Through Mindfulness

“You are whole and also part of larger and larger circles of wholeness you many not even know about. You are never alone. And you already belong. You belong to humanity. You belong to life. You belong to this moment, this breath.”

Knows Whole Moments Humanity Mindfulness Breaths Circles Wholeness

Book:Mindfulness for Beginners: Reclaiming the Present Moment—and Your Life

Source: Mindfulness for Beginners: Reclaiming the Present Moment—and Your Life

“Buckminster Fuller himself was fond of stating that what seems to be happening at the moment is never the full story of what is really going on. He liked to point out that for the honey bee, it is the honey that is important. But the bee is at the same time nature's vehicle for carrying out cross-pollination of the flowers. Interconnectedness is a fundamental principle of nature. Nothing is isolated. Each event connects with others.”

“Look at other people and ask yourself if you are really seeing them or just your thoughts about them.... Without knowing it, we are coloring everything, putting our spin on it all.”

People Ifs Life Looks Asks Knowing Seeing

Book:Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life

Source: Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life