Quotessence
Home / Authors / Jon Kabat-Zinn
Jon Kabat-Zinn

Jon Kabat-Zinn Quotes

Professor

Filter quotes by topic

AllMindfulnessMeditationMomentsWayLifeIfsAwarenessMindAttentionPracticeFeelsMayMeanThinkingKnowsPeoplePay AttentionPresent MomentAcceptanceBody

Famous Jon Kabat-Zinn Quotes

“There is really no natural limit to the practice of loving kindness in meditation or in one’s life. It is an ongoing, ever-expanding realization of interconnectedness. It is also its embodiment. When you can love one tree or one flower or one dog or one place, or one person or yourself for one moment, you can find all people, all places, all suffering, all harmony in that one moment. Practicing in this way is not trying to change anything or get anywhere, although it might look like it on the surface. What it is really doing is uncovering what is always present. Love and kindness are here all the time, somewhere, in fact, everywhere. Usually our ability to touch them and be touched by them lies buried below our own fears and hurts, below our greed and our hatreds, below our desperate clinging to the illusion that we are truly separate and alone. (…). Make sure that you are not trying to help anybody else or the planet. Rather, you are simply holding them in awareness, honoring them, wishing them well, opening to their pain with kindness and compassion and acceptance.”

LoveLifeCompassionKindnessMeditationAwarenessAcceptanceMindfulnessIllusionHarmonyTouchedLovingUnlimitedPresenceExpandingRealisationInterconnectednessLoving KindnessUncoveringEverywhereWell WishingAll PeopleAll PlacesHonouringOpening To Pain
Book:Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
Create image

“You might be tempted to avoid the messiness of daily living for the tranquility of stillness and peacefulness. This of course would be an attachment to stillness, and like any strong attachment, it leads to delusion. It arrests development and short-circuits the cultivation of wisdom.”

LifeMightWould BeCoursesStrongDevelopmentMindfulnessDelusionAttachmentStillnessTranquilityTemptedCircuitsCultivationPeacefulnessDaily LivingMessinessShort Circuit
Book:Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
Create image

“Life on earth is a whole, yet it expresses itself in unique time-bound bodies, microscopic or visible, plant or animal, extinct or living. So there can be no one place to be. There can be no one way to be, no one way to practice, no one way to learn, no one way to love, no one way to grow or to heal, no one way to live, no one way to feel, no one thing to know or be known. The particulars count.”

KnowsWayLifeFeelsWholeBodyEarthGrowsAnimalKnownPracticeOne ThingUniquePlantBoundsHealOne WayVisibleWay To Live
Author:Jon Kabat-Zinn
Create image

“Mindfulness practice means that we commit fully in each moment to be present; inviting ourselves to interface with this moment in full awareness, with the intention to embody as best we can an orientation of calmness, mindfulness, and equanimity right here and right now.”

LifeMeanMomentsPracticeMeditationAwarenessRight NowMindfulnessIntentionCommitCalmnessOrientationInvitingEquanimityInterfacesMeditation Mindfulness
Book:Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
Create image

“To let go means to give up coercing, resisting, or struggling, in exchange for something more powerful and wholesome which comes out of allowing things to be as they are without getting caught up in your attraction to or rejection of them, in the intrinsic stickiness of wanting, of liking and disliking.”

LifeGivingBelieveMeanPowerfulStruggleLetting GoGiving UpCaughtAttractionRejectionAllowingCaught UpResisting
Book:Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
Create image

“Perhaps we just need little reminders from time to time that we are already dignified, deserving, worthy. Sometimes we don't feel that way because of the wounds and the scars we carry from the past or because of the uncertainty of the future. It is doubtful that we came to feel undeserving on our own. We were helped to feel unworthy. We were taught it in a thousand ways when we were little, and we learned our lessons well.”

WayLifeNeedsFeelsWellsLittlesSometimesPastTaughtLessonsThousandWorthyWoundsUncertaintyInsecurityScarRemindersUnworthyDeservingDoubtfulUndeserving
Author:Jon Kabat-Zinn
Create image

“We must be willing to encounter darkness and despair when they come up and face them, over and over again if need be, without running away or numbing ourselves in the thousands of ways we conjure up to avoid the unavoidable.”

IfsWayLifeNeedsRunningFacesDarknessWillingDespairCome UpEncountersRunning AwayNumbing
Book:Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
Create image

“Practice sharing the fullness of your being, your best self, your enthusiasm, your vitality, your spirit, your trust, your openness, above all, your presence. Share it with yourself, with your family, with the world.”

WorldLifeSelfSpiritPracticeShareEnthusiasmOur FamilyOpennessVitalityFullnessBest SelfYour Presence
Book:Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
Create image