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Jon Kabat-Zinn

Jon Kabat-Zinn Quotes

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Famous Jon Kabat-Zinn Quotes

“YOU HAVE TO BE STRONG ENOUGH TO BE WEAK Allow yourself to feel whatever you are feeling. Notice any labels you attach to crying or feeling vulnerable. Let go of the labels. Just feel what you are feeling, all the while cultivating moment-to-moment awareness, riding the waves of “up” and “down,” “good” and “bad,” “weak” and “strong,” until you see that they are all inadequate to fully describe your experience. Be with the experience itself. Trust in your deepest strength of all: to be present, to be wakeful.”

StrongMeditationStrengthTrustMindfulnessWeakExperienceVulnerableLabelsFeelingPresentCryingGood And BadUp And DownWeak And StrongRiding The WavesWakefulMoment To Moment Awareness
Book:Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
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“There are always waves on the water. Sometimes they are big, sometimes they are small, and sometimes they are almost imperceptible. The water’s waves are churned up by the winds, which come and go and vary in direction and intensity, just as do the winds of stress and change in our lives, which stir up the waves in our minds.”

MindWaterMeditationWindMindfulnessStressWavesChange Of LiveChurned Up
Book:Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
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“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
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“When we don't automatically take them (thoughts) personally or believe the stories about "reality" that we build from them,when we can simply hold them in awareness with a sense of curiosity and wonder at their amazing power given their insubstantiality, their limitations,and inaccuracies,then we have a chance right in that moment,in any moment really,to not get caught in their habitual patterning,to see thoughts for what they are,impersonal events. Then in that moment at least, we are already free,ready to act with greater clarity and kindness within the constantly changing field of events that is nothing other than life unfolding-- not always as we think it should,but definitely as it is.”

AwarenessMindfulnessThoughtsPresent Moment
Book:Mindfulness for Beginners: Explore the Infinite Potential that Lies Within This Very Moment
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“We tend to be particularly unaware that we are thinking virtually all the time. The incessant stream of thoughts flowing through our minds leaves us very little respite for inner quiet. And we leave precious little room for ourselves anyway just to be, without having to run around doing things all the time. Our actions are all too frequently driven rather than undertaken in awareness, driven by those perfectly ordinary thoughts and impulses that run through the mind like a coursing river, if not a waterfall. We get caught up in the torrent and it winds up submerging our lives as it carries us to places we may not wish to go and may not even realize we are headed for. Meditation means learning how to get out of this current, sit by its bank and listen to it, learn from it, and then use its energies to guide us rather than to tyrannize us.”

PsychologyMindfulness
Book:Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
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“Meditation does not involve trying to change your thinking by thinking some more. It involves watching thought itself. The watching is the holding. By watching your thoughts without being drawn into them, you can learn something profoundly liberating about thinking itself, which may help you to be less of a prisoner of those thought patterns (….)”

ThinkingChangeMeditationMindfulnessThought PatternsLiberation About ThinkingHolding ThoughtNot Drawn Into ThoughtWatching Thought
Book:Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
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“We resonate with one another’s sorrows because we are interconnected. Being whole and simultaneously part of a larger whole, we can change the world simply by changing ourselves. If I become a center of love and kindness in this moment, then in a perhaps small but hardly insignificant way, the world now has a nucleus of love and kindness it lacked the moment before. This benefits me and it benefits others.”

LoveKindnessMeditationSorrowMindfulnessChange The WorldInterconnectednessCenterResonateChange OurselvesBeing WholeBeing Part OfBenefits AllBenefits Me
Book:Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
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“When we let go of wanting something else to happen in this moment, we are taking a profound step toward being able to encounter what is here now. If we hope to go anywhere or develop ourselves in any way, we can only step from where we are standing. If we don't really know where we are standing—a knowing that comes directly from the cultivation of mindfulness—we may only go in circles, for all our efforts and expectations. So, in meditation practice, the best way to get somewhere is to let go of trying to get anywhere at all.”

IfsKnowsWayTryingMayMomentsHappensAbleHopeEffortStepsPracticeKnowingMeditationLetting GoMindfulnessExpectationsStandingProfoundCirclesBest WayEncountersCultivationMeditation Practice
Book:Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
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“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.”

PeopleMenMayChildrenBodyTodayYoungLeftEmotionalDevelopmentMindfulnessImportanceOur ChildrenAncientGuidesAwakeningAuthenticityCollectivesDevicesAdulthoodVitalityEldersAncient WisdomCollective Knowledge
Author:Jon Kabat-Zinn
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“In Asian languages, the word for mind and the word for heart are same. So if you’re not hearing mindfulness in some deep way as heartfulness, you’re not really understanding it. Compassion and kindness towards oneself are intrinsically woven into it. You could think of mindfulness as wise and affectionate attention.”

IfsThinkingWayMindHeartLanguageUnderstandingAttentionCompassionKindnessWiseMindfulnessOneselfHearingAsianWovenAffectionateKindness And Compassion
Author:Jon Kabat-Zinn
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“You can't stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.”

InspirationalChangeAttitudeLearningGraceAcceptancePositivePositive ThinkingMindfulnessWavePositivityCreatorLife ChangingPositive AttitudeProfessorsEncouragingStoppingSurfingChanging Your LifeMaking ChangesSurfThink PositiveWords Of EncouragementLive And LearnPositive Thinking And AttitudeSurferLife LearningKeep A Positive AttitudeLife AttitudeYou Live And You LearnChange Your AttitudeHaving A Positive AttitudeKnobsThink Positive Be PositivePositive Attitude In LifeHaving A Bad DayPositive Thinking In LifeCool StatusOcean WavePositive Attitude ImagesCan't Stop MeWave Of LifeAttitude Of LoveRiding The WaveWaves Breaking
Book:Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
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“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
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“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
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“Concentration is a cornerstone of mindfulness practice. Your mindfulness will only be as robust as the capacity of your mind to be calm and stable. Without calmness, the mirror of mindfulness will have an agitated and choppy surface and will not be able to reflect things with any accuracy.”

MindAblePracticeMindfulnessCapacityMirrorsCalmSurfaceConcentrationStableCalmnessAccuracyRobustCornerstonesCalming
Book:Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
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“Generosity is another quality which, like patience, letting go, non-judging, and trust, provides a solid foundation for mindfulness practice. You might experiment with using the cultivation of generosity as a vehicle for deep self-observation and inquiry as well as an exercise in giving. A good place to start is with yourself. See if you can give yourself gifts that may be true blessings, such as self-acceptance, or some time each day with no purpose. Practice feeling deserving enough to accept these gifts without obligation-to simply receive from yourself, and from the universe.”

IfsGivingWellsMaySelfEnoughFeelingsMightSpiritualPurposeSpiritualityUniverseQualityAcceptingPracticeAcceptanceJudgingExerciseBlessingLetting GoMindfulnessFoundationExperimentsObligationBeing TrueObservationGenerosityEach DaySelf AcceptanceVehicleInquiryDeservingCultivationGood PlaceSolid FoundationSelf Observation
Book:Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness meditation for everyday life
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“Mindfulness means moment-to-moment, non-judgmental awareness. It is cultivated by refining our capacity to pay attention, intentionally, in the present moment, and then sustaining that attention over time as best we can. In the process, we become more in touch with our life as it is unfolding.”

MeanMomentsProcessPayAttentionOur LivesAwarenessMindfulnessCapacityPay AttentionPresent MomentUnfoldingJudgmentalSustainingRefiningNon Judgmental
Book:Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting
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“Perhaps ultimately, spiritual simply means experiencing wholeness and interconnectedness directly, a seeing that individuality and the totality are interwoven, that nothing is separate or extraneous. If you see in this way, then everything becomes spiritual in its deepest sense. Doing science is spiritual. So is washing the dishes.”

IfsWayMeanSpiritualSeeingMindfulnessIndividualityDishesWholenessWashingTotalityInterconnectedness
Book:Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness meditation for everyday life
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“Another way to look at meditation is to view thinking itself as a waterfall, a cascading of thought. In cultivating mindfulness, we are going beyond or behind our thinking, much the way you might find a vantage point in a cave or depression in the rock behind a waterfall. We still see and hear the water, but we are out of the torrent.”

ThinkingWayLooksStillsMightWaterViewsBehindsMeditationRocksMindfulnessLook At MeCavesAnother WayCultivatingWaterfallsVantage Point
Author:Jon Kabat-Zinn
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“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.”

ImportantMomentsStoriesSeemsPrinciplesEventsFlowerMindfulnessHappeningsCrossesFundamentalsHoneyIsolatedVehicleBeesInterconnectednessFundamental PrinciplesBuckminster FullerHoney BeePollination
Author:Jon Kabat-Zinn
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