Jon Kabat-Zinn quotes
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“The little things? The little moments? They aren't little.”
-- Jon Kabat-Zinn -
“If we are honest with ourselves, most of us will have to admit that we live out our lives in an ocean of fear.”
-- Jon Kabat-Zinn -
“Meditation is the only intentional, systematic human activity which at bottom is about not trying to improve yourself or get anywhere else, but simply to realize where you already are.”
-- Jon Kabat-ZinnSource : Jon Kabat-Zinn (2005). “Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life”, Hyperion
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“You can't stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.”
-- Jon Kabat-ZinnSource : Jon Kabat-Zinn (2005). “Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life”, Hyperion
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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.”
-- Jon Kabat-Zinn -
“Just watch this moment, without trying to change it at all. What is happening? What do you feel? What do you see? What do you hear?”
-- Jon Kabat-ZinnSource : Jon Kabat-Zinn (2005). “Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life”, Hyperion
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“The only time you ever have in which to learn anything or see anything or feel anything, or express any feeling or emotion, or respond to an event, or grow, or heal, is this moment, because this is the only moment any of us ever gets. You're only here now; you're only alive in this moment.”
-- Jon Kabat-Zinn -
“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.”
-- Jon Kabat-ZinnSource : Myla Kabat-zinn, Jon Kabat-Zinn (1998). “Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting”, Hyperion
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“When people say "Let it go," what they really mean is "Get over it," and that's not a helpful thing to say. It's not a matter of letting go - you would if you could. Instead of "Let it go," we should probably say "Let it be"; this recognizes that the mind won't let go and the problem may not go away, and it allows you to form a healthier relationship with what's bothering you.”
-- Jon Kabat-Zinn -
“You are only here now; you're only alive in this moment.”
-- 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.”
-- Jon Kabat-Zinn -
“Mindfulness is about being fully awake in our lives. It is about perceiving the exquisite vividness of each moment. We also gain immediate access to our own powerful inner resources for insight, transformation, and healing.”
-- Jon Kabat-Zinn -
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“No one can listen to your body for you... To grow and heal, you have to take responsibility for listening to it yourself.”
-- Jon Kabat-ZinnSource : Jon Kabat-Zinn (2013). “Full Catastrophe Living (Revised Edition): Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness”, p.173, Bantam
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“It is indeed a radical act of love just to sit down and be quiet for a time by yourself.”
-- Jon Kabat-ZinnSource : Jon Kabat-Zinn (2005). “Coming to Our Senses: Healing Ourselves and the World Through Mindfulness”, p.102, Hachette UK
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“Note that this journey is uniquely yours, no one else's. So the path has to be your own. You cannot imitate somebody else's journey and still be true to yourself. Are you prepared to honor your uniqueness in this way?”
-- Jon Kabat-ZinnSource : "Wherever You Go, There You Are". Book by Jon Kabat-Zinn, 1994.
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“Once in awhile throughout the day...let go into full acceptance of the present moment, including how you are feeling and what you perceive to be happening... Give yourself permission to allow this moment to be exactly as it is, and allow yourself to be exactly as you are. Then, when you're ready, move in the direction your heart tells you to go, mindfully and with resolution.”
-- Jon Kabat-Zinn -
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“When you pay attention to boredom it gets unbelievably interesting.”
-- Jon Kabat-Zinn -
“The awareness is not part of the darkness or the pain; it holds the pain, and knows it, so it has to be more fundamental, and closer to what is healthy and strong and golden within you.”
-- Jon Kabat-Zinn -
“Just stopping, is a radical act of sanity and love.”
-- Jon Kabat-Zinn -
“Voluntary simplicity means going fewer places in one day rather than more, seeing less so I can see more, doing less so I can do more, acquiring less so I can have more.”
-- Jon Kabat-Zinn -
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“Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally.”
-- Jon Kabat-ZinnSource : Jon Kabat-Zinn (2005). “Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life”, Hyperion
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“Perhaps the most "spiritual" thing any of us can do is simply to look through our own eyes, see with eyes of wholeness, and act with integrity and kindness.”
-- Jon Kabat-Zinn -
“Nourishing the soul is the process of drinking at the life stream, coming back to one's true self, embracing the whole of one's experience - good, bad, or ugly; painful or exalted; dull or boring.”
-- Jon Kabat-Zinn -
“Can you question who you are? And are you comfortable with not knowing?”
-- Jon Kabat-Zinn -
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“Healing is a coming to terms with things as they are, rather than struggling to force them to be as they once were, or as we would like them to be, to feel secure or to have what we sometimes think of as our own way.”
-- Jon Kabat-ZinnSource : Jon Kabat-Zinn (2005). “Coming to Our Senses: Healing Ourselves and the World Through Mindfulness”, p.374, Hachette UK
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“When experience is viewed in a certain way, it presents nothing but doorways into the soul.”
-- Jon Kabat-Zinn -
“Once you have established yourself as a center of love and kindness radiating throughout your being, which amounts to a cradling of yourself in loving kindness and acceptance, you can dwell here indefinitely, drinking at this fount, bathing it in, renewing yourself, nourishing yourself, enlivening yourself. This can be a profoundly healing practice for body and soul.”
-- Jon Kabat-Zinn -
“Non-doing has nothing to do with being indolent or passive. Quite the contrary. It takes great courage and energy to cultivate non-doing, both in stillness and in activity. Nor is it easy to make a special time for non-doing and to keep at it in the face of everything in our lives which needs to be done.”
-- Jon Kabat-Zinn -
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“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.”
-- Jon Kabat-Zinn -
“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.”
-- Jon Kabat-Zinn -
“Stillness, insight, and wisdom arise only when we can settle into being complete in this moment, without having to seek or hold on to or reject anything.”
-- Jon Kabat-Zinn -
“Initiate giving. Don't wait for someone to ask. See what happens - especially to you. You may find that you gain a greater clarity about yourself and about your relationships, as well as more energy rather than less. You may find that, rather than exhausting yourself or your resources, you will replenish them. Such is the power of mindful, selfless generosity. At the deepest level, there is no giver, no gift, and no recipient . . . only the universe rearranging itself.”
-- 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.”
-- Jon Kabat-ZinnSource : "Q&A: Jon Kabat-Zinn Talks About Bringing Mindfulness Meditation to Medicine". Interview With Maia Szalavitz, healthland.time.com. January 11, 2012.
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“Maybe the fear is that we are less than we think we are, when the actuality of it is that we are much much more.”
-- Jon Kabat-Zinn -
“Writing can be an incredible mindfulness practice.”
-- Jon Kabat-Zinn -
“Intelligence is the door to freedom and alert attention is the mother of intelligence.”
-- Jon Kabat-Zinn -
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“From the perspective of meditation, every state is a special state, every moment a special moment.”
-- Jon Kabat-Zinn -
“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.”
-- Jon Kabat-Zinn -
“Discipline provides a constancy which is independent of what kind of day you had yesterday and what kind of day you anticipate today.”
-- Jon Kabat-Zinn -
“Breathing is central to every aspect of meditation training. It's a wonderful place to focus in training the mind to be calm and concentrated.”
-- Jon Kabat-Zinn -
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“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.”
-- Jon Kabat-Zinn -
“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.”
-- Jon Kabat-Zinn -
“Mindfulness is so powerful that the fact that it comes out of Buddhism is irrelevant.”
-- Jon Kabat-Zinn -
“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.”
-- Jon Kabat-Zinn -
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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.”
-- Jon Kabat-Zinn
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