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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.

Jon Kabat-Zinn

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Jon Kabat-Zinn
Age: 80
Born: 1944
Born: June 5
Molecular Biologist
Physician
Professor
University Teacher
Writer
New York City
New York
Jon Kabat
Went
Fair
Everybody
Street
Fighting
York
Learn
Tough
Kids
Streets
School
Along
Much
Fight
Share
Fairs

More quotes by Jon Kabat-Zinn

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Meditation is really a non-doing. It is the only human endeavor I know of being where you already are.
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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?
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Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally.
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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.
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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?
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Meditation is simply about being yourself and know about who that is.
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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.
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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.
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Can you question who you are? And are you comfortable with not knowing?
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Peace is something that we can bring about if we can actually learn to wake up a bit more as individuals and a lot more as a species if we can learn to be fully what we actually already are to reside in the inherent potential of what is possible for us, being human.
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Mindfulness is so powerful that the fact that it comes out of Buddhism is irrelevant.
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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.
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Discipline provides a constancy which is independent of what kind of day you had yesterday and what kind of day you anticipate today.
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Societal transformation isn't going to happen in one month, one year, or even one lifetime. But we see it happen person by person in front of us, and we don't have to worry about the future if we're taking care of the present. In some sense, that's the best insurance policy we can have.
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Arriving someplace more desirable at some future time is an illusion. This is it.
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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.
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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.
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You can bring together the body's various systems to fine tune the body and mind in order to navigate life's ups and downs in a way that minimizes stress and maximizes well-being and satisfaction.
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The Zen people from Ancient China, When you're walking, just walk. It turns out to be the hardest thing.
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Allow your attention to gently alight on your belly, as if you were coming upon a shy animal sunning itself on a tree stump in a clearing in the forest. Feel your belly rise or expand gently on the inbreath, and fall or recede on the outbreath.
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