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Meditation is really a non-doing. It is the only human endeavor I know of being where you already are.

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
Already
Human
Humans
Really
Endeavor
Meditation

More quotes by Jon Kabat-Zinn

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There is just this moment. We are not trying to improve or to get anywhere else.
Jon Kabat-Zinn
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The real meditation practice is how we live our lives from moment to moment to moment.
Jon Kabat-Zinn
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Meditation is simply about being yourself and know about who that is.
Jon Kabat-Zinn
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The real meditative practice is to open up to the full range of what happens in life. And parenting is a fantastic arena for doing that kind of spiritual training. It's as much a potential door into enlightenment as anything else.
Jon Kabat-Zinn
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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.
Jon Kabat-Zinn
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Mindfulness is so powerful that the fact that it comes out of Buddhism is irrelevant.
Jon Kabat-Zinn
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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.
Jon Kabat-Zinn
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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.
Jon Kabat-Zinn
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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.
Jon Kabat-Zinn
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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
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You are only here now you're only alive in this moment.
Jon Kabat-Zinn
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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.
Jon Kabat-Zinn
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So, in meditation practice, the best way to get somewhere is to let go of trying to get anywhere at all.
Jon Kabat-Zinn
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In any given moment we are either practicing mindfulness, or defacto, we are practicing mindlessness.
Jon Kabat-Zinn
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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.
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-Zinn
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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
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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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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-Zinn
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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... We may only go in circles.
Jon Kabat-Zinn