|
94850be
|
On the radio, I heard someone define ethics as "obedience to the unenforceable."
|
|
|
Jon Kabat-Zinn |
|
baf9bca
|
It's not that God, the environment, and other people cannot help us to be happy or find satisfaction. It's just that our happiness, satisfaction, and our understanding, even of God, will be no deeper than our capacity to know ourselves inwardly, to encounter the world from the deep comfort that comes from being at home in one's own skin, from an intimate familiarity with the ways of one's own mind and body.
|
|
|
Jon Kabat-Zinn |
|
08c7a96
|
In fact, even if distraction does alleviate your pain or help to cope with it some of the time, bringing mindfulness to it can lead to new levels of insight and understanding about yourself and your body, which distraction and escape can never do. Understanding and insight, of course, are an extremely important part of the process of coming to terms with your condition and really learning how to live with it, not just endure it. One of the ..
|
|
|
Jon Kabat-Zinn |
|
6b87183
|
We all have limitations. They are worth befriending. They teach us a lot. They can show us what we most need to pay attention to and honor. They become our cutting edge for learning and growing and gentling ourselves into the present moment as it is.
|
|
limitations
mindfulness
|
Jon Kabat-Zinn |
|
1349dc0
|
It is healing simply to be heard, to be met, to be seen, to be known.
|
|
|
Jon Kabat-Zinn |
|
31e5ced
|
It's very important as a beginner that you understand right from the start that meditation is about befriending your thinking, about holding it gently in awareness, no matter what is on your mind in a particular moment. It is not about shutting off your thoughts or changing them in any way.
|
|
|
Jon Kabat-Zinn |
|
9c99c87
|
It is not that mindfulness is the "answer" to all life's problems. Rather, it is that all life's problems can be seen more clearly through the lens of a clear mind."
|
|
|
Jon Kabat-Zinn |
|
6103e5b
|
If you let restlessness move you, you lose touch with who you are.
|
|
|
Jon Kabat-Zinn |
|
6a20868
|
Breathe and let be. [...] [G]ive yourself permission to allow this moment to be exactly as it is, and allow yourself to be exactly as you are.
|
|
|
Jon Kabat-Zinn |
|
746c57c
|
It helps to have a focus for your attention, an anchor line to tether you to the present moment and to guide you back when the mind wanders. The breath serves this purpose exceedingly well. It can be a true ally. Bringing awareness to our breathing, we remind ourselves that we are here now, so we might as well be fully awake for whatever is already happening.
|
|
|
Jon Kabat-Zinn |
|
4040e07
|
We are not meditating to make anything go away, any more than we are meditating to attain some special state or feeling. Whether we are basically healthy at the moment or have a terminal illness, none of us knows how long we have to live.
|
|
|
Jon Kabat-Zinn |
|
4fda17f
|
Through it all, we attempt to bring balance to the present moment, understanding that in patience lies wisdom, knowing that what will come next will be determined in large measure by how we are now.
|
|
|
Jon Kabat-Zinn |
|
e59125d
|
Non-doing simply means letting things be and allowing them to unfold in their own way.
|
|
non-doing
oneness
mindfulness
wholeness
|
Jon Kabat-Zinn |
|
7fd713e
|
Engel's biopsychosocial model proposed that psychological and social factors could either protect a person from illness or increase his or her susceptibility to it. Such factors include a person's beliefs and attitudes, how supported and loved a person feels by family and friends, the psychological and environmental stresses to which one is exposed, and personal health behaviors.
|
|
|
Jon Kabat-Zinn |
|
9d5f03c
|
The attitude of letting go, of letting things be as they are, of non-attachment, does not imply a condition of reactive distancing or detachment, and is not to be confused with passivity, dissociative behaviors, or attempts to separate yourself even the tiniest bit from reality. It is not a pathological condition of withdrawal adopted to protect yourself. Nor is it nihilistic. It is exactly opposite: a supremely healthy condition of heart a..
|
|
|
Jon Kabat-Zinn |
|
64e51e6
|
Studies by Dr. Herbert Benson of the Harvard Medical School in the early 1970s on people practicing a form of meditation known as Transcendental Meditation, or TM, demonstrated that meditation can produce a pattern of significant physiological changes, which he termed the relaxation response. These include a lowering of blood pressure, reduced oxygen consumption, and an overall decrease in arousal. Dr. Benson proposed that the relaxation re..
|
|
|
Jon Kabat-Zinn |
|
57de6cd
|
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 |
|
55be1d0
|
One world is aware, and by far the largest to me, and that is myself, And whether I come to my own today or in ten thousand or ten million years, I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness, I can wait. WALT WHITMAN, Leaves of Grass
|
|
|
Jon Kabat-Zinn |
|
759ed0a
|
There were times when I could not afford to sacrifice the bloom of the present moment to any work, whether of the head or hand.
|
|
|
Jon Kabat-Zinn |
|
ecc57d2
|
When we spend some time each day in non-doing, resting in awareness, observing the flow of the breath and the activity of our mind and body without getting caught up in that activity, we are cultivating calmness and mindfulness hand in hand.
|
|
|
Jon Kabat-Zinn |
|
cf9fba3
|
When you practice mindfulness, the first thing you are likely to notice is how mindless you can be. Let's say you decide to focus on the feeling of the breath moving in and out of the body. It is happening in the present moment. It is important. You can't live without breathing. It is not hard to locate the sensations in the body associated with breathing, at the belly or in the chest, or at the nostrils. You might find yourself saying, "Wh..
|
|
|
Jon Kabat-Zinn |
|
0208b60
|
Kabir says: Student, tell me, what is God? He is the breath inside the breath. KABIR
|
|
|
Jon Kabat-Zinn |
|
a91b9dd
|
Maybe we have an exaggerated belief that we have to stay in bed just to get through the day or that we can't go out of the house and do things. Views like these lead readily to what is sometimes referred to as "illness behavior." We begin to build our psychological life around our preoccupations with our illness, injury, or disability, while the rest of our life is on hold and unfortunately atrophying along with the body."
|
|
|
Jon Kabat-Zinn |
|
550b5ad
|
Just because you decide to still your body and observe your breath from moment to moment doesn't mean that your thinking mind is going to cooperate.
|
|
|
Jon Kabat-Zinn |
|
6bc0203
|
What does happen as we intentionally pay attention to our breathing is that we realize pretty quickly that we are
|
|
|
Jon Kabat-Zinn |
|
d0e23d8
|
In order to build continuity and momentum in the meditation practice, you will need to keep reminding yourself to come back to the breath over and over again, no matter what the mind is up to from one moment to the next.
|
|
|
Jon Kabat-Zinn |
|
4fb570b
|
Carl Jung put it this way: "The attainment of wholeness requires one to stake one's whole being. Nothing less will do; there can be no easier conditions, no substitutes, no compromises." With"
|
|
|
Jon Kabat-Zinn |
|
47ecc94
|
By being with yourself...by watching yourself in your daily life with alert interest, with the intention to understand rather than to judge, in full acceptance of whatever may emerge, because it is there, you encourage the deep to come to the surface and enrich your life and consciousness with its captive energies. This is the great work of awareness; it removes obstacles and releases energies by understanding the nature of life and mind. I..
|
|
|
Jon Kabat-Zinn |
|
9d59e5e
|
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 o..
|
|
illusion
kindness
compassion
life
love
all-people
all-places
expanding
honouring
opening-to-pain
uncovering
unlimited
well-wishing
everywhere
interconnectedness
touched
loving
loving-kindness
mindfulness
realisation
presence
meditation
harmony
awareness
|
Jon Kabat-Zinn |
|
3f72da1
|
Mindfulness has to do with waking up and living in harmony with oneself and with the world. It is examining who we are, constantly questioning our views of the world and our place in it, while cultivating appreciation for the fullness of each moment we are alive. It is the direct opposite of taking life for granted. It is empowering as well, because paying attention in this way opens channels to deep reservoirs of creativity, intelligence, ..
|
|
wisdom
paying-attention
self-examination
waking-up
mindfulness
present-moment
harmony
|
Jon Kabat-Zinn |
|
b22464c
|
The more you practice, the more skill you can develop in reducing pain or at least becoming more transparent to it, so that it is less eroding of your quality of life.
|
|
|
Jon Kabat-Zinn |
|
7386110
|
The only way to free yourself from a lifetime of being tyrannized by your own thought processes, whether you suffer from excessive anxiety or not, is to come to see your thoughts for what they are and to discern the sometimes subtle--but most often not-so-subtle--seeds of craving and aversion, of greed and hatred, at work within them. When you can successfully step back and see that you are not your thoughts and feelings, that you do not ha..
|
|
|
Jon Kabat-Zinn |
|
68d83e7
|
You have to actually make the time to practice every day, because otherwise you will not find it.
|
|
|
Jon Kabat-Zinn |
|
4ab74de
|
Nothing is to be clung to as I, me, or mine.
|
|
|
Jon Kabat-Zinn |
|
ae645c6
|
Everything is related to everything else and, in a way, simultaneously contains everything else and is contained by everything else. What is more, everything is in flux.
|
|
|
Jon Kabat-Zinn |
|
0ff63f4
|
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 |
|
b45475e
|
if you know anything about Buddhism, you will know that the most important point is to be yourself and not try to become anything that you are not already. Buddhism is fundamentally about being in touch with your own deepest nature and letting it flow out of you unimpeded.
|
|
|
Jon Kabat-Zinn |
|
8a58c85
|
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 |
|
5550b0b
|
If your mind isn't clouded by unnecessary things, This is the best season of your life. WU-MEN
|
|
|
Jon Kabat-Zinn |
|
41d8ff1
|
Be a light unto yourself.
|
|
|
Jon Kabat-Zinn |
|
b37b3b0
|
There is more right with you than wrong with you"--those"
|
|
|
Jon Kabat-Zinn |
|
2cfcf59
|
The mountain is always grounded, rooted in the earth, always still, always beautiful. It is beautiful just being what it is, seen or unseen, snow-covered or green, rained on or wrapped in clouds.
|
|
|
Jon Kabat-Zinn |
|
0c1be83
|
We live immersed in a world of constant doing. Rarely are we in touch with who is doing the doing, or, put otherwise, with the world of being.
|
|
|
Jon Kabat-Zinn |
|
f1a8e26
|
Our lives are simply bigger than thought.
|
|
|
Jon Kabat-Zinn |