
Jon Kabat-Zinn
American molecular biologist, meditation teacher, and the founder of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) — the eight-week protocol developed at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center in 1979 that introduced mindfulness meditation into mainstream Western medicine, education, and corporate life. A student of Zen masters Philip Kapleau, Thich Nhat Hanh, and Seungsahn, and of yoga teacher Robert Thurman, he stripped Buddhist meditation of its religious context and presented it as an evidence-based practice for chronic pain, anxiety, and stress. The MBSR curriculum has now been studied in thousands of clinical trials and adopted in hospitals, schools, prisons, and Fortune 500 companies worldwide. His books — Full Catastrophe Living, Wherever You Go There You Are, Coming to Our Senses — have sold millions of copies and shaped how an entire generation thinks about attention.
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Quotes by Jon Kabat-Zinn
101 quotes“Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally.”
“The little things? The little moments? They aren't little.”
“As long as you are breathing, there is more right with you than wrong with you.”
“You only have moments to live.”
“Wherever you go, there you are.”
“The best way to capture moments is to pay attention.”
“You can't escape from yourself. You may as well make friends.”
“You can be calm in the eye of the storm.”
“The present moment always will be, but we may not be there for it.”
“Try to see if your life can become a present moment.”
“Mindfulness is not about getting anywhere. It's about being where you already are.”
“You can't always control what happens. You can control how you respond.”
“In any moment of being, you are already complete.”
“Stress is not what happens to us. It's our response to what happens.”
“The challenge of mindfulness is to be present for what is.”
“Sit. Just sit. The simplest thing is the most profound.”
“Each in-breath is new. Each out-breath is new.”
“Meditation is the practice of being awake.”
“You can't stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.”
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