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Our Mindfulness Article On Elephant Journal!

“Meditation is simply about being yourself and knowing about who that is. It is about coming to realize that you are on a path whether you like it or not, namely the path that is your life.” ~ Jon Kabat-Zinn.

Check it out on Elephant Journal.

 

Excerpt 1 from Jon Kabat-Zinn's "Mindfulness Meditation Workshop"

Jon Kabat-Zinn's terrific "Mindfulness Meditation Workshop" offers instruction in a number of kinds of meditation, including sitting and walking meditation, and answers questions typical to both beginning meditators and experienced practitioners alike.  The following excerpt is an example of how Kabat-Zinn makes meditation practice accessible to all of us.

If you are coming to this for the very first time or whether you have been cultivating mindfulness in this way for some time, letting go of the past and letting go of what is yet to come and not only acknowledging, but also directly encountering the fact that here you are right in this moment. So inviting yourself, as long as you are here, to be here 100%. Since the future and the past are not things that we let go of once and for all, and that is all there is to it. It is a continual retuning to the present moment.
 
For those of you who are totally new to it, one of the most friendly and convenient ways to embrace the actuality of being present is to tune into some aspect of your body and sensations that arise in the body. The breath is a very wonderful one. To just ride the waves of your own breathing in consciousness.

Excerpt 1 from Jon Kabat-Zinn's Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life

Jon Kabat-Zinn is one of the foremost instructors of mindfulness meditation in this country.  In this transcribed excerpt from Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life, Kabat-Zinn breaks down the utter simplicity and importance of participating in a meditation practice, whether as a beginner or long-time practitioner.

I had it in my mind and it may actually execute if we could figure out some way to do it, to do that little raisin eating exercise which you saw on (Bill) Moyers, or may have seen on Moyers, just because it serves a very important function in the way that we teach meditation in the hospital and in other areas of sort of more mainstream societies and Buddhist meditation centers, where they also use that exercise, which is where I learned it. I was just taking one little aspect of our experience, in this case a raisin, and instead of eating raisins the way we usually do, to eat one raisin mindfully. By the way, take one and do not eat it okay? Part of you is going to want to or throw it at somebody or whatever. Just hold onto it for now.

Lesson Eight from Jon Kabat-Zinn's "Letting Everything Become Your Teacher"

Today we share with you a lesson on "whole being" from Jon Kabat-Zinn's book:

LETTING EVERYTHING BECOME YOUR TEACHER: 
100 Lessons in Mindfulness

LESSON 8: Whole Being

To cultivate the healing power of mindfulness requires much more than mechanically following a recipe or a set of instructions. No real process of learning is like that. It is only when the mind is open and receptive that learning and seeing and change can occur. In practicing mindfulness you will have to bring your whole being to the process. 

 

Jon Kabat-Zinn Bio and Links

Available on BetterListen! -- Jon Kabat-Zinn's The World of Relaxation

Available on Amazon -- Letting Everything Become Your Teacher

 

 

Lesson Seven from Jon Kabat-Zinn's "Letting Everything Become Your Teacher"

We are delighted to share with you another amazing lesson from Jon Kabat-Zinn's:

LETTING EVERYTHING BECOME YOUR TEACHER: 
100 Lessons in Mindfulness

LESSON 7: Right Attitude

The attitude with which you undertake the practice of paying attention and being in the present is crucial. It is the soil in which you will be cultivating your ability to calm your mind and to relax your body, to concentrate and to see more clearly. If the attitudinal soil is depleted, that is, if your energy and commitment to practice are low, it will be hard to develop calmness and relaxation with any consistency. If the soil is really polluted, that is, if you are trying to force yourself to feel relaxed and demand of yourself that “something happen,” nothing will grow at all and you will quickly conclude that “meditation doesn’t work.” 

Jon Kabat-Zinn Bio and Links

Available on BetterListen! -- Jon Kabat-Zinn's The World of Relaxation

Available on Amazon -- Letting Everything Become Your Teacher

 

Lesson Six from Jon Kabat-Zinn's "Letting Everything Become Your Teacher"

We are delighted to bring you another lesson from Jon Kabat-Zinn's terrific guide:

LETTING EVERYTHING BECOME YOUR TEACHER: 
100 Lessons in Mindfulness

LESSON 6: Do-It-Yourself

In this regard, cultivating mindfulness is not unlike the process of eating. It would be absurd to propose that someone else eat for you. And when you go to a restaurant, you don’t eat the menu, mistaking it for the meal, nor are you nourished by listening to the waiter describe the food. You have to actually eat the food for it to nourish you. In the same way, you have to actually practice mindfulness in order to reap its benefits and come to understand why it is so valuable. 
 
 

Jon Kabat-Zinn Bio and Links

Available on BetterListen! -- Jon Kabat-Zinn's The World of Relaxation

Available on Amazon -- Letting Everything Become Your Teacher

 

Lesson Five from Jon Kabat-Zinn's "Letting Everything Become Your Teacher"

A brief but important lesson Jon Kabat-Zinn's latest book:

LETTING EVERYTHING BECOME YOUR TEACHER: 
100 Lessons in Mindfulness

LESSON 5: Lifelong Commitment

 

As with meditation practice itself, this learning requires a lifelong commitment to continual inquiry and a willingness to modify your perspective as you acquire new knowledge and arrive at new levels of understanding and insight. 

Jon Kabat-Zinn Bio and Links

Available on BetterListen! -- Jon Kabat-Zinn's The World of Relaxation

Available on Amazon -- Letting Everything Become Your Teacher