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Jon Kabat-Zinn is one of the pioneering medical professionals to integrate east/west practices. This book is a very easy read - yet full of insight and depth. I enjoyed the book immensely due to the luminous knowledge he provides regarding the practice and understanding of meditation and the synthesis of impressions held by various thinkers. I highly recommend this book due to his objective style and candidness, allowing for any faiths, lifestyles, or ages to perceive the truths within. Excerpts: “Non-doing has nothing to do with being indolent or passive. Quite the contrary. It takes great courage and energy to cultivate non-doing, both in stillness and in activity.” “If you miss the here, you are likely to miss the there. If you mind is not centered here, it is likely not to be centered just because you arrived somewhere else.” “When we are in touch with being hole, we feel at one with everything. When we feel at one with everything, we feel whole ourselves.”
Jon Kabat Zin is a doctor who has used mindfulness in dealing with illness. In the course of his work he has developed simple techniques of meditation and mindfulness thathave worked for me
I'd avoided Kabat-Zinn's works in the past, lumping them into the airy-faerie category of new age fluff. Then I read about him in another book (Bill Moyers' dusty but still relevant Healing and the Mind) and was impressed with both his credentials and his views. This book is targeted to clients whose health issues (such as chronic pain) may benefit from learning to let go of hurts from the past and worries about the future, and live more fully in the present moment. Breathing, imagery, relaxation.. all good solid practices for improved self-regulation.
If you want to know how to actually live in the present moment, then this book is for you I have become more midnful of my thoughts and actions, and the amount of time I spend daydreaming or assuming what someone or something else's reality is. Instead, I allow those thoughts to pass quickly, without judgement, and come back to the present, whatever it is I am doing that moment be it playing peek-a-boo with my son, cooking a meal, having a talk with my husband or friend or running a few miles.
I learned so much from this book that I decided to buy it because I know it's one I will return to and want to reference in the future. It's a simple guide to meditation, a practice I've always wanted to devote more time to or SOME time to, to be perfectly honest. What I liked about this book is that he gives you guidance on how to find your way into practicing meditation, but he never makes stringent requirements. He talks about practicing for even five or ten minutes a day, if that's all you can do. He warns you about pitfalls you can fall prey to, wanting some big enlightenment, or feeling superior because of things you are learning...He talks about being mindful from moment to moment and how to work on that. I can see why this is a classic because he also never makes claims that a lot of other 'New Agey'/Self Help books make, i.e., if you follow this simple plan all your problems will be solved, you will have everything you have ever wanted, you'll be happy and peaceful all the time; you get my drift. He always acknowledges the difficulties life will continue to bring all of us and reminds the reader constantly that meditation is a discipline that requires work of the mental kind and will always require work. Still, with that warning always in your ears he makes you feel that taking time every day to be still, to be aware, to just be, can really change the quality of your life, helping you to appreciate just where you are and maybe even see your the wonder of your life just as it is. I make it sound hokey, but when he says it, it sounds a lot better. I would recommend this book to anyone--I think anyone could profit from the concepts.
A kid's book that adults can enjoy because of brilliant layered story lines.
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