Jon Kabat-Zinn is a master of mindfulness.(Featured image source: Wikipedia) He introduces to the world how being mindful can change your life. Although the process takes time, practice, and commitment, it’s worth it in the end.
To help you understand how being mindful can transform you into a better individual, here are 90 Jon Kabat-Zinn Quotes that will absolutely allow you to attain mindfulness.
90 Jon Kabat-Zinn Quotes
1. “You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
2. “See for yourself whether letting go when a part of you really wants to hold on doesn’t bring a deeper satisfaction than clinging.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
3. “One practical way to do this is to look at other people and ask yourself if you are really seeing them or just your thoughts about them.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
4. “The best way to capture moments is to pay attention.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
5. “When you pay attention to boredom it gets unbelievably interesting.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
6. “Discipline provides a constancy which is independent of what kind of day you had yesterday and what kind of day you anticipate today.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
7. “There is more right with you than wrong with you”—those” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
8. “If you stop trying to make yourself more than you are, out of fear that you are less than you are, whoever you really are will be a lot lighter and happier and easier to live with, too.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
9. “To drop into being means to recognize your interconnectedness with all life, and with being itself. Your very nature is being part of larger and larger spheres of wholeness.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
10. “There is a price we pay for being attached to a narrow view of being “right.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
11. “The little things? The little moments? They aren’t little.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
12. “After all, if you really aren’t trying to get anywhere else in this moment, patience takes care of itself.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
13. “Paying attention and awareness are universal capacities of human beings.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
14. “Remember, now is the only time you have for anything. You have to accept yourself as you are before you can really change.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
15. “So, in meditation practice, the best way to get somewhere is to let go of trying to get anywhere at all.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
16. “When people say “Let it go,” what they really mean is “Get over it,” and that’s not a helpful thing to say. It’s not a matter of letting go – you would if you could.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
17. “Most people think that to meditate, I should feel a particular special something, and if I don’t, then I must be doing something wrong.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
18. “Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
19. “There is just this moment. We are not trying to improve or to get anywhere else.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
20. “Mindfulness is about being fully awake in our lives. It is about perceiving the exquisite vividness of each moment.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
21. “Wherever you go, there you are” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
22. “Practice moment to moment non-judgemental awareness.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
23. “We take care of the future best by taking care of the present now.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
24. “Those are interesting moments if we are willing to stand inside them.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
25. “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
26. “A willingness to embrace and work with what is lies at the core of all meditation practice.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
27. “It is what makes us human, what distinguishes us from other animals. We can be aware of being aware.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
28. “If we don’t really know where we are standing… We may only go in circles…” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
29. “Science gave me a cosmic religious feeling, and I would get the same feeling when I was dragged to the Met and the Museum of Modern Art.“ ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
30. “Awareness is not the same as thinking.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
31. “Mindfulness is so powerful that the fact that it comes out of Buddhism is irrelevant.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
32. “Whatever you are thinking about right now, that’s what’s on your mind.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
33. “Mindfulness is often spoken of as the heart of Buddhist meditation. ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
34. “Each of us has to chart our own course, and it has to fit what we are ready for.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
35. “He who dies before he dies does not die when he dies.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
36. “Breathing is central to every aspect of meditation training. It’s a wonderful place to focus in training the mind to be calm and concentrated.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
37. “I’m challenging everybody on every side of every divide to be more who they are, to cultivate their capacity for awareness.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
38. “Most people don’t realize that the mind constantly chatters.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
39. “The little things? The little moments? They aren’t little.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
40. “Your very nature is being part of larger and larger spheres of wholeness.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
41. “Science gave me a cosmic religious feeling, and I would get the same feeling when I was dragged to the Met and the Museum of Modern Art.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
42. “The notion that the mind and body are actually different sides of the same coin goes all the way back to the origins of medicine.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
43. “Intelligence is the door to freedom and alert attention is the mother of intelligence.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
44. “But you have to learn how to get along. I did an awful lot of fighting. I was tough, but I’m also relatively small, so I learned very early on to use my mind.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
45. “I don’t want people following Jon Kabat-Zinn. I want them following themselves.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
46. “You could think of mindfulness as wise and affectionate attention.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
47. “You are only here now; you’re only alive in this moment.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
48. “Note that this journey is uniquely yours, no one else’s. So the path has to be your own.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
49. “A lot of harm has come in all eras from people attached to one view of ‘spiritual’ truth.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
50. “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
51. “Make a list of what is really important to you. Embody it.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
52. “If we are honest with ourselves, most of us will have to admit that we live out our lives in an ocean of fear.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
53. “From the perspective of meditation, every state is a special state, every moment a special moment.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
54. “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.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
55. “Even before smartphones and the Internet, we had many ways to distract ourselves. Now that’s compounded by a factor of trillions.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
56. “Arriving someplace more desirable at some future time is an illusion.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
57. “Writing can be an incredible mindfulness practice.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
58. “We were taught it in a thousand ways when we were little, and we learned our lessons well.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
59. “Give yourself permission to allow this moment to be exactly as it is, and allow yourself to be exactly as you are.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
60. “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
61. “No one can listen to your body for you… To grow and heal, you have to take responsibility for listening to it yourself.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
62. “He who dies before he dies does not die when he dies.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
63. “Just stopping, is a radical act of sanity and love.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
64. “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
65. “It is indeed a radical act of love just to sit down and be quiet for a time by yourself.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
66. “Perhaps we just need little reminders from time to time that we are already dignified, deserving, worthy.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
67. “Be a light unto yourself.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
68. “From the point of view of the meditative traditions the entire society is suffering from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
69. “Patience is a form of wisdom. It demonstrates that we understand and accept the fact that sometimes things must unfold in their own time.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
70. “You make problem, you have problem” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
71. “But you cannot have harmony without a commitment to ethical behavior. It’s the fence that keeps out the goats that will eat all the young shoots in your garden.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
72. “This is it.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
73. “Just watch this moment, without trying to change it at all. What is happening? What do you feel? What do you see? What do you hear?” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
74. “Dying without actually fully living, without waking up to our lives while we have the chance, is an ongoing and significant risk.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
75. “All the suffering, stress and addiction comes from not realizing you already are what you are looking for.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
76. “And, if we don’t recognize the person as a whole human being, we’re already in some way doing harm.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
77. “See If You Can Give Yourself Gifts That May Be True Blessings, Such as Self-Acceptance.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
78. “What if you already are complete? What if it just doesn’t get any better than this?” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
79. “At the deepest level, there is no giver, no gift, and no recipient… only the universe rearranging itself.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
80. “Even in the midst of utter darkness there’s this other element. Of beauty, of symmetry, of the natural world.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
81. “You cannot imitate somebody else’s journey and still be true to yourself.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
82. “It’s not so much about doing as about being.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
83. “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
84. “In science it’s not what you know, it’s what you’re willing to know you don’t know.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
85. “Perhaps the most “spiritual” thing any of us can do is simply to look through our own eyes, see with eyes of wholeness, and act with integrity and kindness.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
86. “Awareness is boundless and infinitely available no matter what you’re doing.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
87. “Any change that comes about in your life will be primarily because of your own efforts” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
88. “Nothing is to be clung to as I, me, or mine.” In other words, no attachments—especially to fixed ideas of yourself and who you are.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
89. “If you can’t let go, you can’t go to sleep.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
90. “Personal motivations to live are known to sometimes influence survival.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn
Final thoughts
Let’s admit it― Jon Kabat-Zinn truly made an impact to the world. With his words and wisdom about mindfulness, he helps us to understand how mindfulness can make us a better person. The Jon Kabat-Zinn quotes above will enable you to understand the true power of mindfulness.
Allen Wei is someone who believes in living his best life, focusing on balance, happiness, and relaxation. He fosters a positive lifestyle in terms of his body, mind, and environment, and he is a huge proponent of learning to be balanced via relaxation techniques integrated into our busy lives.
