Thoughts by Jon Kabat-Zinn

May you find inspiration in these thoughts and quotes by Jon Kabat-Zinn from my large Daily Inspiration library of inspiring quotes and inspirational words.

In meditation practice, the best way to get somewhere
is to let go of trying to get anywhere at all.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn

Related topics: Zen Wisdom Life Human-Nature Psychology Mindfullness

Look at other people and ask yourself
if you are really seeing them or just your thoughts about them.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn

All the suffering, stress, and addiction
comes from not realizing you already are what you are looking for.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn

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Thank You,
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

If you really aren't trying to get anywhere else in this moment,
patience takes care of itself.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn

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

Breathe and let be.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn

Meditation is neither shutting things out nor off.
It is seeing things clearly,
and deliberately positioning yourself differently in relationship to them.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn

At the deepest level, there is no giver, no gift, and no recipient...
only the universe rearranging itself.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn

Mindfulness means being awake.
It means being aware of what you are doing.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn

Any change that comes about in your life
will be primarily because of your own efforts.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn

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

Practice moment to moment non-judgemental awareness.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn

Dwell in stillness.
Observe without reacting and without judging.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn

The mind constantly chatters.
That chatter winds up being the force
that drives us much of the day in terms of what we do,
what we react to, and how we feel.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn

Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way:
on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn

There is just this moment.
We are not trying to improve or to get anywhere else.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn

Simply put, mindfulness is moment-to-moment non-judgmental awareness.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn

We take care of the future best by taking care of the present now.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn

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

To let go means to give up coercing, resisting, or struggling,
in exchange for something more powerful and wholesome
which comes out of allowing things to be as they are
without getting caught up in your attraction to or rejection of them,
in the intrinsic stickiness of wanting, of liking and disliking.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn

Patience is an ever present alternative
to the mind's endemic restlessness and impatience.
Scratch the surface of impatience and what you will find
lying beneath it, subtly or not so subtly, is anger.
It's the strong energy of not wanting things to be the way they are
and blaming someone (often yourself) or something for it.
This doesn't mean you can't hurry when you have to.
It is possible even to hurry patiently, mindfully,
moving fast because you have chosen to.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn

Breath by breath, let go of fear, expectation, anger,
regret, cravings, frustration, fatigue.
Let go of the need for approval.
- Lama Surya Das

He who is persistent will realize God.
So try your best to make meditation
a regular experience in your life.
- Paramahansa Yogananda

Move to your heart, Breathe.
Close your eyes and breathe deeply - slowly -
fill your lungs with love and gratitude -
exhale each and every trouble -
again and again - gratitude in, troubles out.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

We can live without religion and meditation,
but we cannot survive without human affection.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

When you become centered, suddenly there is great freedom
because you know you are not the mind and you are not the body.
- Osho

The soul loves to meditate,
for in contact with the Spirit lies its greatest joy.
If, then you experience mental resistance during meditation,
remember that reluctance to meditate comes from the ego;
it doesn't belong to the soul.
- Paramahansa Yogananda

Being wakeful in each and every moment of your life is meditation.
The simplest definition of meditation is:
when seeing, just see; when hearing, just hear.
- Josh Baran

Do the small things of life with a relaxed awareness.
When you are eating, eat totally -
chew totally, taste totally, smell totally.
Touch your bread, feel the texture.
Smell the bread, smell the flavor.
Chew it, let it dissolve into your being.
- Osho

When you are eating, eat totally -
chew totally, taste totally, smell totally.
Touch your bread, feel the texture.
Smell the bread, smell the flavor.
Chew it, let it dissolve into your being,
and remain conscious - and you are meditating.
And then meditation is not separate from life.
- Osho

Beyond mind, there is an awareness that is intrinsic,
that is not given to you by the outside, and is not an idea -
and there is no experiment up to now
that has found any center in the brain
which corresponds to awareness.
The whole work of meditation is
to make you aware of all that is "mind"
and disidentify yourself from it.
That very separation is the
greatest revolution that can happen to man.
Now you can do and act on only that
which makes you more joyous, fulfills you,
gives you contentment, makes your life a work of art, a beauty.
But this is possible only if the master in you is awake.
- Osho

All things share the same breath -
the beast, the tree, the man...
the air shares its spirit with all the life it supports.
- Chief Seattle (attributed)

Start living now.
Stop saving the good china
for that special occasion.
Stop withholding your love
until that special person materializes.
Every day you are alive is a special occasion.
Every minute, every breath, is a gift from God.
- Mary Manin Morrissey

Does who we are begin with breath,
depend on form, or end with death?
- Kirtana

Anger is the fiery breath of the underworld.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The first sigh of love is the last breath of wisdom.
- Anonymous

Feel Unity with Spirit and All Creation
All things share the same breath the
beast, the tree, the man... the air
shares its spirit with all the life it supports.
- Chief Seattle [actually written by screenwriter Ted Perry in 1972]

What is life?
It is the flash of a firefly in the night.
It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime.
It is the little shadow which runs across
the grass and loses itself in the sunset.
- Crowfoot (Blackfoot warrior and orator 1830 - 1890)

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take,
but by the moments that take our breath away.
- Anonymous

Slowly and Deeply, I Inhale a Calming Breath.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Ever had a bad hair day -
a day when everything seemed to be going wrong?
Perhaps today is a day to soothe your ruffled feathers,
take a deep breath, and reaffirm that
the weight of the world is really not on your shoulders,
unless you choose to assume that burden.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Take a deep breath and do the difficult thing first.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Freedom is never dear at any price.
It is the breath of life.
What would a man not pay for living?
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

Repressed anger still is anger, it just isn't expressed.
If you truly have no anger, you are blessed and joyful.
If you have repressed anger, know that you have anger,
you just haven't expressed that anger.
Go ahead, express your anger briefly,
pound pillows, scream, curse.
Then take a deep breath, and get over it.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

There is something about a rainbow
that just can't be ignored.
Whether spectacle of nature or covenant,
no two rainbows are ever the same,
and each one is always breath-taking.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort
of feeling safe with a person;
having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words,
but to pour them all out, just as they are,
chaff and grain together,
knowing that a faithful hand will take and sift them,
keep what is worth keeping, and then,
with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away.
- George Eliot

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love with a passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, - I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! - and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
- Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Time is a monster that cannot be reasoned with.
It responds like a snail to our impatience,
then it races like a gazelle when you can't catch a breath.
- the movie Simon Birch

Joy is what happens to us when we allow ourselves
to recognize how good things really are.
- Marianne Williamson

Everything is a miracle,
not just the beautiful and lovely things.
- Anonymous

I am one with the Earth,
with the Water, with the Fire,
with the Air that I breathe,
with all Living Things,
and we are all one with Spirit.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

God grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change;
the courage to change the things I can;
and the wisdom to know the difference.
- Reinhold Niebuhr (Serenity Prayer)

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent
about things that matter.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

We don't see things as they are,
we see things as we are.
- Anais Nin

All things at first appear difficult.
- Chinese proverb

I Dream This Day of Wondrous Things,
of Peace and Hope and Pride.
I Dance My Dance with Life Today,
I'm Filled with Love Inside.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Our "Rainbows and Butterflies" are the small miracles of our life -
the little things that are so easy to overlook,
yet so awe inspiring when we take a moment
to notice and to pay attention.
Give thanks for the rainbows, for the butterflies,
for all God's creatures - large and small,
for the bright blue sky and the soft fog and the gentle rain,
for the tree veiled in the season's first frost,
for the baby's laugh,
for the touch of a hand and the whispered "I love you."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed
by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do.
So throw off the bowlines.
Sail away from the safe harbor.
Catch the trade winds in your sails.
Explore. Dream. Discover.
- widely misattributed to Mark Twain

Sometimes the things you really want
sneak in the back door.
Notice.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

I have been all things unholy.
If God can work through me, he can work through anyone.
- St. Francis of Assisi

A time for work, a time for play -
balance in all things.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

For with God all things are possible.
- The Bible

Don't underestimate the value of Doing Nothing,
of just going along,
listening to all the things you can't hear,
and not bothering.
- A. A. Milne (Winnie-The-Pooh)

The best and most beautiful things in the world
cannot be seen or even touched.
They must be felt with the heart.
- Helen Keller

Faith has to do with things that are not seen
and hope with things that are not at hand.
- Saint Thomas Aquinas.

Do not allow obligation or immediacy to
bind you to physical things or specific actions.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

You never really understand a person
until you consider things from his point of view.
- Harper Lee

If things are not as you wish,
wish them as they are.
- Yiddish Proverb

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May the world be kind to you,
and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

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