Quotes from Jon Kabat-Zinn

To break out of this trap of always being driven by our own desires, it is not a bad exercise to ask yourself from time to time, "What is my own way?" "What do I really want?" "Would I know it if I got it?" "Does everything have to be perfect right now, or under my total control right now, for me to be happy?

Guess what? When it comes right down to it, wherever you go, there you are. Whatever you wind up doing, that's what you've wound up doing. Whatever you are thinking right now, that's what's on your mind. Whatever has happened to you, it has already happened. The important question is, how are you going to handle it? In other words, "Now what?

It is simply a practical way to be more in touch with the fullness of your being through a systematic process of self-observation, self-inquiry, and mindful action.

any change that comes about in your life will be primarily because of your own efforts

It's not a matter of letting go—you would if you could. Instead of Let it go, we should probably say Let it be.

This has everything to do with holding the present moment in its fullness without imposing anything extra on it, perceiving its purity and the freshness of its potential to give rise to the next moment.

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.

Discipline provides a constancy which is independent of what kind of day you had yesterday and what kind of day you anticipate today.

What does happen as we intentionally pay attention to our breathing is that we realize pretty quickly that we are

As you begin befriending your breath, you see immediately that unawareness is everywhere.

and remind you that you are here now, and that when you get there, you will be there. If you miss the here, you are likely also to miss the there. If your mind is not centered here, it is likely not to be centered just because you arrive somewhere else.

Even the tiniest manifestation of mindfulness in any moment might give rise to an intuition or insight that could be hugely transforming.