Mindfulness

I am so excited about exposing our scholars to yoga and meditation. Since I talk about this a lot, I think everyone knows how deeply I believe these practices can enhance your lives, on many levels. I am including a passage by Dr. Kabat-Zinn who is a world-renown expert on mindfulness and the Executive Director of the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. I learned about Dr. Kabat-Zinn’s work about a year ago and it has helped me greatly. For the 2011 scholars, one of the first things for our next “to do list” starting this summer will be to listen to a podcast of Dr. Kabat-Zinn explaining this idea and practice. Here is just a quick taste; Heather shared this in class this past week.

In his book, “Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life,” Dr. Kabat-Zinn writes:

“Mindfulness is an ancient Buddhist practice which has profound relevance for our present-day lives. This relevance has nothing to do with Buddhism per se or with becoming a Buddhist, but it has everything to do with waking up and living in harmony with oneself and with the world. It has to do with examining who we are, with questioning our view of the world and our place in it, and with cultivating some appreciation for the fullness of each moment we are alive. Most of all, it has to do with being in touch.”

“Mindfulness is a simple concept. Its power lies in its practice and its applications. Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally. This kind of attention nurtures greater awareness, clarity, and acceptance of present-moment reality. It wakes us up to the fact that our lives unfold only in moments. If we are not fully present for many of those moments, we may not only miss what is most valuable in our lives but also fail to realize the richness and the depth of our possibilities for growth and transformation.”

Here is a link to more information on Dr. Kabat-Zinn, if you are interested.

http://www.umassmed.edu/Content.aspx?id=43102

JON KABAT-ZINN, PH.D., is founding Executive Director of the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. He is also the founding director of its renowned Stress Reduction Clinic and Professor of Medicine emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. He teaches mindfulness and Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) in various venues around the world. He received his Ph.D. in molecular biology from MIT in 1971 in the laboratory of Nobel Laureate, Salvador Luria.