Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life | Jon Kabat-zinn

Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life | Jon Kabat-zinn | Inspirational for Others interested in Meditations ... but you have to be ready to read about the topic first though

books:

Wherever You Go, T...

	Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life Jon Kabat-zinn Hyperion, 2005 - 304 pages average customer review:based on 89 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

In The Timeless Here and Now

My best friend tends to take life slowly and accept it on its own terms...and that facet of his personality has always driven me crazy! :-) The words "slow" and "languid" could never be applied to my lifestyle. I have always hurried through life at such a frantic pace...regretting yesterday and dreaming of tomorrow, yet never truly living in the moment. A year ago I happened upon this book, and it has made an enormous impact on my life. This literary jewel took me to a place I'd never visited before: the realm of 'moment mindfulness.' As the author so eloquently writes,

The lack of mindfulness "...scavenges to fill time, conspires with my mind to keep me unconscious, lulled in a fog of numbness to a certain extent. It has me unavailable to others, missing the play of the light on the table, the smells in the room, the energies of the moment. Stillness, insight, and wisdom arise only when we can settle into being complete in this moment, without having to seek or hold on to or reject anything."

Learning how to immerse myself in this moment, and this moment alone, has been incredibly difficult. Yet the serenity, peace and soul satisfaction experienced therein are priceless. The "Non-Judging" chapter alone is worth the price of the book. Realizing my propensity to constantly evaluate my experiences and hold them up against expectations and standards that I create, often out of fear, has been tremendously liberating. I largely thank this book, and my best friend, for that lesson learned. :-)

I enthusiastically recommend this book to everyone. I find it especially useful to my clients who struggle with childhood abuse issues. Therapy clients who suffer from bi-polar, COPD or Borderline Personality disorders could also be helped significantly from learning the meditation techniques in this book.

We exist as we are, on this plane, in this realm, at this moment in the timeless here and now. And that is enough....more than enough.

for more information click here

Inspirational for Others interested in Meditations ... but you have to be ready to read about the topic first though

This is a book you have to be ready to read in order to get the benefit out of it. You will either think it is just scribbles of others' notes. Or you will think that it is a masterpiece. I bought this book sitting on my shelf a year ago. Why? Because at that point of my life I could not stop my racing thoughts (the need to do something all the time) enough to experience what the author - Jon Kabat-Zinn, tries to communicate. Some how, life turned around a little (probably when I started reading Eckart Tolle's books). My thought pattern starts slowing down and I start living in the present moment with consciousness of thoughts. A year later, I pick up this book again and start reading. Suddenly, it is truly a bundle of joy. It is a book I would like to read when I am at the coffee shop or even just to enjoy a great Saturday afternoon. I feel that this book is truly a rare jewel you find on Earth. The author picks up the most delicate moment where human beings can meditate. He gives me great inspiration/ways to slow down thoughts/thinking.

But again, meditations, staying in the present moment isn't something we need to read a lot about. We can read on the world's greatest books and still not able to find peace and joy in life. Just like what the author had said in one chapter. One can jump from one teacher to another looking for salvation from the outside. However, it is working on the inner self, focusing on the inner thoughts and patterns that rise one's mindful/peaceful thinking to the next level (yet rising just means further centering and grounding).

From experience, it is about letting the human ego die every day and letting go of fear and judgement. Letting go of the seemingly unbearable pain and attachment. It is truly about having full awareness of thoughts and beliefs and process those things on a piece of paper/therapist. Then, sooner or later, one will find a taste of what mindfulness truly mean. You might still endure physical pain because of illness. But the pain gets easier every day when we are aware of our mind and body.

This is a book to experience. Speed-reading will not help you to taste what the author is trying to offer.

for more information click here

Excellent Book on Meditation

I've been looking for information on meditating for quite some time and thankfully I finally found this book. I can't believe it took me as long as it did since this book is a classic.

The book is broken up into three parts. The first part explains what mediation is, and what it isn't. The second part describes how to go about meditating. Finally the third part describe what you can expect to get out of meditation, and what you can't.

This is one of the most insightful books I've read on just about any subject. If you are just looking into mediation or have been doing it for years, I'd highly recommend this book

for more information click here

wherever you go there you are

The book is great, it blew my mind, and changed the way I see life. The delivery [of the book] was super fast. I Never received an item so soon when ordering. I was very satisfied with the whole purchase.

Good starting point for an absolutely important topic

I have long had an interest in meditation and bought the audio version of this book a while ago. I have listened to it on and off and find the mindfulness aspect to be quite useful. While confirming to the Buddhist tradition, it is quite secular and easy to understand and practice and with visible benefits.

I have since had the good fortune to take meditation classes with Erhard Vogel (Nataraja Ashram) and use the companion book, Journey Into Your Center, Second Edition. The meditation is loosely based on the Advaita school of Hinduism but is equally secular as the mindfullness school. I like Erhard Vogel's appraoch way more.

I feel that the acceptance of equality among all and consequent divinity of all to be intrinsically positive and affirming. It takes away many of the false constructs that are the reason for most misery and frames life as a gloriously positive thing. Since we are all equal and equally divine, there is no reason to hate, fear, indulge in vanity, greed, pettiness etc. When these normal pre-occupations of the mind are removed, our time and energy is now availabe to discover what fulfills us in truth and to allign our actions and experiences in accord to that. Our mind then is required to fuifill one (and only one) important function - which is to reflect our personal divinity at all times and to frame all our experiences in this context. We can then use our faculties (mind, body, senses, feelings and emotions, intellect and intuitition) to choose actions (at will) that fulfill us and also express our gloriousness. This is not the same as saying one must repress normal life experiences and consequent emotions - it is to view them in the right context and with the right perspective and to let them pass if they are contrary to the true being that we are. This allows for normal life experiences in all their colorfulness without the associated attachment and long term baggage.

I am a very scientific person and have never felt that the approach takes away from my curiosity about things, my scientific scepticism and experience and experimentation-based mode of learning. In fact most Advaita schools and definitely Erhard Vogel's approach is for participants to learn only through their own experiences.

While easy to understand, living in accord with our divinity and pricinples takes practice and real courage. The meditation program iteslf is three year long (and available to anyone in the world through the Internet) - but the benefits are available from the very beginning. I am six months into it and am a whole new person. I went from a big company, cushy job without any rensposibilities to leading the systems group of a small company. Less money, more learning and fun and more responsibility to get things to work. (I have no ego about the lead job, BTW :-))

While the mindfullness approach and Kabat-Zinn's books in particular were useful, I found (and still do), the Erhard approach to Meditation (where you don't "do" meditation but it is how you live) to be very holistic and much more beneficial.

This is not to say it is better, only that it suits my temperment and intellect a lot more. I am sure others might come to a different conclusion. I would nevertheless encourage everyone to look at the Advaita tradition as well. It will not take away from your learning and can only add to it.

for more information click here