Jon Kabat-Zinn Defines Mindfulness

Clinical mindfulness expert Jon Kabat-Zinn gives an operational definition of mindfulness.

An excerpt from "Becoming Conscious: The Science of Mindfulness" featuring Steve Paulson, Richard Davidson, Jon Kabat-Zinn & Amishi Jha.

The New York Academy of Sciences
Wednesday, February 6, 2013

[EstelaVNoble]

Don´t stand in the doorway, but enter the room! Loved it!

[aboemusic]

The bicep curl analogy is a good way of putting it.

Most of the time it's easy to give up once the mind drifts off more than a few times, but thinking of it this way (as an exercise itself) is potentially a helpful way of approaching it.

Thanks.

[Shacktuube]

That was a great explanation! In my own meditation practice I have found having a focal point, usually the breathe, to be much more beneficial than meditating in a loosely defined manor, where I just attempt to pay attention to whatever comes to me. It seems that the loosely defined practice doesn't provide the feedback necessary to know how much I am able to willfully maintain awareness.

[biller]

The mindfulness practice is basically paying attention to your attention.

[derekfreeman]

There is a conference on Mindfulness and Neuroscience organised by the Centre for Mindfulness Research and Practice at Bangor University founded by Mark Williams in the UK in April 2014.

[jimzheng]

Attending to the attendee itself...great insight

[siobhanhannan]

A very good explanation. Mindfulness, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, means "awareness" and also "to remember". This is a response to the comment below.

[killerpimp]

I immediately fell into a trance while trying to be aware of being aware...

[nfcoard]

I like practicing mindfulness of anything. But I like mindfulness of my breath and walking the most. Maybe because I like breathing and walking quite a lot so it's easy and enjoyable. I also like feeling my inner body as Eckhart Tolle calls it. I feel the energy inside my body and that part of my body comes alive and often starts to tingle or vibrate. Especially hands and feet. It's very healing and energizing to the body and it's hard to think and do this at the exact same time.

[thoms]

I agree, but thats because its easier to focus on something than to focus on nothing. Because what is nothing? how do you learn to do nothing? this is way more difficult to grasp than to learn to focus on something visable/aware as the breath.

[mrbiofeedback]

A Meditation Poem:

It is impossible for logic,
Whatever the pedagogic
discipline, to transcend the chains of self. To think that linear though
which begot,
the dichotomy, is equal to the task,
to unmask,
the riddle of consciousness,
one must confess,
is illogical. Ego projects riddles to transcend,
and without end,
poses and reposes, questions to amuse the self. It is a paradox,
one can’t outfox.
To seek the self from within,
Silence must transcend the conscious din
Copyright L.Klein

[BarbarraBay]

'MIndfulness' means to 'remember'. Mindfulness does not mean 'awareness'.

[spaceadds]

absurd, it is all concentration and concentration is stress . Stress of performance . The world is reduce to man made machine . Buddha got enlightenment when he was able to get rid from this concentration . Ignoring the past and not caring for the future ...in the name of present is totally absurd . It is totality ...that is why fullness & emptiness laid the foundation of Yoga or the making of budhha .