Falling awake with Jon Kabat-Zinn

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“This culture is not only fertile ground for mindfulness, we are actually starving for mindfulness,” says Jon Kabat-Zinn as he gives us a fresh look at the relevance of mindfulness and meditation. A pioneer in bringing Eastern meditative techniques into Western medical therapy, he has decades of experience in the effectiveness of meditative techniques for chronic stress and pain conditions as well as simple daily annoyances. By paying attention in the moment and to the people we are with, he says, we can bring a richness and power to our lives that goes beyond healing to give us meaning, wonder and joy in life. “It’s very similar to falling asleep,” he says, “only this is actually falling awake.” Kabat-Zinn is the founder and director of the Stress Reduction Clinic at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center, and the author of Full Catastrophe Living (Delacorte 1991) and Wherever You Go, There You Are (Hyperion 1994).

Kabat-Zinn is the founder and director of the Stress Reduction Clinic at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center, and the author of Full Catastrophe Living (Delacorte 1991) and Wherever You Go, There You Are (Hyperion 1994).

Topics Explored in this Dialogue:

• A sensitive and effective approach to chronic stress and pain control
• Common misconceptions–and the truth–about meditation
• The importance of attentiveness to other people in everyday situations
• The importance of doctors’ attentiveness to patients
• What Buckminster Fuller learned from contemplating suicide
• Appreciating ourselves as geniuses and as “walking miracles”
• The “cat food lesson” that Kabat-Zinn learned

Host: Michael Toms Interview Date: 1/20/1994