Jon Kabat-Zinn - Letting everything become your teacher: 100 lessons in mindfulness

ARRIVING AT YOUR OWN DOOR:
108 Lessons in Mindfulness
(compiled with Hor Tuck Loon)

COMING TO OUR SENSES:
Healing Ourselves and the World Through Mindfulness

THE MINDFUL WAY THROUGH DEPRESSION:
Freeing Yourself from Chronic Unhappiness
(with Mark Williams, John Teasdale, and Zindel Segal)

EVERYDAY BLESSINGS:
The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting
(with Myla Kabat-Zinn)

WHEREVER YOU GO, THERE YOU ARE:
Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life

FULL CATASTROPHE LIVING:
Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind
to Face Stress, Pain and Illness

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T his gift would not have come to fruition were it not for the following kindness and openness

Im indebted to Jon Kabat-Zinn for his gracious open-heartedness in giving the initial permission to compile the verses which make this book possible. Chee Fun for her precious time in going through the draft of this work in the earlier stage, Becky and George for their continuous feedback, assistance, and sincerity. The many spiritual seekers who have touched my life in many great ways, thus making them my teachers. Most important of all my wife, Lai Fun, who makes her life my lessons in mindfulness and patience to deal with my own shortcomings.

Hor Tuck Loon

T his book was first conceived in 1992 when I had just exited from a months meditation retreat and was recommended by a friend to read Full Catastrophe Living by Jon Kabat-Zinn.

I was instantly enthralled by the depth and clarity of Jons work on mindfulness in his eight-week program at the Stress Reduction Clinic, University of Massachusetts Medical Center. While going through the book, I highlighted the verses relevant to my own level of practice at that time. I was so inspired I wanted to compile a book then but there it remainedan inspiration!

After more than ten years of mindless deliberation and procrastination, I was again inspired by the verses I had previously highlightedthis time with a different level of understanding knitted to a fresh perspective out of my recent insight meditation practice, where an emphasis on right attitude in the watching mind matters more than what is being watched or experienced how you relate to the sensations you experience makes a big difference in the degree of pain you actually feel and how much you suffer. (Jon Kabat-Zinn)

Though the words are the same as a decade ago, my understanding now differs greatly: there is a deeper sense of clarity and purpose. Whatever level of practice we are at, Jons articulate style allows each person to resonate with the verses at their own personal level.

I wish to present Jons work in this collection of verses as a gift to readers to inspire them in their meditation practice, for whether during a retreat or in their daily life, mindfulness practice and life are inseparable.

May this little offering be a guide to those passionate seekers who are in this life seeking within.

Hor Tuck Loon

,000 medical patients and almost thirty years of experience and scientific studies from the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction(MBSR) Clinic and Center for Mindfulness at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center have shown us that the cultivation of greater mindfulness through regular systematic formal and informal meditation practice can make a huge difference in the quality of life of people with a wide range of chronic stress disorders, pain conditions, and outright illness, to say nothing of those suffering from the normal wear and tear of the constant and mounting stress that is part and parcel of our everyday lives in this culture of 24/7 connectivity and multitasking. These pressures on our lives make it more and more difficult to find time for being and for moments of non-doing that might restore us, body and soul. Such moments, always available to us, but so easily missed, also allow us to remember, pay attention to, and embody what is most important in our lives, rather than getting caught up in the endless stream of what is most demanding or seductive.

This book of excerpts from Full Catastrophe Livingthe book in which mindfulness meditation, the MBSR program, and the applications of mindfulness to stress, pain, and illness are described in great detailcan give you a doorway into the practice of mindfulness and the rediscovery of what is deepest and best in yourself. Any one, or any number, of these 100 pointers can readily remind you of what you already know in a deep way, that you actually have a choice in every moment: the choice of how to be in wise relationship to this moment, inwardly and outwardly, no matter what is happening. By taking responsibility for your own experience in this way, you are taking a profound and potentially transformative step toward both healing and genuine well-being and happiness, not in some better future that may never come, but in the only moment you ever have for living, for breathing, for loving, for being namely this one. You already have this power. It is innate in all of us. All it takes is paying attention, and being kind to yourself; and persevering in remembering that you are alive only in this moment, and now is the only time you ever have for making choices, and that this now is always available to you. Every moment is indeed a new beginning.

Since you have only moments to live, why not live them completely, and find out what it might mean to be true more of the time to your own deepest, most authentic nature?

This book was developed by Hor Tuck Loon of Malaysia out of his own passion for mindfulness and a desire to bring it to a wide range of people who are stressed and suffering in various ways. I am greatly indebted to him for both the idea of this book, and for its execution, which includes his own original photographic and graphic artistry, and his own choices in how to emphasize the transformative potential of mindfulness. The product is saturated with his generosity and spaciousness of heart.