Jon Kabat-Zinn Quotes

Compared to what we ought to be, we are half awake.

Balance, peace, and joy are the fruit of a successful life. It starts with recognizing your talents and finding ways to serve others by using them.

To be happy is to be able to become aware of oneself without fright.

We do not yet possess ourselves, and we know at the same time that we are much more.

Our own self-realization is the greatest service we can render the world.

Meditation is to get insight, to get understanding and compassion, and when you have them, you are compelled to act.

When we learn new behaviors and break through to higher levels of consciousness and love, we can fulfill the deeper spiritual hunger within.

I want people to find their inner depth.

My journey is not to be a star but to become as aware a person as possible.

I have a cult-like following because I exemplify what it is to be a human being.

My main life interest and purpose is to bring spiritual awakening into this world, to be a vehicle for the flowering of consciousness, to help people to live more consciously with less unnecessary suffering and self-generated unhappiness.

I think that all the spiritual training is just to be able to allow you to experience this from a slightly different perspective - one that's a little more stabilized.

When every moment, you experience yourself as the source of creation, not as a piece of creation, then you are realized.

What you seek, you already are.

Meditation is not growth of the ego, it is death of the ego.

You are more than you think you are. There are dimensions of your being and a potential for realization and consciousness that are not included in your concept of yourself. Your life is much deeper and broader than you conceive it to be here. What you are living is but a fractional inkling of what is really within you, what gives you life, breadth, and depth.

Nobody can decide for himself whether he is going to be a human being. The only question open to him is whether he will be an ignorant undeveloped one or one who has sought to reach the highest point he is capable of attaining.

There are, strictly speaking, no enlightened people, there is only enlightened activity.

When I got untethered from the comfort of religion, it wasn't a loss of faith for me, it was a discovery of self. I had faith that I'm capable enough to handle any situation. There's peace in understanding that I have only one life, here and now, and [that] I'm responsible.

Each one should realize there is nothing in (us) which denies that which (we) desire.

If you are ready to wake up, you are going to wake up. If you're not you are going to stay pretending that you are just a poor little me.

Without knowing yourself, there is no peace.

Everything in our lives has the potential to wake us up or put us to sleep. Allowing it to awaken us is up to us.

When we experience stress, the nervous system tries to control things. Part of waking up is discovering what we are beyond that controlling organism.

If we really prefer basic sanity or enlightenment, it's irritatingly possible to get into it.