Jon Kabat-Zinn, who brought mindfulness meditation into mainstream medical settings, discusses how the centering practice can help with some of today's widespread social problems.Jon Kabat-Zinn is a leading researcher into the health effects of meditation. He developed the Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction protocol in 1979.Jon Kabat-Zinn is a leading researcher into the health effects of meditation. He developed the Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction protocol in 1979.
In a wide ranging interview, Kabat-Zinn shared his thoughts on how mindfulness can extend beyond individual self-improvement – and affect social change. Here are five of his insights:1. The widespread adoption of mindfulness is today is 'radical beyond imagining' Never in my wildest imagination could I have ever conceived that the Surgeon General of the United States would, in his own voice, out of his own meditative experience, offer a whole range of brief, beautiful, accessible guided meditations for the American population.2. Mindfulness combats social isolation by helping us connect with ourselves and others
We all come from nameless generations for gazillions of years to give rise to this kind of genetic chromosome combination called"me." I live for a relatively short period of time, pass on my genes maybe, and then: gone. So why not recognize the miracle of the present moment? From a public health perspective, before we give up our analog selves, maybe we need to go back to some first principles.Maybe we need to understand what it means, inwardly and outwardly, to be an analog being before we wind up becoming so hybridized or colonized by the digital.