Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
Written by Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D.
Narrated by Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D.
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About this audiobook
This 10th Anniversary edition of the inspiring and practical guide to meditation, includes a brand new afterword and an audio-exclusive interview with the author
A simple and straightforward introduction to Buddhist meditation practice from one of the country's leading authorities on stress-reduction techniques, Dr. Kabat-Zinn has taught this two-thousand-year-old Buddhist method of relaxation to thousands of patients. Through mindfulness, one makes every moment count. By "capturing" the present and living fully within each moment, one can reduce anxiety, achieve inner peace, and enrich the quality of life.
With warmth and humor, WHEREVER YOU GO THERE YOU ARE blends stories, poems, and scientific observations with easily followed instructions. The result is a unique audio program that is part inspiration and part study guide to a revolutionary new way of being, seeing, and living.
Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D.
Jon Kabat-Zinn, PhD, is professor of medicine emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and the founder and director of its renowned Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Clinic. His clinic was featured in 1993 in the public television series Healing and the Mind with Bill Moyers. Jon Kabat-Zinn is the author of 15 books, in print in over 45 languages. These include Full Catastrophe Living; Wherever You Go, There You Are; Coming to Our Senses; and Mindfulness for Beginners.
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Reviews for Wherever You Go, There You Are
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What our readers think
Readers find this title to be a great book about meditation and mindfulness. It provides great insight and wisdom, and is recommended for both beginners and long-time practitioners. The author's calm voice and concise chapters make it an enjoyable read. The book covers various meditation techniques and metaphors that are insightful and applicable to different areas of life. Overall, it is a perfect book to start a practice of mindfulness and self-awareness.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Listening to this book is another form of meditating. Thanks.
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A very good place to start a practice of mindfulness.
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I read this book a little bit each morning. I especially liked the simple things to try for mindfulness practice. The author uses concrete examples from his own life which were very helpful in understanding. The book seemed very practical to me and encouraged me to stay with my meditation practice, not for an outcome, but simply as part of my journey. I felt a sense of relief knowing that this is not about trying to get somewhere in order to have arrived.
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Amazing book! It will open up your meditation practice hoping you find true peace
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A perfect book, to inaugurate the beginning of self awareness, self appreciation and mindfulness in all that you do. Every chapter within the book is simple and concise, yet profound and insightful.
Dr. Kabat-Zinn, did a fantastic job conveying the message of 'self-enlightment' through "self-inquiry", concisely, and his calm voice was very reassuring and pleasant. I really enjoyed reading this book, and I would recommend it to those who are seeking equanimity (Where you go, there you are) ??❤ - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Super good. Ten out of 10 would definitely recommend yes
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This was such a Great book about meditation, great insight and wisdom.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5His voice sounds calm and let me peace,I love this book
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Third time through. An elegantly simple but deep explanation of meditation and mindfulness that with resonate with beginners and long time practitioners.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I was expecting good things from Wherever You Go There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life by Jon Kabat-Zinn. He is the developer of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) therapy, and a founding director of the Center for Mindfulness at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. This book was a best-seller, yet it managed to fall short of my expectations.Things started off well. I appreciated the lightheartedness of such comments as meditation "does not involve becoming some kind of zombie, vegetable, self-absorbed, narcissist, navel gazer, [or] space cadet". The book was laid out in a way that aimed to provide quick and easy access to the fundamentals of mindfulness meditation, with the message that anyone can meditate. However, for me the book didn't live up to the goal of making mindfulness meditation more accessible, and to be honest I was very tempted to give up partway through.The book was more focused on formal meditation practice than I was expecting. The author writes about sitting to meditate not simply as the physical act of sitting but as a sort of profound capital-S Sitting. I've heard that use of the term before and it has always somehow struck me as a tad pretentious. Walking meditation was also covered, with a lot of attention given to a formal practice that involves walking back and forth focusing on the motions of walking. I was disappointed by this, as one of my favourite ways to be mindful is to go out for walks and pay attention to the many small beauties of nature. At the stress reduction clinic where the the author practices, they have clients do an introduction to lying meditation that involves a 45 minute body scan while lying down, which is fine, but I don't think that it's something that's necessarily a draw for people who aren't wanting to make a considerable commitment to formal meditation practice.There were some very good suggestions, including trusting your own ability to reflect and grow and being generous to yourself and others. Kabat-Zinn explains that it's possible to find understanding and transformation in the present moment. He wrote "You cannot escape yourself, try as you might". A variety of metaphors were used that seemed quite intuitive, such as you can't stop the waves but you can learn to surf, and awareness is like a pot that is able to contain strong emotions. Other metaphors made less sense to me, like the idea that we are dancing mountains or that parenting is like an extended meditation retreat, with the child as the Zen master. He also likened sitting with our breathing to sitting by an open fire back in the caveman days.At times the book tends to venture into more obscure territory, and this is where it really lost me. The author suggests contemplating "what is my Way?" as part of meditation practice, and adds that "as a human being, you are the central figure in the universal hero's mythic journey." A quirk that irritated me slightly was his apparent love-on for Henry David Thoreau's book Walden, which is quote frequently. I'm not familiar with that book, and am really not sure why I'm supposed to care about it.I think my view on the book would have been different had I been looking for something heavily focused on formal meditation. However, that's just not the way that I'm wanting to incorporate mindfulness into my everyday life. I'm not someone who has any desire to go to a silent meditation retreat; that's not how I choose to go about my inwardly and outwardly mindful journey.I will leave you with this sentence from the afterword, which I think really captures the book as a whole: "Can we realize that wherever we go, there we are and that this 'there' is always 'here' and so requires at least acknowledgment and perhaps a degree of acceptance of what is, however it is, because it already is?"
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Probably one of the best books for anyone getting into Mindfulness. Doesn't matter if you are a beginner or already familiar with the topic, you'll enjoy reading this one.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Leaves one mindfully listening one lovely voice of the author.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Everyone who practices or wants to practice mindfulness should read this book
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Still love this book as a great introduction to mindfulness.
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5A teaspoon of usefulness buried in a pound of Eastern mysticism.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Many metaphors that are insightful when you think about it. A nice overview of what meditation is. For the short book it is, it is worth the effort of digging a little deep into the meaning and all the areas of life it applies to. Mindfulness is one great mental property to obtain.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Great quotes throughout. A book to nibble on.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I can appreciate why this is a classic. Very insightful with respect to meditation but also life. Going to try the Mountain Meditation.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This Vanished from my library before I finished. Good job, Scribd.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5If you're looking for something about meditation and mindfulness that's devoid of spiritual interpretations and the like, this is one of the closest approaches I've seen that still focused on the meditation aspect and not just generally being "more aware". It has some helpful suggestions for visualisation, including details not just of picturing things but of feeling things, like his suggestions for standing meditation of imagining yourself as a tree, the part where he mentioned approaching the practice with dignity, etc.
Overall, I doubt it's going to convince anyone who is highly sceptical to begin with, or help anyone start a practice ex nihilo. But it's worth reading, and sitting with, and thinking about, if you can put aside scepticism and just try it.
One thing I especially liked was that Kabat-Zinn doesn't have any thou-shalts and thou-shalt-nots about this. There's recommendations, suggestions, but also reminders that any moment of mindfulness in the day, however short, is valuable. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Ce livre audio à est très riche très complet incluant toutes les méditations classiques de la méditation de la montagne méditation du lac sitting méditation exetera je recommande vivement en plus la musique est très sympa je trouve
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This is a good book, but not excellent. In some ways, I think that if he had stopped at the book title, it would have been enough.The first section is excellent, and I like the exercises. Thereafter, Jon Kabat-Zinn becomes a bit repetitive, but it is a book you can still read and learn from. Ignore what he writes about the Indian word, 'samadhi'. Samadhi is not just one-pointedness, it is the highest form of (let us say) concentration, mindfulness, and oneness. It may be one step away from 'nirvana'.When you lie in samadhi, you are lying in a tomb, before cremation or burial. This is another aspect of samadhi. When you attain samadhi, you may die, or be so evolved that you are dead to the world.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Very good introduction to the subject matter. Written in a succinct and legible style that resonates through the quotes provided. Overall, a good book
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I was going to give this book 5 stars initially, but at a given point I started to lose interest and then moved into the ' when is this book going to end ' mode.
I loved it until the part when he was in favor in staying in bad situations rather than ' running '. So if you have an abusive, rude, mean spirited, etc boss, boyfriend, next door neighbor who is make your life a misery, one should continue to deal with it, especially when there are options available to get away and protect yourself, your feelings, your own self-respect ? Sorry Jon, life is too short to be in a miserable situation for one extra second, when you have an option to leave.
I wanted to shoot myself when I got to the chapters on parenting, as I am not a parent, but felt if I skipped over those 2 chapters, then I would be cheating by saying I read the book, so got thru it reluctantly. The last chapter was the final straw, when discussing his views on spiritually, which he does not seem to deem very important or worthy.
So it started with 5 stars and went down to 3 by the time I got thru with it. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Interesting exercises, and I love his examples of applying meditative practice to ordinary tasks. A little difficult to navigate: you lose the forest for the trees, because he talks more about individual trees, as it were. Still very much worth it.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5If you are reading Wherever You Go just to say you have read Wherever You Go (like I am) this will take you no time at all. Sometimes a page is as short as a paragraph or just a couple of sentences. But, if you are looking for mindfulness it is best to read this book slowly. Let each section sink in and be sure to savor each line. It is a basic introduction to Buddhist meditation without of mumbo jumbo.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Easy to read and understand. We really do need to "be in the moment". Society is so busy and supersonic as to what we need and where we need to be that we lose sight of what "is". We ar emissing "moments' we cannot get back.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I've never been a consistent meditator, but I've often thought that I am a good candidate. My mind often races, and I'm a chronic multi-tasker. Although I try, I'm not great at focusing on the present moment. But when I slow down enough to think about it, I don't want to miss a minute of the rest of my life. It sounds like a cliché to say that time flies, but that cliché has felt very real to me lately. My kids are getting older - one just finished his first year of middle school and the other will be a high school sophomore in the fall. My older son just got his first paying job - worship leader and praise band director at our church. (Yes, he's getting paid to play guitar - he's on top of the world!) My husband and I have started talking about what we'll do when we are empty nesters. Losing both of my parents recently has also made it very real that the next moment is not guaranteed. This makes me want to live in the moment, and so I picked up Kabat-Zinn's book on mindfulness meditation. This book is made up of short chapters. There is a little bit of "how to," but even more reflection on the role of meditation and mindfulness in our lives. So, while people looking for a mediation guidebook might not find what they need here, it was quotes like this one that made this a worthwhile read for me:"Meditation is simply about being yourself and knowing something about who that is. It is about coming to realize that you are on a path whether you like it or not, namely, the path that is your life. Meditation may help us see that this path we call our life has direction; that it is always unfolding, moment by moment, and that what happens now, in this moment, influences what happens next."
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A relatively simple text about mindfulness and meditation practice, and as such wants a close and careful reading—otherwise you're just going to think you've heard all this stuff before. But why bother reading it in the first place if you don't want to actually think about it? Otherwise, y'know, just read some inspirational stuff on Facebook. But actually taking the time to read this slowly, and think about everything he says, was rewarding. He's intelligent and compassionate about the human condition in general, and stays pretty much away from dogma. It's all stuff worth thinking about. Recommended.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A wonderful book. Kabat-Zinn helps to teach you don't have to sit in the lotus posture when you are meditating. Mindfulness can be every minute of the day.