What it argues
Mindfulness for Beginners is Jon Kabat-Zinn's entry-level introduction to mindfulness meditation. Kabat-Zinn, who founded the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program at the University of Massachusetts in 1979 and has done more than almost anyone to bring meditative practice into mainstream medicine, wrote the book as an accessible companion for people who are curious about mindfulness but have no prior experience or have tried and struggled.
The book's central argument is that mindfulness — paying deliberate, non-judgmental attention to present-moment experience — is not a technique to be added to an already busy life but a fundamental reorientation of how one relates to experience itself. Kabat-Zinn distinguishes between the mode of doing, which is how most people operate most of the time, and the mode of being, which involves inhabiting experience directly without the constant commentary of evaluation and planning. He frames mindfulness not as relaxation or stress relief, though those may follow, but as clarity about what is actually happening in the mind and body.
What it gets right
- 1.
Mindfulness is paying deliberate, non-judgmental attention to the present moment — to what is actually happening in the mind and body right now, not to thoughts about it.
- 2.
The mode of being, in which experience is inhabited directly, is different from the mode of doing, which involves constant evaluation, planning, and reaction. Most people rarely operate in the first mode.
- 3.
Beginner's mind means approaching each moment with openness and curiosity rather than assuming you already know what you're encountering. Experts often lose this quality.
What it covers
Who wrote it
Jon Kabat-Zinn is a molecular biologist and professor emeritus of medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. In 1979 he founded the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction clinic and later the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society, which has trained thousands of clinicians worldwide. His research helped establish mindfulness as a legitimate subject of medical and psychological study. He is the author of Full Catastrophe Living, Wherever You Go There You Are, and several other books that have brought meditative practice to a broad general audience.
