Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction
A key contributor to the spread of mindfulness meditation in the West - Professor Jon Kabat-Zinn - is a scientist trained in molecular biology who has a passionate interest in the potential of Buddhist meditation practices and yoga to relieve suffering.
Thirty-five years ago he brought together the scientific method, the Western Insight Vipassana tradition (a form of Theravadan Buddhism) and Hatha yoga to generate the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction program. In this eight week program, he brought together these understandings in the following skilful ways:
- it was grounded in science;
- it was secular enough to appeal to a wide range of people from all sorts of walks of life;
- it was intensive enough to make a difference; and
- it was short enough to be "do-able" in a community setting.
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Over the years Jon Kabat-Zinn's original program has now been translated into a range of mindfulness applications for specific issues including: substance addiction, pain, depression, anxiety, eating problems, cancer and for specific contexts such as leadership, workplaces, education, the criminal justice system and for frontline workers such as medical staff, child-protection workers, police personnel and firefighters.
People came to those original mindfulness trainings with Jon with all their stress, hope, curiosity, skepticism, busyness, pain, physical illness, demanding jobs, anxiety, depression, relationship troubles, general disenchantment and unease, and genius - to do an experiment in living with more presence and care over eight weeks and beyond.
We invite you to come and do that same experiment and see what it can offer you.
