Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life

by Jon Kabat-Zinn

When you drop in to a period of formal meditation practice and attempt, even for a relatively brief time, to dwell in stillness, the judging mind can come through like a relentless foghorn. I can’t take this pain in my knee.… This is boring.… I like this feeling of stillness.… I had a good meditation yesterday, but today I’m having a bad meditation.… It’s not working for me. I’m no good at this. I’m no good, period. This type of thinking dominates the mind and weighs it down. It’s like carrying around a suitcase full of rocks on your head. It feels good to put it down. Imagine how it might feel to suspend all your habitual judging and instead let each moment be just as it is, without attempting to evaluate it as “good” or “bad” from such a self-preoccupied and exclusively self-centered perspective. This gesture alone might afford a momentary taste of stillness, of liberation. You would be immediately at home in your own being, at least for that fleeting timeless moment.