Fantastic material, but... 2010-09-07

Reviewer: Mary Katherine

This is something I have noticed in some people who know a great deal about a solution to a problem that would lower or eliminate human suffering in a particular area. It can become very difficult to avoid exhortations about how change MUST happen NOW. And sometimes that might be true. Other times - I'm not so sure. At any rate, the bottom line is that people will wake up at their own speed.

This is hard on Kabat-Zinn and I can see why it would be. To give one example, mindfulness can help people accept their own mortality, and stop trying to hang on when there is nothing left but pain. I'm not talking about giving up too soon or failing to fight disease, but knowing when it really is the very end and coming to terms with it.

However, b/c this does upset Kabat-Zinn, he spends time telling people they need to wake up and the problem is that people have to do that in their own time. I am certainly not saying that speaking about one's values is wrong, and I tend to share Kabat-Zinn's values, but he sees the need for people to wake up and I think it's hard (as other reviewers have commented) to avoid just saying over and over, you have to do this. It can be hard for people to hear that message. Again, I am not saying all speaking on issues like global warming is inappropriate; that is an extremely important issue that should cause a high level of concern. Speaking on important issues can be crucial.

However, the reality is that people will wake up when they wake up. I have found luck with Leave Your Sleep (2CD). I would think one reason that title was chosen is b/c Merchant was trying to tell people to wake up or increase knowledge/consciousness, in a different way from Kabat-Zinn.

I think that people often feel helpless in the face of big problems like our current environmental situation. They don't know what to do so they don't do anything. I think in some cases, the approach to the issues needs to be made more personal, and more interesting.

This has been done before. The "Mr. Yuk" campaign and song made childhood poisoning memorable and it caused a lot of parents and children to understand the dangers of some of the substances in their homes.

Personally, I would like to do this with global warming. A lot of people remember the Christmas stop-motion animation show "The Year Without A Santa Claus" which is from 1974. I didn't like the Santa part but that show has a hilarious debate between two half-brothers who are both sons of Mother Nature, Heat Miser and Snow Miser. The singing and dancing has to be seen to be believed.

Heat Miser likes it hot and he controls the South. Snow Miser likes it cold and he controls the North. For the sake of the plot, they need to trade a spring day at the North Pole for a snowy day in South Town, USA.

Personally I would like to see a competition between Heat Miser and Snow Miser as a way to promote efforts to counteract global warming, if copyright and etc. allows. The idea could be that Heat Miser has an unfair advantage and people need to pitch in and make it more of a fair fight for Snow Miser.

I used to work at the Environmental Protection Agency and proposed this idea. It did not go anywhere.

I have other ideas like that, but I had to wait to do mindfulness for years. When I found out about mindfulness in 2006, I was not ready to do it. I had a long-standing problem with visual hallucinations that were probably more like 'illusions' in that they were distortions, but they also involved strong emotion. It was like an emotion-color synesthesia but not as that term is commonly conceived. I would link changes in light and shadow with emotion in a way that showed psychosis.

b/c of this, I was not ready to become aware. Mindfulness involves observing and when I finally paid attention to it, the first thing I realized was that I had a hallucination issue. I then had to deal with that emotionally.

I have repeatedly been in the situation of spending time with people who had a lot more intelligence, insight, and knowledge than I did/do. I remember some of this from childhood with people who tried to help me, and some of it applies to my adult life in therapy. If memory serves, there have been times when I thought that some adult or other was deceived about the nature of my problems, when the reality is that more than likely, the people I'm thinking of understood the issues extremely well but allowed me to think I, or the situation, deceived them. That meant that the situation did not become unbearable, b/c these connections involved trauma, and by thinking people were deceived, I was allowed to maintain a psychological distance until I could face it. If I had retained the knowledge of just how much they knew, I would not feel "normal" in a way that can be very important.

Therapy is like this too. My therapist has seen a lot that I don't, sometimes many years before I could address it. She has withheld most of that knowledge, even when I've been curious and asked a lot of questions. I have many times known enough to identify a relevant issue, but not enough to properly understand and face it. This has left me asking questions in ways that show I'm not ready to hear the answers. What happened in childhood was sort of like this, I think. My therapist became expert at putting me off with evasive non-answers until I was ready to hear the truth. Becoming consciously aware of the degree to which shifting or "dynamic" hallucinations impacted me was one of those issues.

There are times when I have said I knew more than my therapist, and I was right. She has not known everything, especially when I was not able to explain. But it has taken time to deal with this stuff.

Other people might have problems like this and they are just not ready to hear the message quite yet. It can take time and I think Kabat-Zinn is frustrated by this. That's why I give this book four stars although there is a lot of vital information here.

Exemplary 2010-08-23

Reviewer: C. DeGetmon

It would be difficult to add to the positive reviews previously noted, but this is Zinn's Opus. It is the distillation of John's life work and the final word on adapting one's life so to live in total and complete awareness. It is a fine book, and one that will add value to your life if you follow the simple instructions.

To be truthful, I am utterly surprised why a few reviewers take umbrage with this work. I found it bedrock!

If you are interested in healing the rupture of western civilization and the human psyche, you can find no better guide than Zinn.

A redundant book from a pioneer in the field 2010-07-27

Reviewer: Shane Johnson

I have great respect for Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn. He has made enormous strides in helping to move mindfulness to the forefront in a variety of areas. It is because of him that mindfulness is so commonly accepted in mainstream circles these days.

Having read Full Catastrophe Living (and learning much from it), I have to say that I was expecting more new information regarding the insights that Dr. Kabat-Zinn and the rest of the medical community have gained regarding mindfulness. There were a few new studies mentioned, but I mainly found this book to be a regurgitation of much of what Dr. Kabat-Zinn has presented to us before. In addition, the book is redundant and I think that the messages could have been delivered with sufficient detail in a book 1/3 of the size (it is over 600 pages long).

With that being said, this book is still important as it will undoubtedly be something that introduces many new people to mindfulness. If you haven't read Full Catastrophe Living, however, I would chose that over this one.

coming to our senses 2010-07-12

Reviewer: Sara Ohrtman

AS I HAVE NOT RECEIVED this book YET from the re-seller,I can't give a review. It was sent? june 11, still in mail!???
I have reported it .

Powerful 2010-04-06

Reviewer: Shayne Fisher

Kabat-zinn's writing is hypnotic, as a novice in meditation and zen through the process of just reading this book, a piece of KZ's thought patern and zen mind is absorbed. I am only 3/4's the way through the book, and I am unable to read more than a couple chapters in one sitting because the concepts are so overwhelming and they sweep you away into a healthy inventory of your own awareness, and awakens hidden passions. Please read this book!