Mindfulness for Beginners

By: Jon Kabat-Zinn

Narrated by: Jon Kabat-Zinn

Length: 2 hrs and 24 mins

Publisher's summary

What if you could profoundly change your life just by becoming more mindful of your breathing? According to Jon Kabat-Zinn, you can. What if "paying attention on purpose and non-judgmentally" could improve your health? Again, according to Dr. Kabat-Zinn, it can.

In Mindfulness for Beginners, this internationally known scientist, best-selling author, and teacher who brought mindfulness meditation into the mainstream of medicine and society gives you immediate access to a practice that can potentially add years to your life, and will certainly enhance the quality of your moments and your years. Join Dr. Kabat-Zinn to:

Explore five guided meditations that lead you breath by breath into the essence of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), a program offered in medical clinics and hospitals around the world

Cultivate the Seven Key Attitudinal Factors of MBSR, qualities of heart and mind that lay the foundation for mindfulness practice and for seeing and accepting things as they are as a first step to working wisely and compassionately with stress, pain, illness, and sorrow as well as life's joys and pleasures, Zorba's "full catastrophe"

Free yourself from limiting perspectives, and become more intimate with your own boundless awareness

"You're already in the perfect moment for inhabiting this liberating awareness, which is always available," teaches Jon Kabat-Zinn. With Mindfulness for Beginners, he invites you to cultivate mindfulness as if your life depended on it, which it surely does, and experience the magnitude and beauty of who you already are.

©2006 Jon Kabat-Zinn (P)2006 Sounds True

Great start for beginners, but be patient

Overall, it's an easy read for those first hearing about mindfulness and even experienced meditators who appreciate reaffirming.

The quality of reading was imperfect. With odd pauses mid sentence. But since you're supposed to be mindful and non judgmental, it shouldn't be a bother.

Great insights to pick up and spark more interest for further reading.

A great guide

You get out of it what you put in. I like that it’s all about what I can do to empower myself through accountability and reasonable action steps. I recommend to open-minded (including skeptical ones) listeners.

This is really good!

Would you consider the audio edition of Mindfulness for Beginners to be better than the print version?

Yes, for something like meditation, it's more 'real' when you can listen. Also with this book, which I have, you don't get the guided meditations except on c.d.

What about Jon Kabat-Zinn’s performance did you like?

I don't know why one reviewer said it was awful, it was fine, and he does show inflection and passion for it. He is NOT monotone.

Any additional comments?

Listen for yourself, it's a great book for beginners, which I am. Lots of good, easy to understand concepts.

Best Beginners Book for Mindfulness

I've tried many books on mindfulness and nonduality. I've tried Eckhart Tolle, all he seems to do is talk in circles, he maybe a lovely person but 3-4 years of listening to him and basically all that was learned is that I create my own suffering. I could have gotten that much from reading Carl Jung in 3 months. THIS book however there is no BS, no stringing people along in order to make more money, no confusing terminology (ala Tolle -> pain-body -> really? Tolle refuses to use the term Mindfulness causing even more confusion), SO much better than Tolle can even dream of. There is frustration that I could have read THIS book at the same time I read Tolle but didn't. I could have saved myself 4-5 years of confusion and have been living as Awareness from the "get go" with this book 4-5 years ago. Dr. Kabat-Zinn, thank you so, so very much for all the research you and your peers have done. The down-to-earth, no BS, no stringing along language and direct teaching that you command so lucidly and easily made this a breeze. You have made it simple for anyone to learn that we are the awareness and that our thoughts and everything else that is impermanent is "what comes and goes". I wish I could shake your hand, buy you a coffee or just say thank you in person. My only regrets are that I lived so far away from where you did your research that I had to wait 20ish years to even hear of mindfulness in this hillbilly hellscape and last regret was not reading this before any other book on mindfulness. If I could pick one book that all my friends and family had to read, this would be it. I help teach Tolle online and have been sending over 100k (nearing 200k people on website by January) people the message to read you first before any other author whenever I get the chance. Thank you for everything.

Fun intro to mindfulness

Nice simple, interesting and fun intro to mindfulness. Mindful meditation is very well explained. Not complicated at all.

Too short to be worth the credit.

It was a good overview of meditation. Wish it went deeper into the practice.

Reader salivating & swallowing make it disgusting

Would you consider the audio edition of Mindfulness for Beginners to be better than the print version?

No. It's exactly the reading of the book that is so offensive to the ear that the content becomes lost

How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?

The story itself, and the book, are fantastic.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

Reader salivating & swallowing make it disgusting

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

I had an extreme repulsion to hearing the reader's body fluid management

give this a chance

most memorable moment was definitely the first chapter and last chapter. I was hooked by the first moment. thank you for the vision and language I didn't know I needed

A great book to read over and over

I listen to this book all the time. Mostly at night while preparing to sleep. Thanks

Ok For Beginners

There are only two chapters to this book. The first chapter gives you a good intro to awareness and mindfulness. The author offers a lively and sometimes funny perspective on the thoughts and beliefs in our lives that take us away from truly experiencing life moment to moment. The second chapter is where you actually put awareness into practice. The reason I gave this book 3 stars was because I felt that this chapter should have been broken up into several sessions. The author takes you through an hour and a half of meditation which is likely way to long for beginners. 20 minutes into I was getting very impatient and frustrated. But maybe all that anxiety eases with practice and time. For a beginner, I would rather recommend the Headspace app which has a great number of various meditation sessions which are customized to the goal of the individual.