Author: Jon Kabat-Zinn
Quotes of Author: Jon Kabat-Zinn
All faces resemble each other, yet how easily we see in each uniqueness, individuality, an identity. How deeply we value these differences. The ocean is a whole, but it has countless waves, every one different from all the others; it has currents, each unique, ever-changing; the bottom is a landscape all its own, different everywhere; similarly the shoreline. The atmosphere is whole, but its currents have unique signatures, even though they are just wind. Life on earth is a whole, yet it expresses itself in unique time-bound bodies, microscopic or visible, plant or animal, extinct or living. So there can be no one place to be. There can be no one way to be, no one way to practice, no one way to learn, no one way to love, no one way to grow or to heal, no one way to live, no one way to feel, no one thing to know or be known. book-quoteBuckminster Fuller, the discoverer/inventor of the geodesic dome, at age thirty-two contemplated suicide for a few hours one night at the edge of Lake Michigan, as the story goes, after a series of business failures that left him feeling he had made such a mess of his life that the best move would be for him to remove himself from the scene and make things simpler for his wife and daughter. Apparently everything he had touched or undertaken had turned to dust in spite of his incredible creativity and imagination, which were only recognized later. However, instead of ending his life, Fuller decided {perhaps because of his deep conviction in the underlying unity and order of the universe, of which he knew himself to be an integral part} to live from then on as if he had died that night. Being dead, he wouldn't have to worry about how things worked out any longer for himself personally and would be free to devote himself to living as a representative of the universe. The rest of his life would be a gift. Instead of living for himself, he would devote himself to asking, "what is it on this planet {which he referred to as Spaceship Earth} that needs doing that I know something about, that probably won't happen unless I take responsibility for it? book-quoteSome feel absolutely incapable of ever saying no to other people, even though they know that to say yes means that their own resources will be taxed to the limit or beyond. They feel guilty doing something for themselves or having plans of their own. They are always ready to serve others at the expense of themselves, not because they have transcended their own physical and psychological needs and have become saints, but because they believe that that is what they "should" do to be a "good person." Sad to say, this often means that they are always helping other people but feel incapable of nourishing or helping themselves. That would be too "selfish," too self-centered. Thus, they put other people's feelings first, but for the wrong reasons. Deep down they may be running away from themselves by serving other people, or they may be doing it to gain approval from others or because they were taught and now think that that is the way to be a "good person." This is a kind of faux selflessness. This behavior can create enormous stress because you are not replenishing your inner resources, nor are you aware of your attachments to the role you have adopted. You can exhaust yourself running around "doing good" and helping others, and in the end be so depleted that you are incapable of doing any good at all and unable to help even yourself. It's not the doing things for others that is the source of the stress here. It is the lack of peace and harmony in your mind as you engage in doing all the doing." book-quote
