May 15, 2025

4 Mindfulness Talks by Jon Kabat-Zinn

Jon Kabat-Zinn has been championing mindfulness meditation and his mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) program since the 1970s. He’s gained popularity through his books Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness and Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life. He’s also given many excellent talks on mindfulness, which are available on YouTube. Today, we’re highlighting four of those talks that will educate you on the science and practice of mindfulness.

1. Mindfulness, Stress Reduction, and Healing

Jon Kabat-Zinn has spent his career since the 1970s attempting to bring mindfulness into mainstream medicine. His eight-week mindfulness-based stress reduction program has sought to bring a scientific, evidence-based practice of mindfulness to people suffering from stress, anxiety, depression, PTSD, pain, and more. In this talk that he delivered at Google over 15 years ago, Kabat-Zinn introduces mindfulness as a mode of paying attention that can be re-contextualized in a secular setting separate from the cliches of Buddhist monks meditating. He discusses the long process of getting mindfulness meditation to be respected and studied by the scientific community and the successes that they’ve had with it up to that point. Kabat-Zinn challenges us to try out this mode of being in the present moment in order to take a break from the constant doing and thinking of everyday life. If his ideas sound interesting and you’re looking for a place to start practicing mindfulness, we highly recommend Kabat-Zinn’s three guided mindfulness meditation audio programs: Guided Mindfulness Meditation Series 1, Guided Mindfulness Meditation Series 2, and Guided Mindfulness Meditation Series 3.

2. The Healing Power of Mindfulness

Pioneering mindfulness researcher Jon Kabat-Zinn delivered this recent 2-hour talk at Dartmouth College. In the talk, he describes mindfulness and its many applications to mind/body medicine. He leads the audience on a brief guided mindfulness exercise in the middle of the talk. At the end, he answers questions and gives some inspiring words on how to kick-start mindfulness programs in schools, hospitals, and political offices! Take time out of your busy life to learn about another mode of being with Jon Kabat-Zinn.

3. Mindfulness with Jon Kabat-Zinn

Watch this popular talk with Jon Kabat-Zinn, author of Full Catastrophe Living and many other books on the benefits of mindfulness. In this talk at Google, Kabat-Zinn discusses what mindfulness meditation is, and then he leads the group on a mindfulness meditation practice where he provides guidance on the practice. After the meditation is over, he fields questions about the experience and covers things such as the issue of falling asleep and much more. This talk is 1 Hr. 15 Min. and is available on streaming video through YouTube.

4. Jon Kabat-Zinn: Coming to Our Senses

For decades now, Jon Kabat-Zinn has been teaching mindfulness meditation as a technique to help people cope with stress, anxiety, pain, and illness. Along with his teaching, he’s also written the classic Wherever You Go, There You Are and most recently Coming to Our Senses: Healing Ourselves and Our World Through Mindfulness. In this lecture from UCTV, Kabat-Zinn speaks about reintroducing you to yourself and developing an awareness of this moment in a fast-paced, technologically advanced world.