Home › Guides › Kabat-Zinn and Restful Awareness
Mindfulness · a comparison
Kabat-Zinn’s mindfulness and Restful Awareness: a short comparison
Jon Kabat-Zinn brought mindfulness into modern life, and most definitions today follow his. Restful Awareness uses the same word but starts somewhere else: not with paying attention, but with recognising the awareness that is already here. This is the short version. The full essay, with two comparison tables, is on the Restful Awareness website.
Every plan starts with a 30-day free trial. Cancel in the first 30 days and you pay nothing.
His definition
Kabat-Zinn’s best-known wording is short: mindfulness is paying attention in a particular way, on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally. In a fuller version he defines it as:
“the awareness that emerges through paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally to the unfolding of experience moment by moment.”Jon Kabat-Zinn
What he gave us
A practical and secular door to meditation. A structured eight-week programme, Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, taught since 1979 at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. A kind set of attitudes: non-judging, patience, beginner’s mind, trust, non-striving, acceptance and letting go. And a body of research that made mindfulness respectable. Restful Awareness is grateful for all of it.
Where Restful Awareness sees it differently
| His wording | The Restful Awareness view |
|---|---|
| “the awareness that emerges” | Awareness does not emerge. It is inherent in every person from birth, like wetness in water and heat in fire. It is recognised, not produced. |
| “through paying attention” | Paying attention narrows awareness, like a pinhole letting only a few of the sun’s rays through while the rest are shut out. Recognise the sun first, and nothing is shut out. |
| “on purpose” | Every deliberate direction begins with an intention, and an intention brings tension. Recognition is not an act of will. |
| “in the present moment” | There is no present moment to be found in time. Past and future are ideas, and everything is experienced in the present. There is only the present, shining on whatever happens. |
| “non-judgmentally” | Not a task or an attitude to train. It is a quality of awareness itself, as light is a quality of fire. Judgments are simply lit and lose their grip. |
| “the unfolding of experience” | We agree that experience arises and dissolves. But it is secondary. The first question is: what is aware of experience? |
The sun and the pinhole
Think of awareness as the sun, shining its rays on everything at once, without effort and without choosing. Paying attention on purpose is like holding up a card with a small hole in it: only a few rays pass through and fall on one chosen object, and all the others are excluded. That can be a useful skill, but it is not freedom and it is not rest. The rays are forced through a hole, and it is the intention to pay attention that makes the hole.
In Restful Awareness nothing is held up in front of the sun. Awareness shines on everything that appears: the breath, the body, sounds, thoughts, even the wandering of the mind. That is why it can rest.
The two practices in one glance
Mindfulness as taught in MBSR
Train the attention. Notice, and gently return when the mind wanders. Gentle but deliberate effort.
Mindfulness in Restful Awareness
Recognise awareness. Rest, and let everything be lit, including the wandering. Effort is let go as recognition grows. Whatever you do then acts out naturally according to the heart qualities of awareness, its rays, such as openness, non-judgement and stillness.
Attitudes, intention and awareness
Kabat-Zinn teaches attitudes such as non-striving, letting go and acceptance. In the view of Restful Awareness, an attitude is a form of thought, and when someone reminds himself to let go or not to strive, there is an intention behind it. An intention is a wave in awareness, and it takes the practitioner out of resting in awareness.
In Restful Awareness these qualities are not attitudes to take up. When awareness recognises itself, non-striving, letting go and acceptance are simply there, as natural qualities of awareness: the result, not the method. Every intention also creates a subject and an object, someone who is aware and something to be aware of, and where there is such duality there cannot be the awareness in which the two melt into oneness. This is the sequence in which awareness shows itself: awareness, intention, thought, then speech or action. Pointing this out is not an argument against any method. It lays out the map of the mind.
Read the full essay
The complete comparison, with a phrase-by-phrase table, a practice-by-practice table, an example walk and a look at the two viewpoints, is on the Restful Awareness website: Kabat-Zinn and Restful Awareness: two views of mindfulness. You can also read the paradigm shift in mindfulness and mindfulness without effort.
Questions people ask
What is Jon Kabat-Zinn’s definition of mindfulness?
He defines mindfulness as the awareness that emerges through paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally to the unfolding of experience moment by moment.
Is Restful Awareness against Kabat-Zinn’s mindfulness?
No. It respects his work and uses the same word. It differs in where it starts: not with attention training, but with recognising awareness itself.
Does awareness emerge through paying attention?
In Restful Awareness, no. Awareness is inherent in every person from birth. Paying attention narrows it to one object, like a pinhole letting a few rays of the sun through. It is recognised, not produced.
Which should a beginner choose?
Both can be a good start. Ordinary mindfulness gives clear steps. When the effort starts to feel like one more thing you are failing at, it is time to recognise the one who is aware.
More guides
Read more: Kabat-Zinn and Restful Awareness · the three views explained · what is mindfulness.