Letting Everything Become Your Teacher

By Jon Kabat-Zinn
Bantam Dell, $10.00, 152 pages

Author Jon Kabat-Zinn has served up simple, down-to-earth guidelines to help us be mindful. Sounds easy, doesn’t it? In this day and age when the speed of life moves at a breakneck pace, one needs to reclaim a sense of observation lest we miss it all – the whole point to it. Letting Everything Become Your Teacher invites us with 100 short, inspiring verses to do just that. Used with a practice of daily meditation where one pushes away all the outer world’s chaos and distractions, thereby creating a sacred space and a receptive state of consciousness, we can teach ourselves to live in the moment. Far too much of the time, we wish away our lives, telling ourselves when we achieve this particular thing, or that particular thing, that then, and only then will all the pieces of our lives fall into place perfectly and we’ll attain that life we’ve always hoped for. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could appreciate the life we have right now, in this present moment? Instead of placating ourselves with empty promises, disappointments, pipedreams, and setting goals so lofty we can’t help but fail and fall short of? If we can teach ourselves to be mindful, to turn down the volume of the noisy, intruding world we live in, and glean precious moments as we live within them, we can actually enjoy the journey of life.
Being mindful can help you with any number of aggravations that trouble you at one time or another, such as coping with pain, improving a relationship, and even building confidence and self-esteem by letting go of self-destructive thoughts.

Wouldn’t it be nice to have a little guidebook to help you take notice of these wasted moments, to see the real big picture – to make the most of each and every precious second of life? After all, “we only have moments to live.”

Letting Everything Become Your Teacher is a small book, easily tucked in your handbag or coat pocket, always available to read in those microcosm windows of time when we’re waiting to get to that next pressing event in our lives. Beautifully presented with artistic imagery, each verse will compel the reader to ask questions of themselves – to think, focus, watch, listen, and learn.

Reviewed by Laura Friedkin