1) Wherever You Go, There You Are

Jon Kabat-Zinn is an american author who wrote the book, Wherever You Go, There You Are.
He was first introduced to meditation by a Zen missionary while he was a student attending MIT, and
from that point on was very interested in the subject. After studying meditation for years, he founded
the Stress Reduction Clinic at the University of Massachusetts, where he adapted the Buddhist ideas on
mindfulness. From there he removed the Buddhist aspect from his practice, and put his mindfulness
study in a scientific context.
Kabat-Zinn was a highly achieving scholar, which can be attributed to his strong love of
mindfulness. By focusing on being mindful, he was able to achieve a mental state where he was fully
within the present moment, yet completely aware of his personal feelings and thoughts without drifting
from whats in front of him. This has made it possible for him to teach the practice of mindfulness to
his students, and help to relieve some of the stress from the college campus.
To me, mindfulness means understanding oneself and what your role is in the present moment
that you are within. I try and practice mindfulness throughout my day to day routine, especially when I
am walking dogs or doing the dishes. I tune into the temperature in the air, the way the ground feels,
and how I feel about the situation that I am in. I let the emotions I feel come to me with an open heart,
and do not try and scold myself for how I feel, since in the beginning I was the only one who created
them.
My own practice of meditation has effected my mindfulness exponentially in a positive way.
My favorite type of meditation, the walking meditation, is something that I have been subconsciously
doing for years now but have never tuned into and focused on. When I walk around in a place where I
do not have to be vigilant of my own well being, I like to simply turn my brain to input mode so to
speak, and just learn and be mindful or my surroundings and life in and of itself.
In the book Wherever You Go, There You Are, Jon Kabat-Zinn briefly talks about two types of

meditation, called the mountain meditation and the lake meditation. The mountain meditation consists
of a person sitting in an upright, stable and regal position, what an average person would consider an
average meditation posture. From there the meditator is to envision a great mountain, the most
impressive they have ever seen, and then move to be as if the mountain is within you while sitting still
in this position. The lake meditation is very similar, the only difference being that the subject lays
down when practicing this meditation, and moves to be as if the lake they are imagining is within them,
laying flat and low.
When I practice the mountain meditation, I do not seem to gain a sense of relaxation, rather that
of an enlarged ego and feeling of physical strength. I attribute this to my vast experience in the
mountains of Utah, Colorado, Switzerland and the Italian alps, and my knowledge of what power the
mountains hold. When I envision a beautiful mountain, standing majestic and tall, I feel its power to
end the lives of those who seek to conquer it. Thousands of people die every year while exploring the
peaks of vast mountain ranges, and that is something that is engrained into me and helps to keep me
safe when on my own outdoor adventures. After practicing the mountain meditation, I felt larger than
life and powerful, in an almost egotistical way. I immediately felt remorseful and apologetic to the
mountains which have gavin me so much and let me keep my life thus far.
I felt completely different when practicing the lake meditation. I spend a lot of time in the high
Uintah wilderness of Utah during the spring summer and fall, and the main attraction to see up there
are beautiful mountain spring fed lakes. They are hidden within valleys that seem to be taken straight
out of a postcard, and seem as inviting to me as a neighborhood pool. I enjoy swimming, fishing and
lounging in and around them, and have never felt very fearful of the lakes hurting me. Because of my
comfort level with lakes and how I pick up on the vibrations they put off, I felt very at home while
practicing the lake meditation. When I lay down and begin to meditate, I already feel better than when
practicing the mountain meditation because of the relaxed position. The position is inviting and
submissive, and just feels better than sitting upright with crossed legs. When I began to imagine the

lake being with and around my self, I became aware of the climate around me. It was if I could feel the
cool mountain breeze that would come with being near a lake, and I have the reflex to want to go
swimming.
Karma is involved in everything that we as people do in our lives, because it is involved with
everything that happens in the world. Kabat-Zinn recalls that when he was young he felt that there was
something missing in the way life was unfolding, and that it was almost as if it was all about 'out there'
but nothing about 'in here'. When he finally discovered karma and the way that what goes around
comes around, he was able to progress with his personal mindfulness and meditation practices.
I define karma as the word to describe the processes of the world. In simpler words, what goes
around comes around. I experience karma every day of my life, but not in the way you think. Many
people define karma in the simple thought of oh I dropped a piece of trash on the ground earlier, that
must be why I stubbed my toe on my cabinet today. But that is not what karma really means to me, it is
so much more. To me karma means that you get out of life what you put into it, in the form of love and
energy. When being mindful, you put off positive vibrations that encourage positive change in the
world. As the great mathematician Albert Einstein once said and proved, energy cannot be created nor
destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to another. I think this directly relates to
mindfulness in life and meditation.

2) Loving Kindness
Exercise 1: When I first tried sending metta to myself I was surprised by what I felt. I felt as though I
should not be deserving the self love and kindness because I am afraid of a large ego, but that feeling
seemed to leave quickly.
Exercise 2: When I imagined myself sitting, surrounded with all my loved ones and having them all
send me metta, I felt incredible. I felt invincible in this moment, like no matter what happens at least I
have all my favorite people with me and they are all sending me good vibes.

Exercise 3: When undergoing the process of finding a benefactor to whom to send metta to I had no
trouble. I quickly went to the decision of sending it to family, and well everybody I love and care about
first. These people are the most important in my life and I want the best for them. I also immediately
consider a good friend of mine who recently got out of rehab for drugs, and I think friends' love,
support and metta will benefit him.
Exercise 4: Finding a neutral person to pass metta onto was the easiest thing for me. To simply smile
and send positive energy to a complete stranger is something that I try and practice at least once per
day, and helps me feel good about myself and others. If everybody passed on a little metta to a stranger
every day, I think there would be some powerful positivity going around.
Exercise 5: The easiest part of this practice for me was to just get out there and try it. Try sending love
and kindness out to the world through pure consciousness and freedom. It was very powerful feeling.
The hardest part is trying to give metta to myself without feeling egotistical.
Exercise 6: Working with a difficult person seemed to be incredibly hard at first. Eventually I got over
my own self empowerment of being better than them and figured why not give it a shot, if there is
any chance it will help them then it helps me by knowing.
Exercise 7: When moving from the fitine to the infinite I felt a sense of freedom. It was as if a wind
blew through and took the anxiety away from sending metta, and I was free to send it to the universe as
carelessly as I pleased. From this carefree attitude came passion for the greater good, and a feeling of
fulfillment.
Exercise 8: When working with total opposites, I found it to be much smoother than expected. I am a
firm believer in the science behind opposites attracting in poles, and think it absolutely crosses
boundaries with people and metta. It can be a struggle at first because fear is often involved when
opposites attract, but it works fluidly.

3) Communication
When I was sitting down with my academic advisor at Salt Lake Community College to pick
out classes, I was confused and frustrated. I was confused on how SLCC's class search computer
system was set up to operate, and the academic advisor was too. This wasn't the problem however, the
problem was that we were not communicating to each other our shared frustrations on the same topic.
Communication can make or break any relationships between people, because we often do not
understand how to properly and clearly get our point across to the person we are talking to. It took me

about ten minutes to realize that my advisor and myself were not communicating well. At that point I
realized that this was the perfect opportunity to better myself in my relationships with people and
general academic success, by enrolling in a class that where communication is taught from a vibrational
standpoint, not a business standpoint. When I told my advisor this, she realized what our issue was and
immediately I was enrolled in Professor Hall's theory and practice of meditation class.

4) Vibrations
It has been a long known fact that the entire physical world, earth and space, is made up of pure
energy and vibration. These vibrations originate from light, and without light we would not have life
on earth. Our light source happens to be our planets sun, which has long been seen as a powerful
source of energy and worshipped by many religious cultures throughout the earths existence.
When light bounces off of objects, it creates vibrations. A dark smooth object can put out a
different vibration than an edgy light colored object, simply by the color. But we as living things also
put out vibrations, emotional and physical, which greatly effect the people and things around us. I am
still learning about how my personal vibrations effect what is around me, but I am very interested in
how it works.

5) Karma
When I think of karma, I think of a very complex and important thing in my life. If I were to
simplify what I think it means, I would say it means what goes around comes around. But it is not
just that simple. I think that karma is involved in everything that we do, and is based around the
scientific fact that every action has an opposite reaction. This could be simplified in the form of you
throw a ball, and the ball moves through the air, but karma is about the emotion behind it, to me.

Karma is said to be created by every single thing we as living beings think, say and do. I
personally believe that karma is based around vibrations put off by these things think say and do, and
that they either have a positive, negative or neutral effect on everything around us. Karma is powerful,
and I truly believe that it will continue to impact my life in different ways, be that positive or negative
is up to me however.

6) Awareness
Awareness is an incredibly broad topic that has many different definitions, each of those
definitions changing based on the circumstances of the situation that it is pertaining to. When I think of
awareness it simply means to be knowing of what is happening around you, and how you are
personally effecting and being affected by the situation. Your personal vibrations, or karma, that you
are adding to the situation have a greater effect than you think.
Awareness is also a subconscious happening within our minds. We are always taking in the
environment around us, and our minds are a powerful thing. Our minds tend to put things of what we
consider importance at the forefront of our awareness, and the rest like breathing and needing to go to
the bathroom in the background. Awareness to me is about starting to realize how our minds work with
the world around us.

7) Mindfulness
The main theme of this class, theory and practice of meditation, seems to be centered around
mindfulness. This topic has been the most difficult definition for me to personally understand simply
because I do not believe that there is a definition of it that is set in stone. To me mindfulness is an ever
changing definition that will continue to progress so long as humankind continues to progress, which is

a guarantee.
To me, mindfulness is simply defined and knowing your place in the situation you are currently
in, and being here now. By knowing your place I do not mean to stay in your lane so to speak, but
to know what you are adding to or taking away from the situation, and how you can add positivity.
Mindfulness is based around taking others into consideration before doing any actions, and simply
being present.

8) Being Present
I often find that I have to remind myself to be present in the situation I am in currently at
whatever place in time that may be. I will consciously think to myself be here now, be here now, a
saying I got from the title of the classic book, Be Here Now written by Ram Dass. I was first turned
onto this saying by one of my idols, Steve Jobs, who was influenced heavily by Ram Dass' philosophy.
Being present is important in every situation because it is necessary when practicing
mindfulness. My generation seems to have a harder time doing this and I think I know why; cell
phones. We literally have a computer in our pockets at all times that can access almost every single
piece of information that is known. On top of that, we have social media that is always dragging us
away from the present moment and hurting our face to face communication.

9) Social Media
Social media is everywhere, surrounding us every way we turn, whether we consciously are
aware of it or not. Go to any public place, and you will see at least one person staring blankly at their
phone. They have one thumb slowly moving up and down, scrolling through their friends and
strangers' Facebook, Instagram or twitter page, not knowing what is happening around them. This can

be so distracting in fact that I have personally walked into a tree while scrolling through Instagram,
seeing how many of my 4,000 followers liked what I posted earlier in the day.
The problem that I see prevailing from social media is the feeling to need to be better than your
fellow peers. The feeling that you are inadequate compared to your friend, because your photo only got
20 likes while theirs got 100+. However I like and use social media for different things, and consider
it an important part of my life. I use Facebook to keep in contact with relatives and distant friends,
Twitter to rant and complain about my day, Instagram to promote my vinyl wrap contract work and
Snapchat to stay up to date with social events that my friends are partaking in.

10) Risk
I have a love hate relationship with risk, but when it comes down to it I am passionately for
taking risks. My reasoning for this is that with small risk comes small reward, and with big risk comes
big reward. In my industry, vinyl wrapping cars, risk pays a huge roll in profit. When I am wrapping
an old plumbing van for a company that plans on beating it to crap over the next ten years, I charge a
low price and do fast work, wherein the vehicle may get paint scratched or cut into. However when I
am working on a supercar such as a Lamborghini or Ferrari, the risk involved is much higher, so I
charge a price that is around tenfold that of a commercial. The risk here comes from the fact that if you
cut the paint on a $200k car, you are going to have a big bill to pay when you have to have the car
repainted.
Risk also plays a huge role in love and relationships. When you fall in love with somebody, you
are risking everything in my opinion. You are risking your emotional stability in order to gain the
highest emotional frequency; love. The risk comes from giving yourself to them, your secrets, sanity
and trust. When love is broken, I think that is the biggest loss or gain one can have, and it origionally
stemmed from risk.

11) Viewpoint
Viewpoint can be a difficult topic to define. When I think of viewpoint, I think of the word
perspective, and I think they mean the same thing. They mean where you stand in the given situation,
or what your lane is so to speak. Viewpoint should be considered whenever communicating, because
it is the basis of where you and the other person's ideas stem from.
During arguments, the other person's viewpoint is often overlooked, sometimes consciously but
more often subconsciously. We are often so caught up in how we see the situation that we do not
bother to see where the other person's ideas are coming from, nor do we care. That is not practicing
good mindfulness. I define maturity as looking at an abrasive situation from everybody involved's
viewpoints, and understanding them. You do not necessarily have to agree with their viewpoints, but
you have to consider their perspective before making rash decisions.

12) Courage and Trust

Courage and trust go together like a peanut butter and jelly in a peanut butter and jelly
sandwich, they are both needed to let the other exist. To trust takes courage, it is as plain and simple as
that, but it also takes trust in oneself to have courage in anything in life. Trust and courage are the
backbone of confidence, and without confidence then you are living in fear, which nobody wants to be.
Trust and courage are involved in everything we do every day. When I get into my truck to
drive somewhere, I am trusting that the mechanic who installed my brakes did so in a correct manor
and that I will be able to slow down and not crash. I am also using courage in this situation simply by
being courageous enough to drive on the road with a million other idiots, many of whom are too
incompetent or not in the present moment enough to be safe.

13) Compulsion and Delayed Gratification

This is a topic that I struggle with every single day. I cannot blame it on my parents way of
raising me, though I grew up in an upper middle class household, I was not given everything I wanted
when I wanted it. My parents taught my brother and I delayed gratification, saying things like oh well
maybe that thing you want will be a good birthday present even though my birthday would not be for
another 5 months.
Now that I am in my twenties and have a decent earning job where I am my own boss (wrap
contractor), I struggle with compulsion, mainly when it comes to buying things. If I want it I have to
have it, and that is simply not a safe way to live but I subconsciously make myself feel ok because,
well, I can afford it for now. To cope I try and make myself wait a week and see if I will still want that
thing in the future, but I still end up getting it. This is something I am currently working on, and
mindfulness is playing a huge role in helping.

14) Creating Change

A person who I love and respect more than anyone else in the world once told me that the only
constant in life is change. She told me this right before she broke my heart and moved to Manhattan to
go to school and pursue her dreams of becoming a human rights lawyer to help those who cannot help
themselves. I was and still am in love with this girl, and the reason is because she taught me the most
valuable thing anybody has ever taught me; that you must create the change that you want to see in
your life.
Her reason to move was a feeling of entrapment in Salt Lake, something most of us feel at one
point or another in life. But she knew that to get over that entrapment she had to create a change in her

life, though in my opinion she chose a drastic one. But I learned the most important life lesson of all
from her, that change is the only constant, and that we have to create it ourselves, or with the help of
others.

15) Being Centered

Being centered is a lot more than being a hippie and loving yourself the way you are. It
involves being physically and emotionally relaxed, mentally focused and spiritually aware. Some days
I feel completely centered and emotionally stable, while other days I feel like there is just something
off and unbalanced. When I notice these changes, I try to gain awareness about myself as a person and
learn from it, though it can be very difficult and confusing at times.
I feel most centered when I am with the people who I love, doing the activities that I love.
There is one moment that really stands out to me, that I will always remember. I was rock climbing at
a local indoor gym with some friends, and was working the beta on a very difficult (at least for me)
route. After trying and trying, I took 4 deep breaths and started the climb. I came to a point when I
was reaching for the hardest hold, and everything else in the world went silent. It was as if I was deaf,
and all my focus and strength were aimed at grasping that hold. I got it, and had never felt so alive and
rushed with confidence. It was then that I knew that rock climbing will always hold a special place in
my heart, because it helps me to center myself.

16) Forgiveness
Forgiving people can be easy and it can be hard, but it can also seem impossible at times. When
somebody bumps into you at the bar and spills your drink, its easy to let it go and move on with your
life. When somebody you are in love with breaks your heart, it is hard but you can and do get past it

and learn to love again.

I am currently struggling to forgive a man who I do not know the name of. I spent a lot of time
growing up in Mexico, as my parents were windsurfer bums and purchased land and a house in a small
town in Baja. My brother and I had two good local Mexican friends, Fidel and Andreas. Andreas is the
son of my mothers friend who owns the laundromat in town, and Fidel is his best friend since
childhood. Ever since I can remember they were the only two locals who would invite us gringos to
play futbol on the beach.
Two years ago, I saw a post on Facebook that Fidel made. It said simply, in english, I am
scared that somebody is trying to kill me. I thought nothing of it, as Facebook is Facebook. A week
later I got news that my childhood friend had been murdered, after being tortured in ways that I do not
want to write about. They found his burned body under an overpass, and identified him by his cell
phone and dental records. We presume he heard something he shouldn't have while hanging around the
wrong group of people, but Fidel wasn't a cartel gang banger or anything like that. If I had known his
Facebook status was true, I would have bought him an airline ticket immediately and hired a security
team to get him anywhere safely.
Three men killed my friend. Two of the three were arrested in the coming weeks, and are
serving life sentences in a Mexican prison. One of the men escaped to mainland Mexico and was never
caught, and presumably never will be. It's the fact that this single man is still walking around in the
world, after committing such a horrible atrocity, that keeps me up at night. I do not forgive this man,
who I do not know the name of. I want to forgive this man and get the weight off my chest thats been
bearing down on me for years, but I simply do not know how. He stole a best friend from me, and more
importantly a good hearted person from this earth.