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The Ceaseless Society

Today I listened to a webcast of a program that was held at MIT awhile ago called The Ceaseless Society. The primary speaker was Jon Kabat Zinn who spoke on a wide range of topics around the state of society today. Some of the points that stuck in my mind included:

  • Being in a state of perpetual dissatisfaction
  • Continually living for the future causes us to miss our current life
  • Digital revolution changed the relationship to work
  • Connected with the world has led to being disconnected with ourselves
  • Not stepping back and asking why are we doing this
  • Buddhism is not about duality
  • What is meditation? It's about mindfulness: paying attention, in the moment, non judgmentally

He has a book out called Coming to Our Senses which explores these and many more topics in detail. I'm going to add it to my to read list as I found his way of approaching the topic spot on.

Tags: books ceaselesssociety mit tac