Kabat-Zinn was born in New York City in 1944 as the oldest of three children to
Elvin Kabat, a biomedical scientist, and Sally Kabat, a painter. He graduated from
Haverford College in 1964 and went on to earn a Ph.D. in
molecular biology in 1971 from the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he studied under
Salvador Luria,
Nobel Laureate in medicine. While at MIT, Kabat-Zinn was a leading campaigner against military research at the university and against the
Vietnam War. To reduce student protests, MIT appointed him, alongside
Noam Chomsky and
George Katsiaficas, to an advisory panel on the future of the university's military labs. During this time, he pondered his life's purpose, which he called his "karmic assignment."
Career Kabat-Zinn was first introduced to meditation by
Philip Kapleau, a Zen teacher who came to speak at MIT where Kabat-Zinn was a student. Kabat-Zinn went on to study meditation with other Buddhist teachers such as
Seungsahn. He also studied at the
Insight Meditation Society with
Jack Kornfield and Joseph Goldstein, and eventually taught there. He subsequently also founded the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. His secular technique of
Mindful Yoga, which combines meditation and
yoga as exercise, has since spread worldwide. Kabat-Zinn's MBSR began to get increasing notice with the publication of his first book,
Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness (1991), which gave detailed instructions for the practice. Then, in 1993, his work in the Stress Reduction Clinic was featured in
Bill Moyers's PBS special
Healing and the Mind, spurring wide interest in MBSR and helping to make Kabat-Zinn nationally famous. In the latter part of the 1990s, many MBSR clinics were opened, either as standalone centers or as part of a hospital's holistic medicine program. He is a board member of the
Mind and Life Institute, a group that organizes dialogues between the
Dalai Lama and Western scientists. MBSR has been adapted for use by the US military to improve combatants' "operational effectiveness," apparently with Kabat-Zinn's approval, which has provoked some controversy among mindfulness practitioners. Discussing the integration of narratives into mindfulness practice, Kabat-Zinn has said, "
the map... can occlude... the territory.' That is, thinking about a storyline can get in the way, like creating a mental representation 'map' rather than directly experiencing the 'territory' of the present moment. Kabat-Zinn is Professor of Medicine Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. ==Personal life==