Starting this whole ball rolling

"So now, Kabat-Zinn travels the globe. He is fascinated by teaching in China where he has detected a rebirth in the country’s contemplative traditions as a way of tackling its challenges. He leads intensive five-day retreats in the US, runs courses in Austria, Korea and Japan. Lately, he has been talking with David Simas, a former White House adviser and now chief executive of the Obama Foundation, who was inspired to take up mindfulness meditation by Kabat-Zinn. “I feel it’s my responsibility, since to a large degree people blame me for starting this whole ball rolling to participate in whatever way I can,” he says. “This is, in some sense, the fruition of that 10-second vision I had in 1979.”