The Path to Freedom

Theory and Practice

Whenever discussing frameworks, approaches and schools of thought, there is a trap that we might get stuck in theoretical descriptions, categories, and concepts. We might think we know, understand, or do something instead of it truly being so in our immediate experience.

No matter how much we explain to someone what the taste of an apple is like, the smell of a pine tree, or the color of a sunflower, our description and their imagination will never be able to encompass or replace the unique direct experience of a person who would bite into an apple, smell a pine tree, or see a sunflower.

On the other hand, if we skillfully, purposefully, and meaningfully use theory and conceptual knowledge, they can be the roots from which a beautiful (unique) tree springs through experience. They also give us a reference point for better understanding our personal, lived experience.

Thus, concepts and experience are in a very close interrelationship: concepts provide us a framework and the possibility of understanding our experience more deeply; experience gives meaning to concepts and continuously checks their validity.

---

Integrative and holistic approach

Integrative means incorporating diverse, mutually complementary elements.

Holistic means that we do not break something down mechanically, rigidly, into its constituent elements, but rather view it as a whole, which is greater and different than its interdependent parts – just like we are as human beings.

My approach is a combination of Buddhist psychology and philosophy, contemporary psychology, and several psychotherapeutic methods, primarily Gestalt therapy and Mindfulness-based approaches (MBCT, ACT). The groundwork for it all is my own personal practice and insights.

Human beings represent a holistic uniqueness. Due to the interplay of countless causes and conditions, both within and outside ourselves, we are in a constant process of change. What we are now, is the manifestation of all past causes and present conditions, which are different with each passing moment.

We are the process of change.

---

Our Personal Experience in the Present Conditions

I encourage us to explore what is beneficial and liberating for each of us personally at this moment and in the present conditions, bearing in mind our wider environment - our situation, and our relationship with it.

We seek to recognize what is supportive, healing, beneficial, empowering, and fulfilling for us. We seek to realize how we can relate more skillfully and wisely to the totality of the present moment – ​​to ourselves, others, and the wider environment.

---

Let's explore your Path

Each of us has our own reality, our own subjective world.

This world of ours consists of all that we experience as “I, me, mine” and all that we experience as “not-me” It also includes that interrelationship – what happens between “me” and “not-me.”

"Me” represents the entirety of what we experience. Our body, feelings, perceptions, thoughts, emotions, volition, and consciousness itself.

“Not-me” is everything we see as separate from ourselves. However, it does not only refer to our current environment. In the broadest sense, it is everything in the past, present and future in our immediate space but also outside of it, which in some way affects us or we affect it. It is everything with which we are in interrelation.

The fundamental question is how aware we are of what is available in our personal world.

Everything is here, present at every moment, just within reach. However, it is quite possible and very likely that our experience rarely confirms this. This may seem as very unrealistic or mere idealism to us. Let us therefore ask ourselves a few questions, as an introduction to our Path:

Where are we stuck in the originally fluid and ever-changing process of existence?

What fixed patterns, rigid “personalities” and automatic habits are we led by?

In what ways do we dissect and analyze this all-encompassing expanse, remaining with only a few stars and forgetting about the universe – trying to keep only the brightest ones and force those less dear to us to fall?

If we ask ourselves with sincere intention, openness and curiosity, these questions can begin to open a path before us. A path that does not lead to another place or another time. A path that leads inside, each of us, to the only world we always have – to our immediate, here and now.

And if we feel the call to move, or if we are already counting many steps, we do not have to take the next step alone.

Let's walk together on your Path to Freedom.