At the core of Karuna Training is the assumption that we are intrinsically healthy in our very nature. The cause of suffering lies in our own minds, and there are time-tested skillful means that unlock this innate health. From this perspective, our psychology contains wisdom.
Karuna Training Director of Faculty, Barbara Märtens, describes Contemplative Psychology as “looking into nowness or the present moment.”
If we encounter our situation in each moment as it unfolds, without manipulation or the wish to change it, then we find in ourselves the necessary qualities to initiate a healing process. We do not need particular concepts or a particular set of instructions: we do not have to react impulsively, but rather we can learn to open to what is.
In this way, qualities such as insight, radical acceptance, clarity, openness, willingness to act with courage and simplicity are naturally available. As our emotional triggers and habits are so strongly ingrained, these qualities have to be trained and cultivated – so that we can repeatedly learn to open to the moment as it is with confidence.
Karuna Training offers programmes in Contemplative Psychology that combine the wisdom of the meditative Buddhist tradition with the methods of Western medicine and psychology. Please find more information on our programmes below.