The centrality of experience

The centrality of experience. Its magnitude can best be captured in the words of a teacher paraphrasing the Buddha. "Don't take my word for it. Trust your own experience!"
Buddhist teachings emphasize the primacy of lived experience rather than intellectual analysis or metaphysical exploration. In the words of another teacher, "Ordinary human conditions are considered to be a state of arrested development." Buddhist psychology works to expose these basic misrepresentations experientially, and to find happiness which is not conditional. Western psychology teaches neither the nature of happiness nor how it is found.
Mindfulness is at the heart of the exploration of experience - practical training for individuals to use in every living moment, applicable in all circumstances. In the words of the Buddha: "Mindfulness, I declare, is all-helpful. All things can be mastered with mindfulness."