We are honoured to invite professionals from all over the world to participate in the 1st Conference on Practical Application of Buddhism in Western Psychology. This year's conference is titled Mindfulness: Theory and Practice.

The idea has been conceived in the minds of different people such as psychotherapists, psychiatrists, translators, business people and practicing buddhists who have come together to create a forum for a cross-discipline discussion on important issues based on certain Buddhist techniques such as mindfulness and contemplative approach to psychotherapy, health care, self-development and organizations. And now it is the right time to put in order all these ideas, and that is why the present Conference is being held.

Mindfulness can be defined as nonjudgmental moment-to-moment awareness. There is emerging scientific evidence supporting this great buddhist insight about the benefits of allowing experiences rather than suppressing or avoiding them in Western psychotherapy and applied psychology.

Certain Buddhist techniques have already been incorporated in modern-day psychological interventions and psychotherapies; for example: Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, Dialectical Behaviour Therapy, Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Contemplative Psychotherapy.

The Conference is meant to be the platform of inspiration for scientific research, workshops, and training programmes on mindfulness and other Buddhist techniques. That is why the term practical application has been used instead of theoretical and philosophical concepts of psychology and Buddhism.

The conference also refers to the ideas of the late Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, a Tibetan Buddhist teacher, who investigated the relationship between Eastern Buddhism and Western psychology and established the first university in the world (namely Naropa University) to integrate these two traditions of thinking and pedagogy.

We believe that mindful, contemplative and compassionate approach can be combined with rigorous, empirical science.

 The Conference has been organised by the Polish Mindfulness Association and the Marpa Institute. 

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