The Inner Path

Stoicism taught me that external circumstances are neither good nor bad — only our judgments make them so. This ancient philosophy, born in Athens and refined in Rome, offers practical wisdom for navigating modern chaos with equanimity.

The dichotomy of control became my foundation: focus energy only on what I can influence, and accept with grace what I cannot change.

Dharma — the universal law, the path, the teaching. Through meditation and mindfulness practice, I discovered that awareness itself is the gateway to freedom. Not the freedom to do whatever we want, but freedom from the tyranny of our own reactive patterns.

The Eightfold Path and the Four Noble Truths offer a systematic approach to understanding suffering and its cessation — not as abstract philosophy, but as lived experience.

I am not fully awakened — perhaps no one ever is in a final sense. But I have glimpsed what lies beyond the constant chatter of the mind. Those moments of pure presence, when the observer and the observed merge, when time dissolves into the eternal now.

This path is not about escaping life but about meeting it fully. Every moment becomes an opportunity for practice, every interaction a chance to embody compassion and wisdom.

My understanding of free will has evolved dramatically. I traveled from "Thy will be done" — as a refusal to understand, to "My will be done" — as an illusion of control. And at some point it became clear: both positions are two sides of the same illusion.

Neither God nor I make decisions. Decisions arise as consequences of causes, and freedom is not power over them, but the ability to see them. This is authentic freedom — not metaphysical, but alive.