Zen and the Borders Technique

• Dr Mindaugas Kudelis does unsexy dentistry.
• His passion is so wholesome and digestible, it is very likely that his love for posterior teeth will become your love too.
• The Borders Technique restores posterior teeth back to their gorgeous natural aesthetic in just a few minutes.

Why Posterior Dentistry is Difficult

Dr Mindaugas agrees that it's the one field where it’s hard to do your best is posterior dentistry, because:

• It’s difficult to access physically.
• Patients have limited finances.
• There is limited time.
• It’s hard to get the Wow Effect.
• Aesthetically it’s a harder sell when it concerns the posterior region.
• Most dentists feel limited to what they can do when it comes to the posterior region.

I spoke with Dr Mindaugas in his Vilnius clinic before his first appointment of the day. It might have been the caffeine in my system, because when Dr Mindaugas described the events that led him to develop his industry-changing Borders Technique, it was his inner stillness and honest self-reflection that impressed me as much as the profundity of how many problems his Borders Technique solves.

“I felt it myself a lot of times,” Dr Mindaugas said of the pressure to cut corners aesthetically in his patient's posterior restorations. “Colleagues have asked why they should bother doing something in the back where they can not charge enough and it takes quite a lot of time.”

The Zen of Borders Technique

While Dr Mindaugas described his Borders Technique to me I was reminded of the Japanese Shogun warriors who made kintsugi their life passion. Kintsugi is the art of putting broken pieces back together with rare material, embracing flaws and imperfections to create an even stronger, more beautiful piece of art.

It adheres to the Zen philosophy of wabi sabi, an aesthetic that expresses several qualities such as asymmetry, simplicity, and basic. Wabi sabi appreciates subtlety, stillness,and unobtrusive beauty, and it is no stretch to imagine that Dr Mindaugas holds a deep respect for these qualities, despite having never been a Japanese Shogun warrior. 

What does the Borders Technique Solve

“My goal is to make it work in daily practice,” Dr Mindaugas said. “If I were to say that you only need to spend 5 to 10 minutes more on posterior restoration to get the results you see on facebook or instagram; would you take it?

Most dentists would. It’s not a big sacrifice, you get so much personal satisfaction from creating something beautiful, and restore teeth where it actually looks like a tooth.”

There is no end to perfection, there is only the pursuit of it

~ Dr Mindaugas Kudelis

“If we could get the people who are ambitious enough or who love the profession enough...”

You'd get a masterclass?