Your dharma talk will involve Insight Dialogue, a practice you developed. What is it? Insight Dialogue (ID) is an interpersonal dharma practice with the same basic intentions that you’d find in Vipassana, and more broadly, all Buddhist meditation. This means developing meditative qualities: mindfulness, concentration, energy, joy, compassion, equanimity.
As with individual meditation practices, the purpose is to see things as they are. In Insight Dialogue, you meet with at least one other person, and you start with silent meditation together before speaking and listening. If I sit down and say I’m going to develop mindfulness, and then you sit down and you have the intention to develop mindfulness, then, every time I pause, it’s going to remind you to develop your mindfulness; every time you pause, it reminds me, and you get this mirroring, this reflecting back and forth that amplifies and accelerates the development of mindfulness, and all the other meditative qualities, powered by relational contact.
How might Insight Dialogue complement a traditional silent sitting practice? Insight Dialogue is a relational meditation practice. Humans are as fully relational as they are individual, and the Buddha’s teachings reflect this—the suttas reflect this. So those forms of practice—relational and individual—support each other. Mindfulness, joy, and tranquility that are developed in Insight Dialogue support those qualities in silent meditation.
Likewise, silent practice supports ID. We’re dealing with the same domains of insight and release. Domains of the heart—clinging, freedom, ignorance, wisdom—it’s all there in relational practice, and in traditional silent practice. There are people who come to Insight Dialogue who are either new to meditation or who have tried to meditate and have a hard time sitting still, or traditional sitting is just not possible because of their psychology. And they may find a way into settling and knowing the mind through Insight Dialogue.
On the other hand, I also see very seasoned meditators who might be challenged by that relational practice because meditation has not exposed the attachments and fears that might arise in relational contact. Maybe, sometimes, silent meditation can be a hiding place. But also, some people who are very seasoned meditators come in and say, wow, this is the missing piece for bringing my practice into my life.
What led you to develop Insight Dialogue? As a husband, father, musician, composer, science guy, I had the kinds of questions that everybody does. How can I sustain my practice? How can I go deeper? I encountered—or actually stumbled into—formal dialogue practices by people like the physicist David Bohm while I was working toward a PhD. I was exploring those practices with Terri O’Fallon (cocreator of Generating Transformative Change) while I was also teaching her meditation. The two of us noticed that when the meditation comes together with dialogue, there’s some spark here. So we ended up writing a PhD dissertation on that.
I was really stunned at what meditative intentions brought to dialogue, but then the dharma was more in the background and hadn’t come forward as much. After the dissertation, the dharma began to come in, and I developed ID as an in-person group meditation practice and then as a retreat practice. When the power of meditation and the wisdom teachings of the dharma were amplified by the power of relationship, the practice skyrocketed in strength. Over time, the structure evolved to include the six guidelines and practice in small groups with formal dharma contemplations.
What’s the most common question students bring to you? I would say it’s, “How can I bring the deep sense of connection by experience and Insight Dialogue to the rest of my life, when I’m not in formal practice, and where things can be messy?” As with special experiences in silent meditation, the more we practice on the cushion or in a relationship, the more we have access to insight and resources in our daily life. We can stay grounded in the basic training that the Buddha offered. Does this practice bring an increase in the wholesome, a decrease in the unwholesome? Is there more kindness and more compassion in your life? Or clarity or equanimity? Is there less selfishness? Inattentiveness, confusion, pain, and harming? These are the things that we can all notice. Special states come and go. The insights we get from practice are what really reform us.
In September, watch Gregory Kramer’s Dharma Talk at tricycle.org/dharmatalks.
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