Insight Dialogue

Insight Dialogue is an interpersonal meditation practice that brings together meditative awareness (e.g., mindfulness, concentration), the wisdom teachings of the Buddha, and dialogue to support insight into the nature, causes, and release of human suffering. Six meditation instructions, or guidelines, form the core of the practice.

Rationale

Engaging in mindful dialogue with one or more other people supported by instruction in the guidelines and by contemplations that encourage a direct and intimate inquiry into the human experience is the form of the practice. Insight Dialogue is taught and practiced in a number of contexts—residential retreats, daylong workshops, community practice groups, and online (e.g., via Skype).

Insight Dialogue has its roots in the Buddha's early teachings on the human experience (Pāli Canon) and the practice of Insight or Vipassanā meditation; however, people of all faiths and backgrounds can practice. Gregory Kramer and Terri O'Fallon co-created Insight Dialogue. Gregory Kramer, the Founder and Guiding Teacher of Metta Programs, continued developing the practice and has been teaching it worldwide since 1995.

Guidelines

Although designed to work together, the Insight Dialogue guidelines are typically taught individually, in sequence.

Pause

Temporal pause; stepping out of habitual thoughts and reactions into experience in the present moment; mindfulness.

Relax

Invitation to calm the body and mind; receiving whatever sensations, thoughts, and feelings are present; acceptance.

Open

Extension of mindfulness from internal to include the external; spaciousness; matures to include the relational moment; mutuality.

Trust emergence

Entering the relational moment without an agenda; awareness of the impermanence of thoughts and feelings; allowing experience to unfold; "don't know" mind.

In a recent blog post, Gregory Kramer has suggested a new guideline wording: "Attune to Emergence".

Listen deeply

Listening mindfully, with an awareness that is relaxed and open; ripens into unhindered receptivity to the unfolding words, emotions, and presence of another.

Speak the truth

Articulation of the truth of one's subjective experience with mindfulness; discernment of what to say amid the universe of possibilities; ripens into an acute sensitivity to the voice of the moment that "speaks through" the meditator.

See also

• Appreciative inquiry
• Bohm Dialogue
• Double-loop learning
• Focusing (psychotherapy)
• Four-sides model
• Improvisation
• Learning circle
• Nonviolent Communication
• T-groups
• Theory U

Sources

• Kramer, Gregory (2007). Insight dialogue: the interpersonal path to freedom. Boston: Shambhala Publications. ISBN 9781590304853. OCLC 123284812.

Further reading

• Baker, Stuart (March 2016). "Working in the present moment: the impact of mindfulness on trainee psychotherapists' experience of relational depth". Counselling and Psychotherapy Research. 16 (1): 5–14. doi:10.1002/capr.12038.

• Bowen, Sarah; Haworth, Kevin; Grow, Joel; Tsai, Mavis; Kohlenberg, Robert (2012). "Interpersonal mindfulness informed by functional analytic psychotherapy: findings from a pilot randomized trial". International Journal of Behavioral Consultation and Therapy. 7 (2–3): 9–15. doi:10.1037/h0100931.

• Fitch, Geoff; O'Fallon, Terri (2014). "Theory U applied in transformative development". In Gunnlaugson, Olen; Baron, Charles; Cayer, Mario. Perspectives on theory U: insights from the field. Advances in human resources management and organizational development. Hershey, PA: Business Science Reference. pp. 114–127. ISBN 9781466647930. OCLC 859061202.

• Gerzon, Mark (2006). Leading through conflict: how successful leaders transform differences into opportunities. Leadership for the common good. Boston: Harvard Business School Press. ISBN 978-1591399193. OCLC 62161234.

• Gunnlaugson, Olen (January 2011). "Advancing a second-person contemplative approach for collective wisdom and leadership development". Journal of Transformative Education. 9 (1): 3–20. doi:10.1177/1541344610397034.

• Huston, Daniel C.; Garland, Eric L.; Farb, Norman A. S. (November 2011). "Mechanisms of mindfulness in communication training". Journal of Applied Communication Research. 39 (4): 406–421. doi:10.1080/00909882.2011.608696.

• Isaacs, William N. (1999). Dialogue and the art of thinking together: a pioneering approach to communicating in business and in life. New York: Currency/Doubleday. ISBN 978-0385479998. OCLC 41108544.

• Kramer, Gregory; Meleo-Meyer, Florence; Turner, Martha Lee (2008). "Cultivating mindfulness in relationship: insight dialogue and the interpersonal mindfulness program". In Hick, Steven F.; Bien, Thomas. Mindfulness and the therapeutic relationship. New York: Guilford Press. pp. 195–214. ISBN 9781593858209. OCLC 213008208.

• Kramer, Gregory; O'Fallon, Terri (1997). Insight dialogue and insight dialogic inquiry (Ph.D. thesis). San Francisco, CA: California Institute of Integral Studies.

• Kramer, Zed David (August 2015). Insight dialogue: investigation of a relational meditation practice (Ph.D. thesis). Missoula, MT: University of Montana.

• Kuttner, Ran (January 2008). "Wisdom cultivated through dialogue". Negotiation Journal. 24 (1): 101–112. doi:10.1111/j.1571-9979.2007.00169.x. SSRN 1919124.

• Lord, Susan A. (November 2007). "Meditative dialogue: a tool for engaging students in collaborative learning processes". Journal of Family Therapy. 29 (4): 334–337. doi:10.1111/j.1467-6427.2007.00396.x.

• Lord, Susan A. (August 2015). "Meditative dialogue: tuning in to the music of family therapy". Journal of Family Therapy. 37 (3): 267–285. doi:10.1111/j.1467-6427.2012.00594.x.

• McCollum, Eric E.; Gehart, Diane R. (July 2010). "Using mindfulness meditation to teach beginning therapists therapeutic presence: a qualitative study". Journal of Marital & Family Therapy. 36 (3): 347–360. doi:10.1111/j.1752-0606.2010.00214.x. PMID 20618581.

• Murray, Tom (August 2015). "Contemplative dialogue practices: an inquiry into deep interiority, shadow work, and insight". Integral Leadership Review. 15 (3).

• Nanda, Jyoti (February 2013). "Mindful relationships" (PDF). Sexual and Relationship Therapy. 28 (1–2): 120–131. doi:10.1080/14681994.2012.758838.

• Picard, Cheryl Ann (2016). Practising insight mediation. Toronto; Buffalo; London: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 9781442629370. OCLC 928487424.

• Picard, Cheryl Ann; Jull, Marnie (Winter 2011). "Learning through deepening conversations: a key strategy of insight mediation". Conflict Resolution Quarterly. 29 (2): 151–176. doi:10.1002/crq.20040.

• Raelin, Joseph A. (March 2001). "Public reflection as the basis of learning". Management Learning. 32 (1): 11–30. doi:10.1177/1350507601321002.

• Senge, Peter M.; Scharmer, Claus Otto; Jaworsky, Joseph; Flowers, Betty Sue (2004). Presence: exploring profound change in people, organizations, and society. New York: Currency/Doubleday. ISBN 978-0385516242. OCLC 61257585.

• Surrey, Janet L.; Kramer, Gregory (2013). "Relational mindfulness". In Germer, Christopher K.; Siegel, Ronald D.; Fulton, Paul R. Mindfulness and psychotherapy (2nd ed.). New York: Guilford Press. pp. 94–111. ISBN 9781462511372. OCLC 827724406.

• Welwood, John (2000). Toward a psychology of awakening: Buddhism, psychotherapy, and the path of personal and spiritual transformation. Boston: Shambhala Publications. ISBN 978-1570625404. OCLC 42397510.

External links

• Gregory Kramer
• Metta Programs
• Towards a Mindful Cognitive Science: An Insight Dialogue Retreat, 2014
• Insight Dialogue: The Power, Challenges and Joy of Meditating Together (Part 1) (audio, Dharmaseed.org)
• Insight Dialogue: The Power, Challenges and Joy of Meditating Together (Part 2) (audio, Dharmaseed.org)
• Insight Dialogue: The Power, Challenges and Joy of Meditating Together (Part 3) (audio, Dharmaseed.org)

https://gregorykramer.org/new-guideline-wording-attune-to-emergence/