Humans are relational beings -- pack animals, born and raised in families, working and living together. Much of our suffering is people-suffering. We meditate to be free from suffering, yet sometimes a gap arises when interpersonal suffering is being addressed in intrapersonal meditation. We perpetuate the "island universe" of the individual self even as we seek freedom.
Insight Dialogue is a fully relational meditation practice based on Buddhist Vipassana Insight meditation and a relational understanding of the Dhamma. The mind is invited to stillness and keen mindfulness even as we remain in dialogue with others. Here we meet the shared human experience that transcends our very real differences in genetics, background, and worldly
circumstances.
The Buddha offers us the recipe of cultivating a strong and clear concentration, mindfulness and investigation rooted in kindness that allows us to learn to experience the extremes and the subtleties of difficult emotions without getting caught by them. It's as though we learn to see them so clearly that we see through them and see their nature, just like we see through the colors of a rainbow.
