Reflections on Practicing Insight Dialogue
Meditation as a relational tool, relationship as a container for meditation
Dear City Person,
As promised in my last newsletter, I have just completed a one-month introductory course on Insight Dialogue which I will be reflecting on today. I had initially thought that I would be done with it by end of September only to realize that the last day of the course was early October which, on top of a busy week, lead up to the delay in this post.
I will start with writing about what is Insight Dialogue and noting down parallels with my faith as a Muslim even as it comes from Buddhist origins before sharing my experience with Insight Dialogue and the steps to practicing it.
Some house keeping before I dive in…
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What is Insight Dialogue?
Insight Dialogue is a relational form of meditation. It is a mindful way of being in conversation with others where the relationship becomes the container for meditation and for possible insights to organically emerge. It has roots in Buddhist tradition as described in the following passage below from an interview with Gregory Krammer I found in a blog post by Barre Center for Buddhist Studies. Click here to read the full interview:
“What is Insight Dialogue, in a nutshell?
It’s the extension of personal, silent meditation practice into the interpersonal sphere. The technique, the qualities cultivated, and the intentions of the vipassanā tradition are all maintained—sati (mindfulness), samādhi (concentration), and sammā diṭṭhi (right view) remain central to the process—and these qualities are brought to the interpersonal engagement with others. Just as you carefully attend to sense data and bring awareness to mental states during silent vipassanā retreats, you can also attend to the words being spoken to you by others, along with all sorts of nonverbal signals that come along with communication. The heart vibrates, the organism vibrates, and this is known.
What is the precedent for this practice in the early tradition?
The evidence is everywhere in the discourses, but the most striking, clear statement of it is right there in the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta, the Discourse on the Foundations of Mindfulness. In the refrain repeated again and again in that text, the Buddha speaks about observing the whole range of phenomena internally, externally, and both internally and externally. This passage is so often glossed over, and emphasis is usually placed upon an introspective and even introverted approach to vipassanā meditation. But as I understand the instructions here, the practice is not complete unless one learns to attend just as carefully and precisely to external, or perhaps objective, phenomena. This must include interpersonal phenomena, a huge aspect of our lives as relational, social beings. I discovered only gradually how powerful and deeply rooted in the tradition this way of practicing really is.
Let’s take mindfulness as an example (though we could take almost any aspect of the dhamma). Internally, I’m mindful of this body as I’m sitting here talking to you: I’m mindful of the pleasant and unpleasant sensations, of my mind states and emotions. I might also be mindful of the hindrances or the enlightenment factors as they arise in this heart-mind right now. I might also open and extend my awareness from the internal and personal to the mutual, or shared, moments. I might be mindful of the words being spoken, of your body and how you’re moving your body. I might be mindful that I’m turning back internally to my reactions to what you’ve said, and to my aversion and craving, my concerns, my fears. Then I could turn outward again, noticing the impermanence of what’s external, which, right now, is you. You are changing moment to moment as you speak, as you look at me, and so on. Then, I can reflect upon both what’s internal and external. The heart/mind becomes flexible, calm and alert. We begin to see things as they are.
Looking at mindfulness meditation in the way I’ve come to understand and implement the teachings, the internal and external refers to the entire relational moment, to what Martin Buber called the between. It involves finding a whole notion of interpersonal contact—this voice of mine speaking and reaching your ears; a moment of ear contact; then you speak to me and your voice reaches my ears. Out of this language there is mind contact. There is visual contact and other kinds of energetic contact, and a relational moment unfolds, with both internal and external aspects. Indeed, it often becomes difficult to say where one leaves off and the other begins. The rigid boundaries between self and other—built up since infancy or even before it—begin to soften. This, of course, reveals and challenges the whole enterprise of constructing duality. This can be directly experienced in Insight Dialogue, where we meditate together.
It’s true that many people—students and teachers both—don’t know what to make of the external part of the instruction, especially when it comes to feeling tones or mental objects. It sounds like you may be opening up, and completing, an important but overlooked part of the classical teachings here.
It feels solid and not just an opportunistic interpretation, especially when you look at the rest of the Buddha’s teachings in this interpersonal light: interpersonal doubt and lust, relational grasping, energy and fear, all the way down to the ways dependent origination unfolds in the presence of others. As I began teaching this way, and the practice got deeper and deeper, the insights people were having got more profound and beautiful. As I immersed myself in the suttas, I saw that the whole dispensation of the Buddha, when construed to cover the interpersonal, had that same depth interpersonally that it does personally.
The noble truth of suffering is another example that easily comes to hand. Yes, suffering is personal, including as it does bodily pain and aging and death, and the existential issues of what am I doing with my life and so forth. But look at what a tremendous amount of our suffering is interpersonal. Not only are others often the source of my pain (have you ever been in relationship?), but so much of what I do causes suffering to others, either directly or quite indirectly—we discern the seeds of compassion.
Then you go on to say, if that’s the case, then the cause of this interpersonal suffering must also be interpersonal taṇhā, that is, craving, hunger. You look inside your life, you look inside your own heart, and you don’t have to look very far to find it. Yes, I’ve got interpersonal hungers going on. I do hunger for interpersonal pleasure. I do fear interpersonal pain. I do hunger to be seen, to exist, to be acknowledged, interpersonally. I also fear nonbeing. I do hunger to escape. These are the cravings for existence and nonexistence, understood interpersonally. All these hungers together are the roots of my suffering.
Of course, if you’ve gone that far, you can’t help but take the next step and ask, is the third noble truth true, interpersonally? What might my life look like with the cessation of interpersonal hunger? Might the stillness and love I cultivate be continually available to others? Might their love be available to me? Can I live with others in the world with the expansiveness, openness, availability, and tranquility of heart that comes from the cessation of these social or interpersonal hungers, and the grasping they create? Lovingkindness and compassion are not theory: they are lived experience.
Is it a matter of greater intimacy?
You know, that’s an interesting word, and it obviously comes up in my retreats or the practice groups that form. I’ve learned to distinguish two important facets of intimacy. One is constructed intimacy, which is what we usually think of when we use the word intimacy. Perhaps we’ve constructed a life together, as husband or wife, as business partners, or in a long-term friendship. This is intimate in the sense that we feel familiar, close, understood, and safe. We feel this way because the fibers woven between us are so refined, so numerous, so deeply set in our neurological structure.
But, there is also a quality of intimacy that is unconstructed, that is found in the absence of all of that. We are intimate because there is nothing in between us. This is what arises in meditation when we have direct contact with experience, and that experience encompasses another person, or other people. Not only is my direct contact with experience occurring in my own internal meditation—seeing is seeing, hearing is hearing, and so forth—but it is also happening while being present with another, with eyes open, with ears open, having stepped outside the whole constructed sense of self and other. This is unconstructed intimacy.
Unconstructed intimacy is not built around a sense of self—or of non-self, for that matter. It is not built at all.
It is the essence of impermanence, of emptiness, the essence of anattā, of shunyata. Shunyata extends to the whole of our lives, even this place—human relationships—where it is usually most obviously absent. The third noble truth, interpersonally understood, thus reveals a quality of being with others.
It is a quality of coming to rest without clinging and seeing things as they actually are.
I’ve certainly noticed that a number of people, many with extensive experience of silent, personal meditation, find the Insight Dialogue work quite remarkable.
Isn’t that amazing? It inspires me deeply. I’ll tell you why that is, as I understand it. It’s well-acknowledged by many people involved in this work that in traditional practice it’s possible to bypass a lot of issues and thereby miss a lot of insights. The mind is very powerful, and can protect those places of tension, confusion, and hurt from being known.
But a lot of that hiding becomes impossible when you bring the practice out into the open air with others, where every moment of interpersonal practice is met by, supported by, and even challenged by others.
Experience is met with unfettered receptivity, which is the essential nature of awareness, internally and externally. This quality of openness is the essence of the transformative moment—clinging is released and hungers diminish. This includes but is not limited to identified, psychological release. It extends to the mystery of awakening.”
Before I continue, I have a question for readers and you may respond by either replying privately to this email or posting a public comment on Substack by clicking on the button below the question:
What is standing out to you from the passage I quoted above?
Parallels with my Faith
While I am a practicing Muslim and recognize clear theological differences between Islam and Buddhism, I have also noticed parallels between them especially when considering esoteric understandings of Islam (also known as tasawwuf or Sufism). Examples of these parallels include:
how overly attaching to the “nafs” نفس (often translated from Arabic as “self” or “ego”) and making it the center of all we do can cause suffering both privately and within our relationships with others. Both traditions recognize that while having a self is important for us to function in our daily lives, the problem is more when it alone informs how we perceive things and when it becomes the center of how we relate to others and what we prioritize in life.
the idea of life and mental states being transient and how overly attaching to them can cause suffering
the interconnected nature of being and of reality
Within Sufism there is a type of meditation known as “muraqaba” مراقبة which is a tool for character development and for loosening one’s excessive clinging to self, except in this case the focus is more about developing a deeper intimacy with the Divine. It is also known as “zikr qalbee” (supplication of the heart) to the point one senses the presence of the Divine in the present moment both in their breath and in all their interactions with other beings. There is an Arabic phrase often repeated in Sufi circles that says الصوفي ابن الوقت “The Sufi is the child of the moment.”
Regardless of one’s sectarian background, all Muslims are advised to have a state of presence (known as hudhoor in Arabic حضور) in order for our acts of worship to be accepted. Acts of worship are not only limited to things like praying 5 times a day, but can also include zikr (supplication) before and after doing day to day activities as well as our day to day actions which we are advised to practice beautifully or with ihsan in Arabic احسان. Ideas of speaking with ihsan through gentle speech and allowing room for silence are also emphasized within Prophetic tradition.
Prophet Muhammad’s prayer which is known across sectarian differences: “Oh Allah, show me things as they are.” “اللهم أرني الأشياء كما هي” Also click here to read Rumi’s story about polishing the mirror (i.e. our ability to perceive and our character) to better reflect reality in his collection of poems known as the Masnavi.
Speaking of Rumi, if you have learned about mindfulness outside of a Buddhist religious context, you may have heard about Coleman Barks’s poem called The Guesthouse which often is attributed to Rumi. While it does capture the essence of Rumi’s original poem, Barks’s “translation” distances us from the Islamic teachings within Rumi’s original poem and skips much of it so it cannot be really described as a “translation” but more as a poem inspired by Rumi. See this video below that compares both the original poem with Coleman Barks’s version and how their message is similar to a quote from a Buddhist text. You can skip to the 7:20 mark of the video. As you can see, both poems and the quote of Buddhist origin illustrate how we can have a mindful way of being with our inner experiences through welcoming them as guests, even those we did not wish to invite.
I have also found the teachings mentioned in the passage from the Gregory Krammer interview I quoted above to apply to a larger human condition, regardless of one’s spiritual or secular orientation.
Before I continue, I have a question for readers and you may respond by either replying privately to this email or posting a public comment on Substack by clicking on the button below the question:
If you come from a Buddhist background, what are your thoughts on the passages from the interview above and the parallels I notice with my faith? If you are not Buddhist, what parallels if any do you notice between your tradition and what I shared so far?
My Experience with Insight Dialogue
Content warning: grief and loss
I was first introduced to Insight Dialogue in 2021 when I was doing a certificate on meditation and psychotherapy. At the time, I recall having practiced it three times with three different people, one of whom was diagnosed with ADHD. Each time, both sides noticed how much our thoughts slowed down and how we could let go of any attachment to the outcome of our conversations and be more present to each other the longer we spoke and paused. It would take time to ease into the shared silences, but once we did we both noticed how enjoyable it was rather than being labeled as an “awkward silence.” For those who had limited to no experience with any form of meditation, they found this practice to be more accessible as the relationship created the environment needed for them to meditate which can be harder to do on their own.
I did not continue practicing it until recently when I found out that the Insight Dialogue organization offers donation-based online and in-person practice sessions globally but it is required to do the 1-month introduction first before joining these. Click here to learn more about the organization and its courses and texts on Buddhist philosophy.
Since there was no in-person opportunity near me, I opted to do the online introductory donation-based course called “An Introduction to Insight Dialogue and The Caring Relationship.” I found much of what I took away from this course to be very applicable to my work as a psychotherapist and also in other relationships with people I care about.
While I was more consistent with meditation the month before, during the month I started this class I unfortunately was not able to be as consistent and I notice how it impacted my ability to be as present in our practices. I noticed how my ability to be present was different with each conversation partner I was paired up with and how usually I would start with a lot of tension and uncertainty before easing into the practice and becoming more relaxed and present.
This had me appreciate that regardless of how distracted or tense I feel at first and regardless of how unsure I feel about what I want to talk about when it was my turn to speak, I can still trust in the relational container I build with another person and in my individual meditation to allow what needs to happen to emerge on its own and to trust that I do not need to think about what I want to say as it will emerge if I am present. Even in times when I was not fully relaxed, I appreciated the insights that arose that had me curious about how what I noticed during the practice may be showing up in my relationships with other people in my life.
One of the facilitators opened our course by sharing his story of connecting with his wife while she was dying from cancer. He shared how when he overly latched on to the role of being a caregiver, it became a “job” and created a power imbalance in the relationship that took away his wife’s autonomy. It is also more likely to lead to burnout.
However, when he was able to distance from labeling himself as “the caregiver” and his wife as “the sick person,” it opened up new possibilities for how they could meaningfully connect in the last days of her life. As he said “even with someone very sick there are moments of joy.” He shared this story to illustrate how Insight Dialogue can help us step away from social constructs and labels so we can be more present with the person and curious about their needs and share what we can offer to them with their consent in mind.
In this way, we can be better able to respond to whatever needs arise in the moment instead of reacting out of fear which can unintentionally lead us to be coercive with others or to be paralyzed with inaction which can both backfire in our ability to support a person.
We can also be open to learning from the person so that they feel they have something of value to offer and the relationship does not become a one-way relationship which can hurt connection. Feeling that one “matters” to someone else is part of what it means to belong and it partly involves feeling that one can both give and receive in relationships, and not just always be the “helper” or always “the one being helped.”
In our last session, I most resonated with the idea of how a rigid attachment to roles like being the “caregiver” or “helper” can have us overly attach to the self. This rigid attachment can get us feeling stressed when circumstances call for any slight deviation in our thinking. This stress can impact our ability to physically relax enough to open up to what is arising in the present moment and to what the person is needing from us in that moment because we are too distracted by the assumptions and expectations inherent in rigidly attaching to a role.
I notice that in my role as a counseling psychologist, if I am too attached to it in a given moment, then I am more likely to approach the person seeking my help with an “agenda” and with a sense of urgency. This in turn invites anxiety and a sense of not being good enough if I cannot reach my “agenda.” I notice my speech becomes faster, I feel less patient, more defensive at feedback, and my focus becomes very narrow that I miss the larger picture. I may either ask too many questions and miss opportunities to validate and relate to the person or become too directive and thus steal away opportunity from the person to access their own power and grow. I am further more prone to make very silly but potentially hurtful mistakes with the person.
I have seen across the multiple cultural backgrounds and different degrees of emotional distress I have worked with globally how this approach hurts my connection with the person I am working with. In psychotherapy, the relationship with one’s therapist is key to therapy being helpful regardless of what approach or level of expertise the therapist has. If connection is not present, then therapy will be useless and the person won’t be motivated to put in the effort required from their side regardless of how “good” the therapist is.
I have questions for readers before I continue…
A) Think of 1-3 times when you noticed you were always or most of the time approaching a person from the mindset of being a “helper.”
Where did you notice your focus going when this happened?
What impacts did it have on your ability to be present and on your conversation with the person if any?
what impacts did it have on your ability to be curious about the person and to see the larger picture?
How did the other person receive your attempts at helping? (Do not share what you assumed, but what the person say or do or how did they react with their non-verbal cues)
If you have always been the “helper” and never the one “being helped” in a relationship, how did this impact your connection with the person over time?
B) Think of 1-3 times when you noticed the other person approaching you from the mindset of being the “helper” and trying to “fix” you either every time or most of the time:
How did you receive the other person’s attempts at helping you?
What impacts, if any, did this have on your connection with this person?
If you have always been the “one being helped” and never the “one helping” in this relationship, how did it impact your connection with the other person over time? How did it impact how you viewed yourself?
Every two-hour session during my introductory Insight Dialogue course started with the following structure:
Brief mindfulness of body and of sounds to have us transition from our day and into our practice.
our facilitator shared the following on why we focus on the body in both solo meditation and in Insight Dialogue (this quote is a rough paraphrase of what he said):
“we focus on the body as the body and mind are not separate. Body is about feeling and minds create stories. So often we get caught up in stories and are not mindful. So coming into the body takes us out of the story even as it remains but it allows us to come below the level of story to notice something we are not quite feeling and to release our attachment to the story and begin to see things in a different way.”
An example of what it means to get lost in story that the facilitator shared is when someone gets angry at us and we get lost in the story of them not liking us. Consistent meditation can help us see below that anger and see why it is here. It can touch into a place where care can happen and open up to love and compassion.
Introduction of a given step of Insight Dialogue for us to focus on that day. Here are the steps to practicing Insight Dialogue:
Setting an intention to care for each other’s wellbeing and not to intentionally harm one another.
While it is encouraged to speak the truth of the present moment, we must also be wise to know when to hold back if the truth may be more hurtful than caring for the relationship.
Pause
Momentary stop of thoughts of what we do in moment, just coming into the moment. This gives space for mindfulness to be established. Key word is “momentary” as we cannot force thoughts to stop, but we can invite them to pause and be with whatever thoughts or sensations or insights naturally arise afterwards.
There is no limit to the pause, can be fraction of a second or even several minutes.
Relax your body as much as possible
It is expected to notice tension when you first pause, so this step helps guide the journey to a mindful state. As mentioned, the body and mind are connected, so it is helpful to start with relaxing whatever parts of your body is tense as much as you can while being compassionately present with the parts that remain tense.
Open
as we settle in, we can open to what is present with our five senses and with what is happening in our mind without attempting to control them and without getting overly attached and lost in their story. Just observing them as they are.
Attune to emergence
entering flow of experience without attaching to anything in particular and not attaching to any role or outcome.
Listen deeply
listening to our conversation partner and our body as we listen. Opening to what is being shared but not just the content of the words and without forcing ourself to remember all that was said afterwards. We listen with our whole body not just the ears. Noticing the words being spoken, body language, how the voice sounds, feel how the words and body language of our conversation partner are being experienced in our bodies.
Speak deeply
sharing what is arising in our body and mind in the present moment as it is and noticing the physical sensation of speaking. Speaking from the heart.
Sharing prompts to guide our conversational meditation before we get sent out to timed breakout rooms with our conversation partner. At first, we take turns being “speaker” versus “listener” before we do another round with a different prompt where we let go of the rigid roles of being “speaker” or “listener” using “open dialogue.” We were instructed to “hide self view” in Zoom so that we can be more present with our conversation partner. Here were the prompts we had each week:
Name your present experience of your body-mind as it is
using open dialogue, name a role that is not too complicated (such as friend, neighbor, conversational partner etc) not getting lost in story but share what is it like in your body-mind to think and talk about this in the present moment
Focusing on the pause and relax steps: notice breathing, what is it like to breathe now? Speak about to where in our body do you feel the breath and what kind of sensations you feel as you inhale and exhale. Notice any thoughts that arise and stay with what is arising. As listener, become present to your experience of breathing and listening and be aware of where in body do you feel your own breathing and sounds of your co-meditator. Be patient with the noticing. When you are not too sure, you can pause more and feel then speak.
Focusing on the “open” step: explore something small but difficult in someone in our life that creates tension. As you speak the story, you pause and feel what is arising in the moment in your body. It can be easy to get caught up and excited in the story but the invitation is to pause and feel the body in the moment, not recalling what you experienced back then but rather what you are experiencing right now as you recall this story. As you you listen to your co-meditator’s story, notice what is arising in your body and notice when you get very drawn into the story and how you can you come back to the body.
Think of a role you play (as a worker, friend, neighbor, student, family member etc) for 7 minutes and see what truth manifests in the moment. See what roles come up in the moment and what you want to share rather than thinking of it. Only share as much as what you know in that moment. Listener takes in whatever you remember both what is described but also nonverbal cues and what emerges within the listener but don’t try to too hard to get all of that. Then for 3 minutes the listener shares what they receive after pausing and relaxing and opening. Then for 1 minute first speaker will share the truth of moment after listening to what the listener shared. Then role switch before open dialogue. You can pause in silence any time you need.
5 minutes of each side settling into the relationship while co-creating the container of practice. Speaker will share what is present in body in this moment then slowly releasing attachment of self and opening to other person when done speaking. Notice what it feels like to listen. In open dialogue, choose a relationship that may have had little struggle in it (a level of 3-4 out of 10) and reflect on it but not on story but on how it felt on various stages. Reflect on what it felt in your body, allowing for any tightness to be and pause/open/relax/release it. Notice moments when self shows up.
Reflect on experiences over last 4 weeks of our class practicing with a conversation partner you never knew. Share what it was like to share things that were perhaps bit difficult. Do this in open dialogue after taking moment or two to settle in together.
Share how the roles we take on in life impact how we interpret things.
Coming back to main room and sharing what our experience was like
A question for readers before I end…
If you decide that you want to try Insight Dialogue after reading my newsletter today, please share how you hope it could benefit you and your relationships.
Next month’s newsletter will feature an organization called Sidewalk Talks and opportunities to get involved regardless of where you are in the world.
Before I wrap up…
I am ending each of my posts with a randomly drawn conversational card that you can consider using to deepen your conversations with people this week. So here’s today’s card drawn from a deck called Scenario Cards:
“What if you were invited to write a single line for a fortune cookie without anyone knowing what you had written? What would you write?”
Let me know if you end up using this question in any of your conversations and how it goes!
Click the link here to learn more about Scenario Cards. I currently earn an affiliate fee for every purchase from this link. This is so far the first affiliate partnership I have and I only plan to do so with products I genuinely benefited from. I had previously written a post about conversational cards in general prior to being invited to Scenario Cards’ affiliate program. Click here for the link to the post.
am in deep love with this post , though it is very dense it is not made for casual reading . in fact all your writings are dense , but this one is special . I am going to work through it steadily
As a long time insight meditation practitioner, I so appreciated the reflections on parallels with Islam/Sufism.