session5.pdf

Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction

Homework

Week 5

• Practice mindfulness formally for 45 minutes every day for at least 6 days this

week using Sitting Meditation CD and alternating every other day with the Body

Scan CD or one of the Yoga CDs.

• Practice mindful sitting meditation for at least 15-20 minutes on Body Scan and

Yoga CD days.

• Read and reflect upon “Insight Dialogue” article

• Complete the “Communication Worksheet” focusing on interactions you have

during the week with significant others in your life.

• Continue to cultivate your intention to increase your level of awareness during

daily activities such as: eating, showering, brushing your teeth, washing dishes,

taking out the garbage, reading to the kids. . . and especially during interactions

with others…. These relationship dances can teach us a lot about ourselves 

Reflections

Each step is life, each step is joy and peace. - Thich Nhat Hanh

It is no use walking anywhere to preach unless our walking is our preaching.

- St. Francis of Assisi

When we walk slowly, the world can fully appear. Not only are the creatures not frightened away

by our haste or aggression, but the fine detail of fern and flower, or devastation and disruption

become visible. -Joan Halifax

www.BeMindful.org Steve Shealy, PhD 813-980-2700

Insight Dialogue

Developed by Gregory Kramer

(Note: This material comes from the website of the Metta Foundation (www.metta.org). It is hoped that

the reader will find this brief overview intriguing and will investigate this powerful practice further

through contacting with the Metta Foundation (a non-profit organization, offering workshops and

trainings on a Dana-basis) or through purchasing and reading Gregory Kramer’s books on the subject.)

Insight Dialogue is an interpersonal meditation practice. It brings the mindfulness and

tranquility of silent meditation directly into our experience with other people. As humans, we are

relational beings; as we begin to wake up, clarity and freedom can illuminate our relationships

with others.

Insight Dialogue draws from traditional Buddhist wisdom, but it is not a Buddhist practice in

the religious sense. There is nothing about the practice that would preclude people of any faith or

belief system from participating. In Insight Dialogue we come face-to-face with core human

experiences.

Insight Dialogue is based on the Four Noble Truths. Along with the biological and personal

components of suffering, suffering has interpersonal components: separation from people you

love, being with people who irritate you, unsatisfied longings. Interpersonal suffering is an

important aspect of all suffering. The hungers for pleasure in relationships, to be seen or

admired by others, and to hide or escape—these are all causes suffering, which is then is

sustained by confusion and habit.

Release from interpersonal suffering is possible. We can practice letting go of interpersonal

entanglements in the same way we got entangled—interpersonally. Insight Dialogue provides a

way to do that: an interpersonal form of practice.

In the Buddhist tradition, the foundations of the path are understood to involve morality,

tranquility, and wisdom. The same elements can be traced in other spiritual traditions. If we

emphasize these elements we will be building on a time-tested foundation.

Because Insight Dialogue works with our relational lives, it also emphasizes mutuality. Morality,

tranquility, and wisdom become especially important in their interpersonal aspects.

An interpersonal practice will have different emphases than a primarily solitary practice. Some

of the refined states of stillness encountered in traditional silent meditation will be less

prominent. Interpersonal practices involve speaking or interacting with others, leaving behind

the silence that is the most obvious feature of traditional meditation.

Morality is the foundation of all spiritual progress. An interpersonal path must be founded on

morality. Without the human kindness and respect that underlie morality—and without the ease

of a clear conscience—all deeper wisdom remains an idea, another delusional attachment.

The three moral components of Buddhism’s eightfold path—right speech, action, and living—

address our relational lives. Speaking implies listening; the two together describe relationship.

Right action refers to actions in relation to others: refraining from killing, stealing, and sexual

misconduct. Right living refers to making a living in an honest and decent way.

www.BeMindful.org Steve Shealy, PhD 813-980-2700

The basics of moral communication are straightforward: abstaining from lying, from divisive

speech, from abusive speech, and from idle chatter. Speech should also be true, useful, spoken at

the proper time, and spoken with lovingkindness. Along with treating others the way you

yourself would like to be treated, these moral principles are essential to the smooth functioning

of any human system. These are also foundational to Insight Dialogue.

Tranquility is another key element of the eightfold path. A mind at ease and a calm heart are

essential to seeing things as they actually are. Tension distorts the lens through which we see

the world. We view everything from the perspective of our tension: if we are hungry, for example,

we have eyes only for food.

Without tranquility, the mind cannot dwell with any experience long enough to know its nature.

Without knowing the nature of experience we are unlikely to abandon self-centered fabrications;

we cannot be fully compassionate to others or ourselves.

Wisdom—seeing things as they actually are—is the third element of any path to enlightenment.

We can see things as they actually are when the mind is calm and alert. The more calm and alert

we become, the more clearly we see the nature of the mind and the nature of the world.

Interpersonal practice supports this clear seeing by cultivating mindfulness and calm

concentration.

Insight Dialogue also involves inquiry. Wisdom is supported by inquiring into the nature of

reality and dwelling intimately with teachings that reveal that nature.

Wisdom grows in interpersonal practice by direct experience of interpersonal suffering, hungers,

and freedom. Meditators experience their thoughts and emotions as impermanent, stressful, and

impersonal. They experience firsthand the ease that arises when the mind ceases its habitual

clinging. No intellectual understanding can replace this direct apprehension of stress and

freedom. In Insight Dialogue, these insights unfold in mutual rather than solitary practice.

Much of our contact with people—emotional, intellectual, or otherwise—occurs through

language. In Insight Dialogue, verbal communication is a primary medium of practice. Language

brings into our practice the force of intellect and the associative power of words. Language also

reveals limiting beliefs, desires, grasping, and fears. Because Insight Dialogue works directly

with language and relationship, it can bring about profound transformation in individuals and

groups.

The impact of a meditative practice should be discernable by the wise, reflected visibly in the

human decency of the practitioner. Insight Dialogue is an interpersonal practice that seeks to

meet these criteria.

Traditional silent meditation has different forms of practice, each guided by different

instructions. Insight Dialogue also has meditation guidelines to support meditators as they

change their habitual ways of interacting with others. Each guideline can be used in daily life as

a simple reminder to calm down, become aware, and notice and release old habits. In Insight

Dialogue practice, the same guidelines work together to point the way toward profound spiritual

awakening.

The practice involves discussion and contemplation of profound subject matter—fear, joy, desire,

and the inevitability of change, for example. The content of an Insight Dialogue discussion is not

www.BeMindful.org Steve Shealy, PhD 813-980-2700

the primary focus, however. Becoming aware of how the heart-mind functions are at the core of

this practice.

What habits hold us captive? What is left when these habits fall away?

We can pay attention to our bodies and to the ongoing stories we tell ourselves. We can observe

our reactive emotions. It is not easy. The mind is very quick. Reactions feel automatic. But as a

result of practice, we can calm down. We discover we can become more alert, better able to notice

the movements of the body-mind. The Insight Dialogue guidelines support us as we notice these

things, release attachments, and relax out of stresses.

The first steps help us calm down and pay attention to whatever we find in the emerging

moment. As we move into dialogue, our spoken exchanges are simply a part of what is emerging

in the moment. We become aware of the thinking and emotional processes of our body-minds,

even while we engage with each other. As we calm down, our sensitivity heightens and our

awareness broadens.

(In this article), each guideline is introduced briefly. The guidelines are easiest to understand

when they are read in order. Each contains the seed of all the others, but they do build on each

other in sequence. If you read these descriptions mindfully, you will gain some impression of the

practice. But Insight Dialogue is experiential in nature. It may be helpful to bracket any

conclusions about the practice until you have experienced it—ideally, with the support of a

trained Insight Dialogue facilitator. Retreats are offered worldwide (see ID Retreat Schedule at:

www.metta.org and click on “events”), and local groups are also available in many places.

To pause is to stop some activity temporarily, to let it go.

The body-mind is astonishingly sensitive. Its habit is to grasp at whatever touches it: sights,

sounds, touches, smells, tastes, and thoughts. It grasps to understand: What is this? It grasps to

hold onto pleasures, to wrestle with pain, and to obsess about fears. Seeing another person, it

grasps to hold her or to push her away, to know him or to be known by him, to touch, to fix, or to

adjust.

When we Pause we move from grasping to non-grasping, from clinging to non-clinging. This

movement is the pivot point to freedom.

Waking up from habit mind is the first step on any path. The first instruction in Insight

Dialogue is Pause. Step off the train. Dwell a moment with immediate experience before

speaking, or while listening. The pause is mindfulness. It is an interruption of a lifetime of

habitual forward pressure. It opens the door to the present moment.

It takes energy to change the momentum of a heavy moving object; it also takes energy to

interrupt the habitual push of the reactive mind. The energy needed is called right effort: the

intention to calm down and wake up. Just one moment of clarity can open the door to new

possibilities.

Strong intention is essential to cultivating greater awareness—but even strong intention needs

some way of working with in the habits of the heart-mind. Without the support of a practice, it is

difficult to do anything other than what we have always done: live in the trance of conditioned

emotions and thoughts.

www.BeMindful.org Steve Shealy, PhD 813-980-2700

So we practice. Attending to the breath or to the body pauses the torrent of habit. How is the

body, right now? When we get lost in the fabrications of the mind, carried away by emotions, we

can pause and become mindful. The body can ground us in mindfulness. Practice and gentle

guidance are necessary.

We can observe the pleasant and unpleasant qualities of experience, observe the rising and

passing of thoughts and moods—just passing phenomena. We may suddenly notice that we are

not, in fact, these phenomena that come and go. Mental phenomena move more quickly than

bodily sensations, however; to be aware of them without falling into identification takes agility

and practice.

We can Pause before we speak, while we are speaking, or after we are done speaking. The Pause

can be long or short according to circumstances. It is not about time; it is about mindfulness.

Generally speaking, when the emotion is strong, the pause is long. This is not a rule, however,

only starting point. When mindfulness is well established, the pause takes almost no time.

Without pausing and becoming alert and aware, there is no choice, only habit. Habits of speech,

like all relational habits, simply pour forth into the moment. Without choice, there is no change.

Without change, we remain—and the world remains—enmeshed in identification, loneliness,

fear, and wanting.

The Pause may reveal judgments, anger, stress, fear, or longing. Perhaps we are ready to release

these painful reactions. But positive reactions, reactions that feel good, can also overtake us: a

reaction of excitement perhaps, or enjoying something in a way that takes into our own

automatic story—and out of the present. It's as if some emotional motor that had been switched

on.

In Insight Dialogue meditation, meditators are invited into a conversation in which we

contemplate together the essential truths of our lives. These contemplations can be stimulating

and enticing; they can foster emotional reactivity even as they reveal attachments and fears.

When the facilitator interrupts these conversations by ringing a bell, the meditators are

reminded to step out of reaction and into awareness. The external prompt to Pause supports the

practice while meditators get the hang of it.

When we Pause, two things happen. We stop: we stop our automatic speaking and thinking, and

we stop the momentum of our conditioned habits. This is an enormous step. Each time we pause,

in the moment we pause, we are creating a new habit: the habit of mindfulness. We are training

the mind to dwell wakefully in the moment.

As practice deepens, the power of silence grows. In the beginning, the Pause reveals reactivity:

our conditioned responses, automatic and un-free. This changes. The Pause is transformative.

Eventually, we do not inhabit the stress, the grasping, and the constructions of the overactive

mind; rather, we know these things as they stand side by side with mindfulness, wisdom, and

the possibility of freedom. A choice opens: constructions and delusion, or mindfulness and

wisdom?

The mindful Pause often finds us in the middle of habit-driven thought or emotional reaction.

Stirred by the emotional spike of a recent interchange or by the ongoing rush of thought, the

body is agitated. If we do not meet these experiences skillfully, we will be flung back into

unaware and identified activity. We need further support.

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