From Concept to Experience: Apprehending Dhamma Through Insight Dialogue

After some time with the teachings, practitioners can recognize when the Dharma is alive and when it is dry.  There are attitudes and practices that support us in transforming what might be a conceptual understanding of the Dharma to a vibrant, intuitive, embodied experience.  This retreat is about feeling the Dhamma as alive here and now. It’s a training in how to cultivate and express this feeling of vibrancy.

Insight Dialogue has been, for many, a practice of drinking the Dhamma. This is because the power of relationship amplifies the attention and energy of inquiry. Also, in co-meditation we can gain vividness and perspective that may be difficult to activate meditating alone. Perhaps most importantly, because Insight Dialogue is, itself, a training in moving between words and direct, wordless experience, it acts as a conduit to bring the teachings alive in the moment as you receive them, reflect on them, and share them with others.

In this retreat we will practice ways of bringing a Dhamma idea alive in an embodied way. Participants are invited to bring to the retreat specific Dhamma inquiries–grounded in a single Dhamma word, a sutta, or instruction–that you long to explore as lived experience.  We will explore these together as we engage them through crafting and practicing Insight Dialogue and Dharma Contemplation.

Program Format: This retreat includes silent meditation, Dhamma talks, Insight Dialogue, Dharma Contemplation, group investigation, and the wakefulness encouraged by the natural world.