Gregory has been teaching meditation since 1980. He developed the practice of Insight Dialogue, offering retreats worldwide and authoring books including Insight Dialogue: The Interpersonal Path to Freedom and Dharma Contemplation: Meditating Together with Wisdom Texts.
After practicing dhammanupassana in Insight Dialogue, attending to the first four factors of sati (mindfulness), investigation of phenomena, energy and joy, this 40 minutes guided meditation takes us, in silence, through these four and onwards to the three calming factors of tranquility, concentration and equanimity.
The mind is more mysterious than thought can comprehend. So to name the factors of awakening is, in some sense, impossible. And yet, we can know something, it can be helpful, even powerful, to actively cultivate these factors in Insight Dialogue meditation as well as in silent meditation.
The self arises with each moment of clinging; this can be seen particularly clearly in relational practice because the self has been forged through all our relations.
In meditation, the truth is the truth of experience. To speak the truth, mindfulness is essential; its the only way experience can be known. This talk tracks the act of speaking from the wordless beginnings, through the tension behind the urge to speak (even innocuous speech), an onto the physical act. When the thread of sati is maintained, there is a natural authenticity, a coherence between experience and its symbolization in words. The deep of Listen Deeply is likewise traced, with mindfulness and concentration making possible a continuity of awareness. When such listening and speaking meet, the mind-to-mind transmission is of a different order from ordinary speech.
