On Friday, October 11, 2024, our new Insight Dialogue Grove, located next to the retaining wall behind the Farmhouse, was formally dedicated. Ayya Anopama, Venerable Viveka, and Gregory Kramer led this beautiful dedication ceremony.
The ceremony began in the Dharma Hall, where the voices and stories of longtime ID teachers and BCBS staff were invited and shared. After hearing from Jan Surrey (ID teacher), Mu Soeng (former BCBS Scholar in Residence), Donna Strickland (Metta Foundation Board member), Rick Henning, William Edelglass, Gregory Kramer, and others, the group proceeded quietly out to the stone stupa, which the line of 40 participants circumambulated before moving silently into the Grove itself.
With the group now standing within the Grove, Ayya Anopama and Venerable Viveka led a ceremony that involved chanting and consecrating a newly planted tree. The beautiful Fall weather added to an atmosphere of sacred, solemn, and joyful appreciation for Insight Dialogue as a practice, the community of practitioners who keep it alive, and the teachers who have led the way.
You can view a short, 7-minute video of the ceremony here, or you can view the full-length livestream video on Facebook here.
Insight Dialogue has been developed and nurtured within the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies for 25 years. Our Center has been humbled by the way that these courses, often led by Gregory Kramer, have gone on to influence Dharma teachers all around the world. Insight Dialogue, in its current formalized state, is still a young practice, but its roots reach deep into the Buddhist tradition. Many respected teachers have recognized its transformative power, value, and importance, and many experienced practitioners have felt the transformation in their own lives firsthand.
Many thanks go to the Insight Dialogue Community for their support of this practice, this ceremony, and the efforts that led to the completion of this new sacred practice space on the BCBS grounds.
If you would like to explore the practice of Insight Dialogue, we invite you to attend an upcoming program:
- (Yearlong Path Program): Finding Freedom Together Applications close November 8!
- (Online) November 2024: An Introduction to a Thoroughly Relational Dharma
- (Online) December 2024: Voices of Awakening: An Insight Dialogue Retreat
- (Online) March 2025: Awakening White Awareness: An Insight Dialogue and Race Equity Program
- (Residential) August 2025: Awakening Together: An Insight Dialogue Retreat for People of Color