The Insight Dialogue Community stands with the Black Lives Matter movement and their commitment to “imagining and creating a world free of anti-Blackness, where every Black person has the social, economic, and political power to thrive.”
We stand with our Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) communities to bring an end to systemic racism in the U.S. and across the world.
As an evolving, global, multi-racial community dedicated to spiritual freedom, we recognize that our awakening and liberation is linked to the liberation of all beings, and that there is no peace without justice for all.
During these times of COVID pandemic highlighting grave physical, emotional, and economic suffering, we acknowledge the disproportionate harm to BIPOC communities caused by systemic racism.
To engage relational Dhamma practice as a whole-life path, we commit first to unravel our own racial conditioning and work towards decolonizing our hearts, minds, and sangha. With this overarching intent, we ask that each of us, and all of us together, commit to doing the essential work: to educate ourselves, to act for racial justice, to hear and learn from people who identify as BIPOC, and to work to de-center and dismantle white supremacy culture.
We can use the relational base of our practice to aim and amplify this essential, difficult and heart opening work.
We commit to:
- Support Black Indigenous and People of Color Insight Dialogue Dharma community development. A key component of this commitment is to devote significant resources to cultivating a cohort of Black Indigenous and People of Color Insight Dialogue teachers and facilitators.
- Grow the Insight Dialogue Beloved Community through gatherings that support more bridging between peoples of all races and cultures within the Insight Dialogue Community.
- Integrate awareness and education about the harm caused by white supremacy culture, and the benefit of dismantling it as an intrinsic part of awakening. We will identify mechanisms to cultivate this awareness in Insight Dialogue teachers and facilitators, individual practitioners, practice cohorts and organizational leadership. This includes our continued support for the work of the Insight Dialogue Awakening White Awareness Cohort.
- Encourage engagement in social justice actions.
The Dhamma invites us onto an ennobling path that supports deeper collective wisdom and compassion for all beings. Our relational understanding of these teachings and the practice of Insight Dialogue provide a means by which we can become more aware of and increasingly liberated from our ignorance and biases, in all their forms, and the harm they produce. We understand that individual awakening, interpersonal compassion, and systemic equity and harmony are deeply interconnected and require wise action at all levels.
May our wholesome cultivation of relational practice be of service to all beings without exception. May all beings know justice and peace.
This statement is offered as a collaboration of many voices of the Insight Dialogue Community.