What's So Special About our Dialogue Practice?

The title above is just one of the questions people have had about our dialogue practice.

     

                At first the answer seems to be "Not much; Mostly we sit around and listen." Then again it is amazing that such a practice exists. It is wonderful that it exists. 

                Then too, there are very special facts like: Our dialogue practice builds and maintains cultures! It supports world peace and peace in Colombia. It broadens participants' understanding. It brings increased meaning into our lives! It helps husbands and wives to better understandings!

                By checking out more posts on this blog you can find out a lot.

Here are a few other things which seem special about our dialogue practice just now:

~ We come to understand the opinions of others.
~ We feel that our practice is important.
~ We care little when nothing seems to be done.
~ We share meanings.
~ We may come to think together.
~ We sometimes find that our practice affects us at a deeper more beautiful level.
~ We become a better we.
~ We get to know important assumptions and opinions of others.
~ We become more skillful speakers and listeners.
~ Our understanding becomes broader, wider, and deeper.

                                                                                                                                    by me

Dialogue Practice Notes

Dialogue With RCS: Notes about the new kind of communication being used by many.

                I am kind of starting in the middle of this dialogue practice stuff because I do not know where the beginning is. Come to think of it, I believe that there is no end to it either. Is there and end to the practice of medicine?  Maybe, but so far, when the career of one doctor ends another doctor continues the practice. 

                The practice of medicine is important. By reading on you may discover that many consider the practice of dialogue more important than that of medicine.  The practice of dialogue is certainly serious.  It is also interesting and fun.

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                Plunging right into a serious part of  dialogue practice I can say the following:
After a time of dialoguing we can better understand how a certain opinion or assumption of another participant has come to be held. That's serious isn't it? Have you never thought to yourself, "How can that person have such a belief or opinion!?"

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            Dialogues of the kind I have been speaking of have been called Dialogue For Peace, Magic Table Dialogue, Fair Fighting dialogue, and just plain Dialogue Practice.  I have thought of calling it Dialogue For the Creation and Preservation of Culture, but have not done so until just now. This practice has also been call a Listing Practice.

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                I have been writing these bits about dialogue as though we were the dialogue practitioners and plan to continue doing so.

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                We will bring our assumptions to our dialogue for peace practice group for it is impossible not to bring them. Those assumptions will come up.  Our purpose  is not to judge them, not to suppress them, not to believe them or to disbelieve them.
Our purpose is not to see them as good or bad. Our purpose is to listen for them, to hear them, to recognize them, and to accept  their  existence.

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                There are lots of rules for good dialogue practice, but not much enforcement of those rules. One may take them as very valuable suggestions. 

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                The idea in our practice group is not to change anyone's mind.
The aim is try to see  what each assumption means. The purpose is to understand the experience which gives a particular assumption it's birth and which supports it 

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                So we are here coming to see that dialogue practice entails a listening practice of a group of listeners. One person talks for a bit and gets to be well heard. Than another talks and is well heard. We all become better listeners. Some  have mistakenly thought that a dialogue practice is only for and between two persons. In our dialogues there are many great listeners who all listen to one person at a time.  You will be that person who is well listened to and well heard.

                Thank you reading. Your visit is important.

 

 

                                                                                    RCS

 

Assumptions in Our Dialogue Practice

Dialogue With RCS: The question of assumptions for those who have begun the practice.

 

                Assumptions may not be the top reason for your interest in dialogue. Neither are they among the first human behaviors that drew me to dialogue. However, the greater my experience with the practice of dialogue the more important I saw my assumptions, and those of others, to be.

Below is a list of observations related to assumption:  

~ An assumption is much like an opinion or belief and probably as important.
~ As assumptions come up in our dialogue we avoid believing or disbelieving them.
~ Many of our assumptions are unconscious.
~ We want to better know what each assumption means.
~ Many of us want to more of the experiences which lead to the creation of  of the assumption. We want to know what is on each others' mind while keeping our conclusions and judgments in abeyance. 
~ We can each take in many assumptions and not our personal reactions to each of them.
~ We want to keep our dialogue on a level whereat our assumptions come out somewhat freely.
~ We what assumptions to be out where we can where we can all look at them with little discomfort.
~ In Magic Table Dialogue we put them on The Table as gifts from which each and all of of us can take as much and as many as we wish.

                     Thank you for your visit.

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                                                                                                      by Richard

Dialoguers Do it Better

Dialogue With RCS: some ground rules for group dialogue practice

1. Treat what you hear in confidence.

2. Others have the right to believe and feel differently from you.

3. Others have he right to express their beliefs.

4. You do not have to believe as others do.

5. Treat others with the respect that you expect for yourself.

6. While others speak, do not interrupt.

7. Share your own views from your own experience.

8. Do not pressurize anyone into speaking.

9. All participants' views and ideas have value. 

These rules have been useful for one group. They do not have to be mine or yours.


Other posts with information about dialogue include the following:

~ Dialogue Practice Notes

by R. Carroll Sheehan