Mindfulness vs mindless debates

Debating is a favorite hobby of human beings. Sometimes, I am surprised that debating interests us so much. At times, we become aggressive while debating. I learned a critical lesson in my life while attending the Sunday Dialogues at the J. Krishnamurti Foundation. Dialogue is possible only when we place all our ideas and opinions on a platter and then examine them indifferently. While examining these ideas, there should be no ownership. The brain is just an instrument to display the picture like the TV. The TV has no ownership of the pictures it is displaying at the moment. It is just a medium. Similarly, the brain has no ownership of the ideas and thoughts that come to it. 

Once we dissociate from ideas and opinions and put them on a platter for discussion, the dialogue becomes wonderful. We are able to look at them afresh. We are able to see our own biases and preconceived notions. Moreover, we are able to see the perspective of the other. That is generally not the case with debates. 

In debates, "I" becomes primary and the opinion becomes secondary. In a dialogue, "I" disappears. With this disappearance of the "I", we are able to see different viewpoints and perspectives. That brings vibrance to the dialogue. There is no wastage of energy in countering each other. Rather everybody understands that we all have limited perspectives and just trying to connect the dots. As if we all see only a few body parts of the elephant and try to share our experiences to make sense of the elephant as a whole. 

I am not sure why the culture of dialogue is missing generally. Probably, we have become so habitual in proving our point quickly that we lose awareness of the very basic fact that every opinion has a context. We become aggressive while discussing. That takes away the entire charm of the discussion. If a person knows the relativity of his perspective and the other person feels so sure of his perspective, how can both discuss it. Sticking to one's perspective and saying that again and again doesn't help anyways to learn. The more we repeat a particular perspective to our mind, the surer we become of it. However, that doesn't help anyways. 

I feel that debates do not help much except by giving us a small dose of dopamine which is secreted inside our body with each win. If that is the intended objective, then it's fine. If learning from each other is the objective, then we have to switch to dialogue.