Jenny Phillips on Oprah

Cultural anthropologist, writer and psychotherapist Jenny Phillips has been working in the field of mental health for more than 15 years. Much of her work has been with male prisoners, teaching inmates courses on emotional literacy and vipassana meditation, an ancient meditation technique based on the teachings of Buddha. Her work has helped inmates—many serving multiple life sentences—transform their lives, face their pasts and become more peaceful, purposeful people.

In 2008, Jenny released the self-produced documentary The Dhamma Brothers, which followed 36 prisoners at the Donaldson Correctional Facility in Alabama through a 10-day silent vipassana meditation course. Her book Letters from the Dhamma Brothers: Meditation Behind Bars is a collection of letters and interviews from inmates who took part in the meditation course. The book depicts prison life and the journey many of the prisoners took to better understanding the teachings of Buddha and achieving inner peace.

See more: http://www.oprah.com/spirit/Jenny-Phillips-on-Oprahs-Soul-Series-Webcast

Pecatonica meditation center helps people find balance

..... Once participants enter the site, they are asked to leave behind religious objects, intoxicants, tobacco, iPods, cell phones and reading or writing materials. Participants also are asked to observe the “Noble Silence,” or to abstain from talking.

Kate Anderson, center manager for Pecatonica, said only then can people understand what silence really is. Students are asked to suspend other forms of prayer or worship, meditation or yoga. Anderson said this is advised in order to fully experience and understand Vipassana and not impede upon the meditation. She said monks, priests and nuns from a variety of religions have taken courses at Vipassana meditation centers.

“Everyone who comes here, they have their own religion – they’re Jewish or they’re Catholic or Muslim,” Anderson said. “They come here to learn this technique.”

Students of the course learn techniques to change their reactions in daily life from anger, negativity, misery and other stressful situations to positive ones, Anderson said.

Days begin with the low resonating of a Burmese-style gong at 4:30 a.m. Each day ends at 9:30 p.m. Students are required to meditate in the meditation hall three times a day, with other time slotted for meditation either in the hall or their room throughout the day.

Read more: http://www.rrstar.com/news/yourtown/x415953142/Pecatonica-meditation-center-helps-people-find-balance

Meditation - A CLOSE ENCOUNTER WITH THE NON-SELF

Oddly enough, the course's monastic severity is largely responsible for its popularity; since the results, judging by the responses, are commensurably high. Mohan Nathani, 63, a retired income tax officer who has repeated the course five times, reveals: "It was during my first course that I really experienced bliss."

Christians, including priests and nuns, come regularly for vipassana. Sister Regina Rosario of the order of the Sisters of Mary of the Cross, says: "Being used to meditation, I didn't find it too difficult. It has made me more aware of my actions and reactions." She feels that vipassana has brought her closer to a spiritual goal. "Compassionate love for crucified Christ, and thus for my neighbors."

N. Vaghul, a financial wizard who meditates for three to four hours daily, feels that vipassana has changed his relationship with people and his views. "Best of all, I no longer look for professional recognition or rewards. I work in order to contribute."

Moushomi Chatterjee, who took a course in early March, is raring to go again. "It makes you realize who you are, that you can also be a Buddha."

Read more: http://www.lifepositive.com/Spirit/meditation/vipassana/vipassana-meditation.asp#goenka

State of Grace: How Buddhist Teachings Transformed a Maximum Security Prison in Alabama

“The stories of The Dhamma Brothers ring with the truth and power of their experiences, and offer the hope for renewal and rehabilitation within a dismal and punishment-oriented correctional system. It gives you hope for the human race.” —Sister Helen Prejean, author, Dead Man Walking

In her new documentary, The Dhamma Brothers, Phillips frames the daily, shackled grind of the prisoners’ lives with these social injustices, but also investigates, with a fresh, clear perspective, what it is like to be a prisoner doing hard time in the South choosing to practice guided Buddhist meditation techniques.

Deep within this facility’s walls, an unlikely group of inmates (some on death row) are challenging all of the stereotypes and misconceptions about the South, about prisoners, about masculinity, and about the modern spirituality of the incarcerated. They, in fact, were transcending these trappings by practicing Vipassana, an intense, silent, ten-day crash course induction into a sacred world many of the inmates had likely never even heard of until Donaldson became the first prison in the United States to give it a try.

In a region where anything other than Christianity is predictably labeled “witchcraft” (as one woman interviewed called Buddhism—“I don’t believe it will help at all”), Dr. Ron Cavanaugh, Director of Treatment for the Alabama Department of Corrections, decided to throw caution to the wind and try something revolutionary and unprecedented. In short, mainly, because there wasn’t anything to lose.

Read more: http://www.popmatters.com/pm/feature/state-of-grace-how-buddhist-teachings-transformed-a-maximum-security-prison/

Movie Review—The Dhamma Brothers

While admittedly far different than your typical film about prison, The Dhamma Brothers is also far more deserving of your time.  If you’re looking for the elements you’d usually expect from a documentary about life “behind bars,” yes, you’ll find some of them of here, but they’ve mostly been drained of their lurid aspects.  At one point the setting, Donaldson Correctional Facility, is compared to the fictional Shawshank, and certainly the crimes of which its inmates have been convicted are horrendous, but the first clue that the tone and emphases will be atypical here is provided by the title itself.  “Dhamma” (in Sanskrit: “dharma”) refers to the Buddha’s teachings, and this thought-provoking film concerns the struggles, both internal and external, that occurred when they were introduced to a group of lifers serving time in the heart of the Bible Belt.

Read more: http://firefox.org/news/articles/1388/1/Movie-ReviewThe-Dhamma-Brothers/Page1.html

The Dhamma Brothers Film Review

A maximum security prison isn't the sort of place you'd expect to find a bunch of men mutely contemplating their navels and the meaning of life. But that's what we find Alabama's Donaldson State Penitentiary, where Warden Stephen Bullard opted to allow Jonathan Crowley to introduce an East Indian brand of meditation known as Vipassana to volunteers plucked from among the institution's most hardened criminals.

The participants adopting the ascetic regimen understood that the initiation meant that for ten days straight they would not be allowed to talk, watch TV, use a phone, have sex or imbibe intoxicants. Those able to meet the challenge discovered that they emerged from the program calmer and with a new sense of purpose when they rejoined the general population.

The Dhamma Brothers, directed by Andrew Kukura, Jenny Phillips and Anne Marie Stein examines the before and after mindsets of the cons converted to the Eastern spiritual path. This fascinating film focuses on a quartet of contrite individuals, starting with Edward Curry Johnson, a once-promising student-athlete who was being scouted by pro baseball when, against his better judgment, he foolishly took part in a gang-related homicide.

Read more: http://newsblaze.com/story/20080408060021tsop.nb/topstory.html

The Dhamma Brothers Trailer

The Dhamma Brothers tells a dramatic tale of human potential and transformation as it closely follows and documents the stories of the prison inmates at Donaldson Correction Facility who enter into this arduous and intensive program. This film, with the power to dismantle stereotypes about men behind prison bars also, in the words of Sister Helen Prejean (Dead Man Walking), "gives you hope for the human race." http://www.dhammabrothers.com

Watch online: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zA8XFEyeMi8&e

My Experience with Vipassana Meditation

Many friends are curious about my 10-day meditation experience. Some of them even worried that I would become a nun after these 10 days.

10 days of meditation? What do you do besides meditation? Just sit and meditate the whole day? And you can’t talk at all in these 10 days? Not even during lunch or dinner?What? You don’t even have dinner? Oh my god… You sure you want to do this to yourself? Girl, you will go crazy… (and on and on my family and friends worried…)

Read more: http://traveloncloud9.wordpress.com/2008/01/29/my-personal-experience-with-vipassana-meditation/

Vipassana Brings Peace And Self-knowledge

To say that economic progress does not necessarily bring about a corresponding increase in happiness is to state the obvious. But the reasons for this are not so obvious. Whenever we experience agitation, frustration and disharmony, we tend to look for their causes outside of ourselves or in some instances we tend to even blame ourselves. In either case there is lack of objectivity.

Further, whenever we become un-happy, we spread our unhappiness to the environment and to others. The Buddha observed this phenomenon objectively. In the process he discovered a technique that brought peace and harmony to its practitioners. The technique, Vipassana, was based on truth as revealed to oneself and thus free from any dependence on others' imposition or biases. Because of its scientific nature, it appeals to many across countries for centuries after Buddha taught it.

Read more: http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2008-01-09/holistic-living/27780481_1_vipassana-buddha-happiness