“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/
