How Hard Core Prisoners are Transforming Themselves Through Vipassana Meditation
Posted by George Shears | Filed under Applied Mindfulness, Uncategorized
In 1973, Bo Lozoff and Ram Dass hit upon the highly innovative realization that people in prison were ideally positioned to utilize their prison time as an opportunity to transform themselves spiritually through intensive meditation. This novel idea gave rise to the highly successful Prison Ashram Project that Bo has subsequently coordinated.
In his well known book, We’re All Doing Time, which became the “bible” for this project, Bo sets forth the face valid proposition that we’re all figuratively “in prison” until we awaken from our deep-seated illusions of separateness from the universe.
Once this is recognized, literal imprisonment can be understood as offering the same kind of opportunity for intense mediation that many spiritual seekers voluntarily undertake in ashrams, or spiritual retreat centers, of all kinds. In this book, he also documents his very extensive and successful work with many prisoners and ex-prisoners to this end.
Separate from the Prison Ashram Project, a very similar and successful program has been in progress for the past few years with some of the most violent and mentally unstable prisoners at the William E. Donaldson Correctional Facility outside of Birmingham, Alabama.
This amazing program was recently featured on National Public Radio. You can learn about it by listening to this short video.
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IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT
By clicking on the following link, you can get a FREE self-guided program in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, including 6 audios in mp3 format.
As a result of the amazing generosity of Jay Uhdinger, I’m very happy to share with you a basic video course in Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT). I became aware of this impressive, high quality resource via an email from Mr. Uhdinger with this introduction:
Together with a friend who is an illustrator, I have created a 100% free (no catch, no email subscription or whatever) mindfulness based
As I have posited repeatedly on this blog, mindfulness can be understood as a “master skill” in that it potentially enhances the performance of nearly all other human skills. Moreover, it also serves as a powerful corrective for a wide variety of unskillful human propensities–especially those that are compulsive or addictive in nature.
This very informative article in the 2/7/12 edition of the New York
Due to the prevailing “time poverty” of the modern world, many people are unlikely to free up the requisite time to engage in a formal practice of mindfulness meditation. As the following review by Bodhipaksa of Ashley Davis Bush’s book, Shortcuts to Inner Peace, emphasizes, however, nearly anyone can implement the
This blog has been created as a resource to all people who are dedicated to increasing happiness and to decreasing suffering in their lives--and in the world--by learning how to live more wisely and skillfully.It aims to include a distillation of what I have personally learned in theses regards, along with the collective wisdom of many others.
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