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.
In the summer of 1992, I had the great good fortune of participating in a 5-day professional training workshop with Drs. Jon Kabat-Zinn and Saki Santorelli in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) at Omega Institute in New York State. This watershed experience occurred after I had personally been practicing mindfulness meditation for about 16 years. Among its many other
What does it take to make you happy? How happy are you whenever “it” occurs? How long does “it” last? How attached are you to “it”–that is, how UNHAPPY are you when “it” isn’t occurring? Can you imagine yourself being happy even if “it” were never to occur again?
In his article in the Irish Times, Padraig O’Morain addresses these questions
Parents and teachers, listen up. Goldie Hawn is on a mission to recruit you in helping children become the leaders of tomorrow through the practice of mindfulness and yoga. To this end, she has authored a best-selling book, entitled “10 Mindful Minutes.” You can learn more by reading this article in the NZ Herald.
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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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