There's a new documentary making the rounds that chronicles a Vipassana meditation program in a maximum-security prison in Alabama. "The Dhamma Brothers" by cultural anthropologist and psychotherapist Jenny Phillips follows the 36 participating prisoners (called “the dhamma brothers” after the Dhamma, or dharma, the term for the collective teachings of the Buddha) for hours, discussing their childhoods, their crimes, their struggles to get through each day in lockup and the Sisyphean challenge of trying personal transformation inside an often-hopeless prison culture (N.Y. Times, 9/13/07). The film is being released theatrically April 11, 2008, and “Letters from the Dhamma Brothers,” an accompanying book of the letters the inmates sent to Ms. Phillips and the Vipassana teachers, is scheduled for publication in early 2008 by Pariyatti Press.

"The Dhamma Brothers"

   

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