[Marxism] The Dhamma Brothers

Tue Apr 1 16:38:29 MDT 2008

Louis Proyect wrote:

 From the VMC website: http://www.prison.dhamma.org/

"Vipassana meditation as taught by S.N. Goenka has been successfully  
offered over the last 10 years within prisons located in  India,  
Israel, Mongolia, New Zealand, Taiwan, Thailand, U.K., and the   
United States. Since all courses are 10-days in length and  
residential in nature, they are held within the walls of a  
corrections institution with the teachers and the volunteers who are  
managing the courses living with the prisoners for the duration of  
the course.

As with all Vipassana courses in this tradition, there are no charges  
for these courses to the students or the corrections facility - not  
even to cover the cost of food and accommodation. Expenses are met  
primarily by donations from people who, having completed a course and  
experienced the benefits of Vipassana, wish to give others the  
opportunity to also benefit. However, in the case of courses in  
prisons, donations can also be accepted from individuals, charitable  
institutions and governmental entities who wish to contribute toward  
the rehabilitative goals of these courses.

  Because of the focused and intense nature of these courses there  
are certain requirements that must be observed within the prison  
during the course and that require cooperation between the prison  
staff and the Vipassana volunteers. It is also required that one or  
more personnel from the correction facility staff take a 10 day  
course at one of our established meditation centers before a course  
can be conducted at that facility. This requirement is necessary so  
that there is a correction staff member who has significant  
responsibility at the institution and who is well known to the  
inmates who will participate in the course that fully understands the  
course and the reasons for the course rules and regulations. By way  
of background, Vipassana, which means to see things as they really  
are, is one of India's most ancient techniques of meditation. It was  
taught in India more than 2500 years ago as a universal remedy for  
universal ills, i.e., an Art of Living. Over the last 10 years, the  
technique of Vipassana has been very successful in reducing the rate  
of recidivism within prison populations where it has been regularly  
used. For additional information, corrections officials are invited  
to contact the Vipassana Meditation Rehabilitation and Research Trust  
for North American Correctional Facilities in the United States or  
the appropriate Vipassana representatives in other countries.  
Information on Vipassana Meditation courses in prisons is also  
available in the other languages shown below."

This is in fact my lineage, and Shelburne Falls is the place where  
I've done the most retreats. It's the oldest center operating in the  
United States. It was started by hippies  exposed to meditation while  
traveling in India. They attended retreats taught by the principal  
teacher in India, a layperson named S.N. Goenka.  After they settled   
down back in the States, however, it became more difficult to  
continue traveling to India, so they started their own volunteer  
retreat center at Shelburne Falls, with monthly retreats led by  
volunteer staff and fed by experienced meditators volunteering to  
"serve" the course. They also meditate three hours daily as well as  
cook all the food and keep the kitchen clean and make sure any  
special needs among the meditators are being met.

I've never served as a volunteer at one of the prison retreats,  
although I have wanted to. I've only ever served at three regular  
retreats. If you like the documentary reviewed by Louis, you should  
see "Doing Time, Doing Vipassana", which is the original prison  
vipassana documentary, filmed in India at one of the largest prisons  
there in 1997.

Prison officials were afraid of hosting the retreat in the notorious  
Tihar prison, due to the fact that many hardened criminals including  
murderers were participating. Prison officials wanted to keep the  
murderers chained to a post in the floor, to prevent them from  
rushing up and attacking and killing the meditation teachers, who  
also insisted upon staying in the prison the entire ten days of the  
retreat. The teachers refused to allow the inmates to participate  
with shackles on of any kind, although they relented and allowed for  
an armed guard to be posted at all times in the meditation space. The  
impetus to have the retreat came from the new warden, a female warden  
named Kiran Bedi, the former Inspector General of Prisons in New  
Delhi. Meditation teachers in my lineage, which has its roots in  
Burma, always insist that higher officials and guards participate in  
a ten day retreat first, to experience the benefits, and to create a  
less hostile climate within the prison for the first retreat to  
achieve positive effects for the inmates, since a lot of the crime  
was in fact being instigated by the guards.

I do not know if the same condition was applied to the prison in  
Alabama, although I do know that some Muslim inmates also  
participated and had good results.  I rather doubt prison officials  
there would have participated, although stranger things have happened  
in the universe of vipassana.

Tihar was a corrupt and overcrowded prison in which functioned a two- 
tier system among the inmates. The hard timers exploited the inmates  
waiting for their trials, which sometimes could take over a year due  
to the backlog of cases pending trial. The video features interviews  
with many of the meditators, including some European inmates caught  
smuggling heroin and hashish, and one multiple murderer who  
apparently was adopted by the family of one of his victims. He had a  
life sentence, so I imagine he is still in jail. One of the points of  
the film is that we are all doing a life sentence, behind bars or not.

  At Tihar there was plenty of violence and plenty of drugs and other  
contraband smuggled in by corrupt prison guards. A prison guard who  
was also a vipassana meditator originally discussed the idea of doing  
a retreat there with Bedi, who was new at the prison and basically  
wanted to turn the prison into an ashram, but one which was non- 
sectarian in nature. So they offered yoga classes, brought in some  
musicians and had concerts, kind of the Indian version of Johnny Cash  
at Folsom Prison. And they began having vipassana retreats there.

Bedi first compelled some of the guards who had been caught in a  
corruption investigation to attend the first employee retreat with  
her and other prison officials, or be fired. After the first employee  
retreat it was decided in consultation with the teachers to have a  
big first retreat for the inmates to create a more positive overall  
change. 1000 inmates participated in the first retreat.  As a result,  
a permanent retreat center was established on the grounds, for both  
inmates and employees. As far as I know ten day retreats are still  
being offered there on a monthly basis. Violence levels among the  
inmates had decreased, although I do not know if those figures have  
held steady over the years. Recidivism rates among inmate meditators  
are also lower, as the web page explains above.

Greg McDonald