Prison Dharma Network
   HOME
*





Prison Dharma Network
The Prison Mindfulness Institute (previously the Prison Dharma Network) is a non-profit organization founded in 1989 with the mission of supporting prisoners and prison volunteers in transformation through Prison contemplative programs, meditation and contemplative spirituality in prisons. The organization provides books and resources through their "Books Behind Bars" program, publishes books on prison dharma through their Prison Dharma Press, organizes a pen pal program between prisoners and meditation volunteers, and offers an apprenticeship program for prison volunteers called "Path of Freedom". The organization supports prisoners in the study and practice of contemplative traditions as well as mindfulness awareness practices. It is an affiliate of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship as well as the Peacemaker Community USA. Philosophically, the organization claims to encourage restorative justice and transformative justice models over retributive justice. The organization lists as it ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Prison Contemplative Programs
Prison contemplative programs are classes or practices (which includes meditation, yoga, contemplative prayer or similar) that are offered at correctional institutions for inmates and prison staff. There are measured or anecdotally reported benefits from studies of these programs such a stress relief for inmates and staff.Bartollas (1985) p.141 These programs are gaining in acceptance in North America and Europe but are not mainstream. These rehabilitation programs may be part of prison religious offerings and ministry or may be wholly secular. Of those sponsored by religious organizations some are presented in non-sectarian or in non-religious formats. They have had increasing interest in North American and European prisons since the early 1970s. Contemplative practices in prison however date back at least to Pennsylvania prison reforms in the late 18th century
[...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Jon Kabat-Zinn
Jon Kabat-Zinn (born Jon Kabat, June 5, 1944) is an American professor emeritus of medicine and the creator of the Stress Reduction Clinic and the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Kabat-Zinn was a student of Zen Buddhist teachers such as Philip Kapleau, Thich Nhat Hanh, and Seung Sahn, and a founding member of Cambridge Zen Center. His practice of yoga and studies with Buddhist teachers led him to integrate their teachings with scientific findings. He teaches mindfulness, which he says can help people cope with stress, anxiety, pain, and illness. The stress reduction program created by Kabat-Zinn, mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), is offered by medical centers, hospitals, and health maintenance organizations, and is described in his book ''Full Catastrophe Living''. Life and work Kabat-Zinn was born in New York City in 1944 as the oldest of three children to Elvin Kabat, a biomedical scientist ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Buddhist Meditation
Buddhist meditation is the practice of meditation in Buddhism. The closest words for meditation in the classical languages of Buddhism are '' bhāvanā'' ("mental development") and '' jhāna/dhyāna'' (mental training resulting in a calm and luminous mind). Buddhists pursue meditation as part of the path toward liberation from defilements ('' kleshas'') and clinging and craving (''upādāna''), also called awakening, which results in the attainment of Nirvana, and includes a variety of meditation techniques, most notably '' anapanasati'' (mindfulness of breathing). Other techniques include '' asubha bhavana'' ("reflections on repulsiveness");Deleanu, Florin (1992)Mindfulness of Breathing in the Dhyāna Sūtras Transactions of the International Conference of Orientalists in Japan (TICOJ) 37, 42-57. reflection on '' pratityasamutpada'' (dependent origination); ''anussati'' (recollections, including ''anapanasati'') and ''sati'' (mindfulness), culminating in ''dhyana'' (develop ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Religious Prison-related Organizations
Religion is usually defined as a social-cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, transcendental, and spiritual elements; however, there is no scholarly consensus over what precisely constitutes a religion. Different religions may or may not contain various elements ranging from the divine, sacred things, faith,Tillich, P. (1957) ''Dynamics of faith''. Harper Perennial; (p. 1). a supernatural being or supernatural beings or "some sort of ultimacy and transcendence that will provide norms and power for the rest of life". Religious practices may include rituals, sermons, commemoration or veneration (of deities or saints), sacrifices, festivals, feasts, trances, initiations, funerary services, matrimonial services, meditation, prayer, music, art, dance, public service, or other aspects of human culture. Religions have sa ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


The Dhamma Brothers
''The Dhamma Brothers'' is a documentary film released in 2007 about a prison meditation program at Donaldson Correctional Facility near Bessemer, Alabama. The film features four inmates, all convicted of murder, and includes interviews with guards, prison officials, local residents and other inmates, and reenactments of their crimes. The soundtrack includes music by Low, New Order and Sigur Rós. The film was directed by Jenny Phillips, a cultural anthropologist and psychotherapist; Andrew Kukura, a documentary filmmaker; and Anne Marie Stein, a film-school administrator. In 2008 Phillips released ''Letters from the Dhamma Brothers: Meditation Behind Bars'' (), a book based on follow-up letters with the inmates. ''The Dhamma Brothers'' has been compared with another documentary, ''Doing Time, Doing Vipassana'' (1997), which documented a large-scale meditation program at Tihar Jail in India with over a thousand inmates using the same meditation retreat format. Meditation prog ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  




Richard Geller (meditation Instructor)
Richard Geller (born 1952) is president of Boston-based MedWorks Corporate Meditation Programs that provides stress reduction courses based on meditation to corporations and their employees. ''Subscription required'' His company serves corporations such as the Reebok division of Adidas, Medtronic, and Genzyme Genzyme was an American biotechnology company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Since its acquisition in 2011, Genzyme (also known as Genzyme Transgenics Corp or GTC Biotherapeutics) has been a fully owned subsidiary of Sanofi. In 2010, Genzyme .... Geller advises employers to use employee feedback in building their stress reduction and meditation program. Since 1996, he has also been a volunteer for the weekly meditation classes at Suffolk County House of Corrections, the Boston county jail as part of the Prison Mindfulness Institute. Geller graduated from University of Massachusetts Medical School's "Practicum in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction" program, under th ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Springfield, Missouri
Springfield is the third largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and the county seat of Greene County. The city's population was 169,176 at the 2020 census. It is the principal city of the Springfield metropolitan area, which had an estimated population of 481,483 in 2021 and includes the counties of Christian, Dallas, Greene, Polk, and Webster, and is the fastest growing metropolitan area in the state of Missouri. Springfield's nickname is "Queen City of the Ozarks" as well as "The 417" after the area code for the city. It is also known as the "Birthplace of Route 66". It is home to several universities and colleges, including Missouri State University, Drury University, and Evangel University. The city is an important center of education and medical care, with two of the largest hospitals in the area, CoxHealth and Mercy, employing over 20,000 people combined, and being the largest employers in the region. It has been called the "Buckle of the Bible Belt" due to its as ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

AIDS
Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual may not notice any symptoms, or may experience a brief period of influenza-like illness. Typically, this is followed by a prolonged incubation period with no symptoms. If the infection progresses, it interferes more with the immune system, increasing the risk of developing common infections such as tuberculosis, as well as other opportunistic infections, and tumors which are rare in people who have normal immune function. These late symptoms of infection are referred to as acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). This stage is often also associated with unintended weight loss. HIV is spread primarily by unprotected sex (including anal and vaginal sex), contaminated blood transfusions, hypodermic needles, and from mother to child duri ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Hospice
Hospice care is a type of health care that focuses on the palliation of a terminally ill patient's pain and symptoms and attending to their emotional and spiritual needs at the end of life. Hospice care prioritizes comfort and quality of life by reducing pain and suffering. Hospice care provides an alternative to therapies focused on life-prolonging measures that may be arduous, likely to cause more symptoms, or are not aligned with a person's goals. Hospice care in the United States is largely defined by the practices of the Medicare system and other health insurance providers, which cover inpatient or at-home hospice care for patients with terminal diseases who are estimated to live six months or less. Hospice care under the Medicare Hospice Benefit requires documentation from two physicians estimating a person has less than six months to live if the disease follows its usual course. Hospice benefits include access to a multidisciplinary treatment team specialized in end-of-li ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Vajrayogini
Vajrayoginī ( sa, italic=yes, Vajrayoginī वज्रयोगिनी; , Dorjé Neljorma; mn, Огторгуйд Одогч, Нархажид, ) is a Tantric Buddhist female Buddha and a . The ''Vajrayogini'' cult dates back to the tenth and twelfth centuries. Vajrayoginī's essence is "great passion" (''maharaga''), a transcendent passion that is free of selfishness and illusion—she intensely works for the well-being of others and for the destruction of ego clinging. She is seen as being ideally suited for people with strong passions, providing the way to transform those passions into enlightened virtues. She is an Anuttarayoga Tantra iṣṭadevatā (meditation deity) and her practice includes methods for preventing ordinary death, intermediate state (bardo) and rebirth ( samsara) by transforming them into paths to enlightenment, and for transforming all mundane daily experiences into higher spiritual paths. Practices associated with her are Chöd and the Six Yogas of ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Ngöndro
In Tibetan Buddhism, Ngöndro (, sa, pūrvaka) refers to the preliminary, preparatory or foundational practices or disciplines (Sanskrit: sādhanā) common to all four schools of Tibetan Buddhism and also to Bon. They precede deity yoga. The preliminary practices establish the foundation for the more advanced and esoteric Vajrayana sādhanā which are held to engender realization and the embodiment of Dzogchen, Heruka and Mahamudra. Nevertheless, Vajrayana masters are careful to point out that "foundational" does not mean "lesser," that the practice of Ngöndro is a complete and sufficient practice of the spiritual path, and that it can take the practitioner all the way to full enlightenment. In addition to what is generally denoted by the term ''ngöndro'', preparatory practices may also be prescribed for senior and advanced sadhana, e.g.: "differentiating saṃsāra and nirvāṇa" () is the preparatory practice for trekchö or "cutting through to primordial purity." Outer a ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Naropa University
Naropa University is a private university in Boulder, Colorado. Founded in 1974 by Tibetan Buddhist teacher Chögyam Trungpa, it is named for the 11th-century Indian Buddhist sage Naropa, an abbot of Nalanda. The university describes itself as Buddhist-inspired, ecumenical, and nonsectarian rather than Buddhist. Naropa promotes non-traditional activities like meditation to supplement traditional learning approaches. Naropa was accredited by the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools in 1988, making it the first Buddhist-inspired academic institution to receive United States regional accreditation. It remains one of only a handful of such schools. The university has hosted a number of Beat poets under the auspices of its Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics. History Naropa University was founded by Chögyam Trungpa, an exiled Tibetan tulku who was a Karma Kagyu and Nyingma lineage holder. Trungpa entered the USA in 1970, established the Vajradhatu organization ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]