2009.08.10: August 10, 2009: Headlines: COS - Lesotho: Documentaries: Anthropology: Meditation: Prisons: Spout: Lesotho RPCV Jenny Phillips makes documentary on prison life "Dhamma Brothers: East Meets West in the Deep South"
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2009.08.11: August 11, 2009: Headlines: COS - Lesotho: Documentaries: Anthropology: Meditation: Prisons: Globe and Mail: Lesotho RPCV Jenny Phillips uses Vipassana meditation to help convicted felons :
2009.08.10: August 10, 2009: Headlines: COS - Lesotho: Documentaries: Anthropology: Meditation: Prisons: Spout: Lesotho RPCV Jenny Phillips makes documentary on prison life "Dhamma Brothers: East Meets West in the Deep South"
Lesotho RPCV Jenny Phillips makes documentary on prison life "Dhamma Brothers: East Meets West in the Deep South"
Director Jenny Phillips is a psychotherapist with a PhD in cultural anthropology who wanted to do something like the Peace Corps work she'd done in her youth. She got involved with the prison down the street from her practice, and she soon heard that a penitentiary in the deep south was going to try serious meditation with some of the hard-core inmates. Her purpose in making the film, I'd say, was to show that even the most violent offenders should not be warehoused but rather treated as human beings who happen to have been convicted of murder.
Lesotho RPCV Jenny Phillips makes documentary on prison life "Dhamma Brothers: East Meets West in the Deep South"
Dhamma Brothers review
The Dhamma Brothers (2008)
Dhamma Brothers: East Meets West in the Deep South (2008) achieves its purpose wonderfully, but I wish it had had a different purpose.
Director Jenny Phillips is a psychotherapist with a PhD in cultural anthropology who wanted to do something like the Peace Corps work she'd done in her youth. She got involved with the prison down the street from her practice, and she soon heard that a penitentiary in the deep south was going to try serious meditation with some of the hard-core inmates. Her purpose in making the film, I'd say, was to show that even the most violent offenders should not be warehoused but rather treated as human beings who happen to have been convicted of murder.
The documentary achieves its purpose by focusing on a small number of inmates such as OB and Grady. OB was part of a group young guys who wantonly shot at and killed people driving by. Although OB did not pull the trigger, he tried to protect his friends who did. When the offer of Goenka-style Vipassana meditation came to the prison, he says, "I was at a crossroads." He was questioning lots of things, and after going through the 10 days of intensive meditation, he says he "slowed down" thus giving himself time to think before acting. Brief clips of his family reinforce the message that this is a decent human being who has paid 17 years for youthful stupidity but is now a guy who could make it on the outside.
Grady, who was drunk out of his gourd and driving the get-away car in a robbery where his two buddies stabbed a guy to death, knows he will never get out, so he wants his prison/home to be a better place to live. This, he comes to realize, starts with himself. He seems to truly incorporate the meditation practice into his daily living. Ingraining the deceptively simple concept that everything changes, Grady repeatedly says to himself, "It'll be all right in a minute." This stops so many negative reactions. Imagine if you said this and believed it. As a proponent of the meditation program, Grady says that, after 150 guys have been through the Goenka program, he can tell in the exercise yard whether an inmate has taken the course "by the way he carries himself."
So we do get to know some of the guys and realize there is a big difference between "he is a murderer" and "he is a person who was involved in a murder." Personally, however, I wish the film had explained the meditation program much more thoroughly. It is nice to know that these guys have changed for the better, but what exactly facilitated this change? The film does not explain where the Goenka method came from, creates the false impression that it is the same as Vipassana meditation (it is a small branch), and fails to explain what the guys do sitting on their cushions for 10 days. Worse, a glimpse of some of the charts taped on the wall of the retreat area have strange words and give the impression that there was a lot more in-depth stuff going on-but we never learn what it is.
It's a film I won't forget. As Jenny Phillips said on Oprah's Soul Series, these guys are "human beings in great misery looking for solutions." Ironically, their motivation for enlightenment is generally more fierce than yours or mine. I just wish the film had paid a lot more attention to the method that facilitated their transformation.
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Headlines: August, 2009; Peace Corps Lesotho; Directory of Lesotho RPCVs; Messages and Announcements for Lesotho RPCVs; Documentary Films; Anthropology; Meditation; Prisons
When this story was posted in September 2009, this was on the front page of PCOL:
Peace Corps Online The Independent News Forum serving Returned Peace Corps Volunteers
| Memo to Incoming Director Williams PCOL has asked five prominent RPCVs and Staff to write a memo on the most important issues facing the Peace Corps today. Issues raised include the independence of the Peace Corps, political appointments at the agency, revitalizing the five-year rule, lowering the ET rate, empowering volunteers, removing financial barriers to service, increasing the agency's budget, reducing costs, and making the Peace Corps bureaucracy more efficient and responsive. Latest: Greetings from Director Williams |
| Director Ron Tschetter: The PCOL Interview Peace Corps Director Ron Tschetter sat down for an in-depth interview to discuss the evacuation from Bolivia, political appointees at Peace Corps headquarters, the five year rule, the Peace Corps Foundation, the internet and the Peace Corps, how the transition is going, and what the prospects are for doubling the size of the Peace Corps by 2011. Read the interview and you are sure to learn something new about the Peace Corps. PCOL previously did an interview with Director Gaddi Vasquez. |
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Story Source: Spout
This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Lesotho; Documentaries; Anthropology; Meditation; Prisons
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