You can see the movie on the internet, but it only mirrors the first part of the book. The actual letters from the inmates, in their own words, is the real meat of this book! If you think you're having difficulty in your meditation practice,try keeping your equanimity in a maximum security prison! Reading these letters will both inspire you & move you to tears.

Guts and glory, heart rending and real. The struggle for one becomes the struggle of all and then, the finding of all. Beautiful book, exquisite journey. I am co-founder of a non-profit, Insights Foundation, a motivational support org. I have a group of 5 inmates in a Colorado prison who are in my 'Love and Lighten Up' program, with tremendous growth by all. I am hoping to visit my entire group for a workshop and include a meditation practice. Sent the book to the group leader so he has the background and basics, and can work with the others.

Congressman John Lewis: "This book makes it plain that no human being should be considered beyond the reach of redemption." That quote is from the cover of the book.

It seems we don't know how to rehabilitate offenders other than try stiffer punishment. About 1 in 100 adults in the US is in jail or prison. New approaches are needed. Vipassana meditation courses may be one possibility. This book reflects that potential.

The book records the dramatic changes that prisoners experience as they attempt to purify their minds of such impurities as hatred, fear, greed, anger, etc., that have landed them in prison. This book makes it clear that the impurities they carry deep within cause suffering both to themselves and to those around them; and whatever relief they get using the meditation helps both them and others.

A documentary film of the meditation courses examined in this book, The Dhamma Brothers, has been released in select theaters across the US and shown on some public television stations. On Sunday, May 6, 2012 it was shown on the Oprah Winfrey Network. The film captures in action what this book reflects on paper. The question remains: How effective is this program for the convicts over time? That's difficult to say since each individual must try to integrate his/her insights into an environment that may be dysfunctional. But there are indications of overall success.

Vipassana courses have been held in prisons outside the US since 1975, starting in India. The Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India, has recognized Vipassana meditation as a technique to reform criminals and has introduced it in all Central Jails, particularly Tihar Prison, New Delhi. A documentary film of a course for 1,000 inmates at Tihar Prison, "Doing Time, Doing Vipassana," won a top award at the 1998 San Francisco International Film Festival.

The time has come to consider that meditation has promise for rehabilitation of prisoners, and this book reflects that potential.

P.S. DVDs of Doing Time, Doing Vipassana and another Vipassana prison film set in a Seattle jail, Changing from Inside, are available at Pariyatti in both English and Spanish, as is the Collector's Edition DVD of The Dhamma Brothers.

Interview/review excerpts . . . [Author Jenny] Phillips, a cultural anthropologist and practising psychotherapist in Concord, Mass., has spent a considerable amount time in prison herself, though not for any violation of state or federal law.

She hangs with convicted thieves, murderers and rapists because she believes that a 10-day, 100-hour course in Vipassana meditation will lead them not only to manage stress and anger, but teach them that "experiencing and observing one's misery with constancy and equanimity, looking at it squarely with patience and fortitude - is the path to experiential understanding and the liberation from suffering ..."

Sounds far-fetched, I know. Seems to work, though. Vipassana, which means "seeing things as they actually are," is a Buddha-inspired system of meditation (the way of the Buddha is known as the Dhamma).

As she writes, "This technique involves the observation of ordinary, actual sensations throughout the body, moment by moment, and understanding their impermanent nature. ... Incrementally, one overcomes deeply conditioned habitual reactions and emerges with a profound inner freedom and equanimity."

In 1999, she learned that several hundred prisoners in the Donaldson prison had become aware of the Houses of Healing program, and were meditating regularly. She decided to visit and interview some of the men - the program, remarkably, had been initiated not by professionals like herself, but by a prisoner who had found a book about it in the prison library.

The interviews persuaded her that the introduction of a Vipassana meditation program, which she had learned of through a documentary film charting its success in Tihar Jail, India's largest prison, "could provide the structure and approach to further address personal suffering."

There was some negotiation with the prison administration, but in January, 2002, Donaldson Correctional Facility became the first state prison in North America to hold a Vipassana course (it had been used in county jails before - studies there showed a significant reduction in recidivism).

That is how she came to meet and know men such as Mr. Kennedy, Grady Bankhead (sentenced to life for his part in a murder), Michael Carpenter (homicide, life without parole), Wayne Finch (homicide), Edward Johnson (aiding and abetting a triple homicide) and about 10 others featured in her book.

The men, most of them African American, sat for hours in the prison gym, closing their eyes, following their breathing, listening to their bodies. They did it for 10 hours a day, under the guidance of three of her colleagues.

When they "graduated," the prison warden attended the ceremonies. He saw hardened criminals weep as they told their stories. He urged those who had taken the course to become agents of change in the prison. Ms. Phillips and her colleagues would soon start receiving letters - many of them published in her book - from the men who took the program, men whose view of themselves and their capacity for change had been radically transformed.

The Dhamma Brothers have taken their own passage to India and discovered a practice of meditation that guides them down their inner path toward freedom. Those of us who accept the philosophy of non-violence believe there is a spark of divinity within all of us. This book makes it plain that no human being--no matter how troubled his beginning, regardless of his race, color, nationality, or creed--should be considered beyond the reach of redemption. No one should be tossed away in a jail cell and forgotten as though his life means nothing. This book demonstrates that all some people need--even those we might consider the worst among us--is to be led toward their path to recovery, and when they are restored, their contribution to our society and the world is limitless.

Probably the most inspiring text I've read; it often brings me almost to tears to see how these guys are struggling, against so many odds, to use Vipassana to make themselves better people. It's fantastic!

When the first ten-day Vipassana course came to a close at Donaldson Prison in Alabama, in January 2002, twenty men were faced with the opportunities and challenges of a whole new phase of their lives. Many were sentenced to life imprisonment; most had been deeply acculturated during their years of incarceration to the life of violence and abuse that was common for inmates of this maximum security prison in the deep South. Now a new opportunity lay before them: they had the practice of Vipassana. How would they apply it in these unlikely surroundings and how would it affect them and others around them?

Letters from the Dhamma Brothers, from Pariyatti Press, gives us direct access to their thoughts, struggles, dreams, and triumphs, in their own words, through letters they sent to those who introduced the Vipassana course into the prison. With the second course in May, 2002, seventeen more inmates joined the voluntary and intentional fraternity of Dhamma brotherhood. This course was documented on video and is the subject of a film released in 2007, called The Dhamma Brothers.

Each man has his own story of finding the courage to keep sitting, of resisting the lure of falling in with the old habits and ways of prison life, of reconciling his past actions with the effects on himself, his family, friends and the victims of his crimes. And all together experience a bond that extends beyond the intensity of the ten-day course. The Dhamma brotherhood survives even when the Vipassana program itself is cancelled and some of the men find it too difficult to keep the practice going.

When the prison once again invites the Vipassana Prison Trust to conduct a three-day course for the old-student Dhamma brothers, in January, 2006, there is a joyful homecoming and a revival of Dhamma practice and enthusiasm.

The big question for all corrections officers, wardens, judges and other officials who have observed these Vipassana courses in prisons and jails is: Is it real? Will the changes seen in the beginning last? Can a meditation program like Vipassana really reform these hardened inmates? Scientific studies so far have shown promising results in the short run but how deep are the changes really?

Eight years and counting, these letters and the experiences of these inmates will give you the chance to decide for yourself whether it is real.

Vipassana is an ancient nondenominational meditation technique that was revived by Gotama the Buddha 2600 years ago. These letters are a testament to the power that this practice has had on the lives of a handful of men in a high-security prison in Alabama. Many of them are serving life sentences, and all of them have struggled to find peace with themselves. The course has worked wonders for prisoners in India, where it was developed. For 10 days, the men meditated with three teachers, isolated from the rest of the prison population. They began by focusing on their own breath as a way of breaking down the barrier between mind and body. Out of the silence of meditation came an awareness that was transformative for these troubled men and that has lasted for years, even in the midst of the anguish of daily prison life.

Teens in trouble or at risk would certainly find this book illuminating. So, too, would those trying to fathom how to lead a sane and peaceful life in a world that can be hard to comprehend. This book offers a chance to develop an understanding of how we can share a commonality with something as simple and as vital as a breath.