Posted by Sam Mowe in : Buddhism , Dalai Lama , Interview , Politics , Tibetan Buddhism , trackback The current issue of The New Yorker features a lengthy profile of the Dalai Lama entitled " The Next Incarnation ," written by Evan Osnos.
Natural disasters are occurring in greater frequency and magnitude week by week, with incidences of mudslides and earthquakes.
Judy Silber of KAWL News Radio, San Francisco, interviewed some inmates in San Quentin prison who participate in the prison's Zen meditation group .
Posted by Philip Ryan in : Buddha , Buddhism , Tibetan Buddhism , trackback When the Buddha attained enlightenment beneath the Bodhi Tree, he couldn't put words to the profundity of his experience.
Posted by Rachel Hiles in : Buddhism , Environment , News , Theravada , trackback The United Nations Development Programme recently announced that it would award Cambodian Buddhist monk Bun Saluth for his environmental work.
Judy Silber of KAWL News Radio, San Francisco, interviewed some inmates in San Quentin prison who participate in the prison's Zen meditation group. (Note: The link leads to a transcript of the introduction to the story, but to hear what the prisoners said for themselves you have to listen to audio file by clicking the audio icon under the photograph.) Seido Lee de Barros, a priest from the San Francisco Zen Center, is the volunteer chaplain of the group.
Believe it or not, there have been Buddhist meditation programs in U.S. prisons for more than 25 years, that I know of. The National Buddhist Prison Sangha began in 1984. There's also a Prison Dharma Network that' was founded in 1989. It appears the first prison programs were Zen, but now several schools, and Soka Gakkai International, also have active prison outreach programs.
As you can imagine, the issue of not-Christian religion in prison gets dicey. If you saw the documentary Dhamma Brothers about a Vipassana program in an Alabama prison, you might remember that the program was allowed to go forward only if the instructors swore up and down they wouldn't teach the prisoners Buddhism. But when Alabama officials found out prisoners continued to meditate regularly on their own, they shut the program down. (This was temporary; I understand it was reinstated eventually.)
Prison Buddhism originally appeared on About.com Buddhism on Thursday, September 30th, 2010 at 14:17:07.
