Doing Time, Doing Vipassana-[Meditation in Indian Prisons](1997)

Do­ing Time, Do­ing Vipas­sana is al­so prov­ing to be a very ef­fec­tive tool in bring­ing about the in­tro­duc­tion of Vipas­sana med­i­ta­tion cours­es in­to the prison sys­tems of oth­er coun­tries. Such cours­es have now been giv­en in the pris­ons in the Unit­ed States and in oth­er coun­tries with won­der­ful re­sults. … Read more

Do­ing Time, Do­ing Vipas­sana is al­so prov­ing to be a very ef­fec­tive tool in bring­ing about the in­tro­duc­tion of Vipas­sana med­i­ta­tion cours­es in­to the prison sys­tems of oth­er coun­tries. Such cours­es have now been giv­en in the pris­ons in the Unit­ed States and in oth­er coun­tries with won­der­ful re­sults. In the mid-​1970s Vipas­sana was first tried with­in a prison en­vi­ron­ment with two 10 day cours­es be­ing con­duct­ed for jail of­fi­cials and in­mates of a prison in Jaipur in the In­di­an state of Ra­jasthan. De­spite the suc­cess of those cours­es, no fur­ther jail cours­es were con­duct­ed in In­dia for al­most 20 years. In 1993 a new In­spec­tor Gen­er­al of In­di­an pris­ons, Ki­ran Be­di, was ap­point­ed and in the pro­cess of try­ing to re­form the harsh In­di­an pe­nal sys­tem, learned of the ear­li­er Vipas­sana cours­es. She re­quest­ed that ad­di­tion­al cours­es be con­duct­ed in the largest prison in In­dia, Ti­har Jail out­side of New Del­hi. The re­sults were dra­mat­i­cal­ly sucess­ful. Based up­on the suc­cess of these cours­es, an­oth­er course was con­duct­ed in April 1994 by Goenka­ji and a num­ber of his as­sis­tant teach­ers for over one thou­sand in­mates of Ti­har prison with won­der­ful ben­e­fit for all of those who par­tic­i­pat­ed. Dur­ing the fol­low­ing win­ter of 1994-​95, the Is­raeli film­mak­ers trav­eled to both Ti­har and to the Bar­o­da Jail in the In­dia state of Gu­jarat, at which Vipas­sana cours­es had al­so been con­duct­ed. There they con­duct­ed and filmed ex­ten­sive in­ter­views with jail of­fi­cials, in­clud­ing Karen Be­dei, and in­mates from many dif­fer­ent coun­tries who par­tic­i­pat­ed in the cours­es. The re­sult of these ef­forts was an ex­treme­ly pow­er­ful 52-​minute doc­u­men­tary film en­ti­tled Do­ing Time, Do­ing Vipas­sana. The film de­scribes the way in which Vipas­sana has been sucess­ful­ly used with­in the In­di­an prison sys­tem to dra­mat­i­cal­ly change the be­haviour and at­ti­tude of the in­mates and jail­ers who par­tic­i­pat­ed in the cours­es and, there­by, im­prove the en­tire at­mo­sphere of the pris­ons. Be Hap­py.
Peace.
Sid­dhartha Chabuk­swar

Tags:

• in
• time
• doing
• meditation
• prison
• indian
• jai
• Vipassana
• Tihar

Categories:

• Instructional