Doing Time Doing Vipassana
Source: http://www.davidlai.me/2013/02/17/1511/
“We’re all prisoners undergoing a life sentence…imprisoned by our own minds…”
These words narrated in the documentary have a particular universal resonance as it echoes the lives of the inmates of Tihar Jail, one of the most notorious jails in India. In 1993, Kiran Bedi was appointed as the new Inspector General of Indian prisons and in the process of reforming the harsh conditions of Tihar Jail, she learned of the wonders of Vipassana meditation and was determined to implement it.
However, this was not the first time Vipassana meditation was tried within the prison environment. In the mid-1970s, two 10-day Vipassana courses were given for jail officers and inmates of a jail in Jaipur, India. It was met with great success but no further courses were given for the next 20 years until Kiran Bedi’s time. She realized the potential and requested additional courses be conducted in the largest prison in India, Tihar Jail outside of New Delhi and the results were totally successful. Based on this success, 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 astonishing results.
At the end of 1994 to 1995, the filmmakers Eilona Ariel and Ayelet Menahemi traveled to both Tihar and to the Baroda Jail of Gujarat, at which Vipassana courses had also been conducted. At those jails, they filmed extensive interviews with jail officials including Kiran Bedi, and inmates from many different countries who had participated in these courses. The result of the series of interviews was an extremely powerful documentary film entitled Doing Time, Doing Vipassana. The film describes the way in which Vipassana had been successfully implemented within the Indian prison system and the result was just dramatic improvement to the behavior and attitude of both inmates and jailers alike. The most poignant moment of the film was how hardened criminals wept on the shoulders of their jailers because of the remorse they felt after Vipassana meditation.
Doing Time, Doing Vipassana had been broadcasted all over the world, from USA to Poland and had been the winner of many awards including the Golden Spire Award in 1998 San Francisco International Film Festival. The festival’s management wrote the following about the jury’s decision in giving the award to this film:-
“The jury was moved by this insightful and poignant exposition on Vipassana. The teaching of this meditation as a transformation device has many implications for people everywhere, providing the cultural, social and political institutions can embrace and support its liberating possibility.”
This is one of the most influential documentaries ever made because it proves of the power of Buddhist meditation in subduing and controlling an unruly mind.
A clear version of the documentary is available here:-
Or view the video on the server at:
https://video.tsemtulku.com/videos/DoingTimeDoingVipassana.mp4
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This is so beautiful. I wish for more people to be able to watch this and for myself to be able to undertake Vipassana or similar meditations. To see that the so called “rejects” of society can turn around should give hope to people. It can also show others that we should take care of everyone and treat them well, because with love and kindness everyone is pure within.
The link was broken for the video but here is a the same documentary if anyone wants to watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkxSyv5R1sg
The mirror can sometimes be our minds, and we our mind becomes less distracted, we see who we really our and see what actions we have done. And what personas we have created so we can keep doing what we are habituated to do.
What a surprising result that the traditional method bring results to the human issues we are having difficulty dealing with. If meditation can help hardcore criminals, which is quite a miracle, then it would bring tremendous benefits to man and woman on the street. Habituation of the mind is the same for everyone regardless of gender, age, and race. Curing the mind off its destructive quality the prisoners are transformed to a mentally better person. Those who are around us can affect us and we affect them in turn. The jailers and prisoners do affect each other. Therefore the meditation course is conducted for both of groups of people to be able to bring results. It is important for people like us who are living with common modern related stress and illness to engage in meditation for the sake of our own well being and for others.
This is actually not surprising considering there are many aspects of the Buddha’s teachings that have results especially when we apply the teachings. Since some aspects of the teachings have had their results and some masters have achieved certain signs of accomplishment, then the teachings of Lord Buddha does bear fruit if we follow it. So, its not unusual. It is just that in modern times, it is not as well-documented but I guess things are changing because there are more and more Buddhists in the West and in the East, more and more well-educated asians are exploring Buddhism.