The following is a response to a question from a Krishnamurti class I am taking. It touches on the Heart Sutra, and my own progress on the Path, so I figured it might be of use to someone:

Re: "3)      “The intellectual always stands between loneliness and alignment”(p. 22)-  Said suggests that the intellectual vocation  maintains “a state of constant alertness, of a perpetual willingness not to let half truths or received ideas steer one along” (p. 23). How do Said’s…

PDN Member Project ~ Khyentse Foundation, March 2012

Khyentse Foundation’s grant to the Mind Body Awareness Project (MBA) supported ground-breaking pilot programs that treat stress, anxiety, and insomnia with mindfulness-based practices. The programs also…

from Northwest Dharma News, Spring 2012

Is there a way to handle criminal justice that is more effective and humane than the current approach being used in the U.S, with its focus on long, mandatory prison sentences? Do…

By Michelle Alexander for the New York Times, March 11, 2012

AFTER years as a civil rights lawyer, I rarely find myself speechless. But some questions a woman I know posed during a phone conversation one recent evening gave me pause: “What would happen if we organized thousands, even hundreds of…

By Marianne de Nazareth for the WeekendLeader.com, Bangalore, India, March 15, 2012

Picture a burly, foul mouthed convict, condemned to life imprisonment for murder, roaming freely in your town as part of a theatre group and then returning to his cell along with prison officials after the show is…

by John Crave for WFMZ News, March 12, 2012

Many of us turn to yoga to relax, but in Easton, there's one class in the last place you might expect it.

"Inhale," said instructor Gary Warren.  "Arms up."

At first glance, it looks like just another yoga class.…

for YogaDork, March 7, 2012

Twenty-eight-year-old Vaughn Barnett from Colorado got lucky (enlightened?) yesterday when a judge handed him a sentencing break: just 30 more days in jail. His crime?…

What would you do if your loved one was sentenced to life in prison for a crime they didn’t commit?

Meet Betty Anne Waters from Massachusetts USA. After her brother Kenny was wrongly convicted of murder she went to law school, became a lawyer and then found the evidence that led to his exoneration after almost 20 years behind bars. Also meet Chris Ochoa. He spent 12 years in a Texas jail after being coerced into confessing to a murder he did not commit. After his release he went to…

This is a post I constructed for a class, but I see it as worth sharing here:

Re: “What is freedom, according to K?”

Currently, the most personally meaningful passage in ‘Freedom From the Known’is:

“…I can see the totality of something only when thought does not interfere. Then I see the fact of my dependence; I see actually what is. I see it without any like or dislike; I do not want to get rid of that dependence or to be free from the cause…

Have any of the Members been involved in addressing the concerns regarding nutrition and portions of food provided at their jail?

Our food service and canteen here in St. Augustine is run by 2 private companies (food-Trinity   canteen-Swanson)    

The following article from Prison News may be of benefit.  I would like to  learn from your efforts and share the results of our efforts here in Florida.

Here is an article regarding prison food -…

As a part of a class, an instructor asked me a few questions about dialogue. My respnses may or may not be of use to you (I am hoping for the former). Here are a couple of my answers:

Re: “What is dialogue?”

“… A dialogue can be among any number of people, not just two. Even one person can have a sense of dialogue within himself, if the spirit of the dialogue is present. The picture of image that this derivation suggests is of a stream of meaning…

By Pam Belluck for the New York Times, February 25, 2012

SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. — Secel Montgomery Sr. stabbed a woman in the stomach, chest and throat so fiercely that he lost count of the wounds he inflicted. In the nearly 25 years he has been serving a life sentence, he has gotten into fights,…

by Sue McGreevey for the Harvard Gazette, Friday, January 21, 2011

Participating in an eight-week mindfulness meditation program appears to make measurable changes in brain regions associated with memory, sense of self, empathy, and stress. In a study that will appear in the Jan. 30 issue of…

Prison Yoga from Spatial Affairs on Vimeo.

By Carter N. Tracy ~ PDN Admin Staff, February 14, 2012

This was my first time going inside The Rhode Island DOC, men's medium security prison as a Path of Freedom facilitator-in-training.  I was a little bit nervous at first, but as the class got started, I felt at ease.

We started with a 12-minute…

By Jeff Sistruck for the Lehigh Valley Live Express Times, February 27, 2012

A near-complete silence pervades the cinder-block room, broken only by slow, steady…