Please help filmmaker finish this important new film, Naked Mind, which chronicles the many ways that meditation is positively impacting modern culture in the West.   The film features many of the most preeminent meditation teachers, East and West and as well as the prison work of Prison Dharma Network (Prison…

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Compassion Fatigue and Corrections Officers

By Andrew Nolen, Officer, MSCJ/FP

Published: 01/03/2011   www.corrections.com

Working in Corrections is an interesting…

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Corrections Mentality: Here for Punishment or as Punishment?

By Andrew Nolen, Officer, MSCJ/FP

Published: 05/21/2012    www.corrections.com

In my first article…

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Dear PDN Family,



Many thanks to all of you for the great work you do in bringing the transformational power of meditation and the Dharma to prisoners and everyone touched by our criminal justice system.   Many thanks for ongoing friendship and support for PDN.  We are proud to represent a prison Dharma community of over 5000 dedicated prison volunteers and corrections professionals and tens of thousands of dedicated prisoner practitioners.  Very best wishes to all of you for…

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Dear PDN Members and Friends,

 

We are completing our most successful year ever in Prison Dharma Network’s twenty-two years of bringing transformative practices and hope for a better life to the men, women and youth incarcerated in our jails, prisons and juvenile facilities.  As many of you know, we moved our offices last year from Colorado to Rhode Island in order to be close enough to a number of adult prisons to run our own researched-based programs.  We are now located just…

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PDN member and Gateless Gate founder, KC Walpole, has already logged 8,500 miles on his national motorcycle odyssey raising awareness about the plight of Women & Children in our Jails and Prisons and what we can do about it.  KC is one of the leading teachers and organizers of mindfulness based prison work in this country.  He has been making presentations about the plight of Women & Children in our Jails and Prisons all across the country on his 11,000 mile…

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From Pema:

"I have been honored to serve as a spiritual advisor to the Prison Dharma Network since its founding and fully endorse the work they continue to accomplish.  Through my own experience with prisoners, I have directly witnessed the transformative potential of prison meditation programs.  Please support Prison Dharma Network in any way you can.   Acharya Pema Chodron

 …

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Dear PDN Members and Friends,

We are in the final weeks of our 2010 Year End fundraising campaign.  You may have received one of our fundraising appeals and be considering whether or how much to invest in our mission and work of transforming society one life at a time through the power of meditation and the Dharma.  Please make a generous donation at this time and help us assure that every prisoner and prisoner worker has access to the best mindfulness-based programs…

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Dear PDN Members and Friends,

We are in the final weeks of our 2010 Year End fundraising campaign during which we need to raise a very large percent of our budget for

2011. Please make a generous donation at this time and invest in our work of transforming society one life at a time through the power of meditation and the Dharma. We reach tens of thousands of prisoners, prison…

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Today, I taught a meditation program at Mokotów Prison, the infamous Warsaw prison where the Gestapo detained, tortured and killed political prisoners during World War II and where the KGP and Polish communists detained, tortured and killed political prisoners from 1945 to 1955. At the street side entrance on a busy street in Warsaw, there is a memorial to the political prisoners killed there by the Nazis and the communists. This is a reflection of the tortured history of Poland,… Continue

With the help of my friends Andrzej Krajeski and Rober Sudol, I led meditation workshop for about 30 prisoners in their 20's and 30's at a large jail outside of Warsaw, Poland near the airport. We talked about how our conditioning drives our behaviors unconsciously until we awaken an awareness that can see the operation of this conditioned mind and not go along with it, awareness that leads to new choices and freedom. We practiced body scan, close placement mindfulness and counting breaths… Continue

2010 PRISON TOWN TOUR

What…

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Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, August 27 & 28, 2010

Front Gate at "The Farm," -- Angola

I’d been driving through thick, tall forests that blanket either side of the two land state road with an almost haunted feeling when suddenly the front gate of the Louisiana…

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At the overcrowded California Institution for Men, the gymnasium is used for bunks. (Monica Almeida/The New York Times)

U.S. prison population dwarfs that of other nations

By Adam Liptak, April 23, 2008

The International Herald Tribune



The United States has less than 5 percent of the world's population. But it has almost a quarter of the world's prisoners.



Indeed, the United States leads the world in… Continue