Katelyn Morreale Prof.

Thorn EN236-A 9 September 2011 The Dhamma Effect The Dhamma Brothers is admittedly far different than the typical prison film; there are no secret tunnels or showy gunfights; no enemy alliances or inmate rebellions. On the contrary, the film focuses on the profound emotional and personal transformation of the inmates at Donaldson Correctional Facility in Birmingham, Alabama. This thought-provoking work documents the struggles, both internal and external, that occur when two Vipassana instructors are introduced to 36 lifers serving time in the heart of the South. When the idea of Vipassana meditation is brought into the prison, some inmates are skeptical of the program and its possible religious undertones. However, the program is not about religion, and that distinction between meditation and prayer had to be emphasized constantly. Instructors Bruce Stewart and Jonathan Crowley both frame Vipassana as a health and wellbeing practice, and as an exercise that may offer clarity and closure to the inmates. Before the meditation practice, we hear references to altercations and inmate deaths, but the leaders of the prison are concerned with the emotional scars that come with the location: regret, longing, loneliness, meaninglessness, and guilt. And without evoking those painful emotions, it is difficult to show the extent of the healing that occurs. Each inmate must go through a similarly painful experience when they are isolated from their family and loved ones. Your Dads a murderer, one inmates child is taunted. Another inmate, Grady, recounts learning about the murder of his daughter through a newspaper article.

With the guidance of Vipassana, he learns to forgive and accept the murderers mistake, and to love him as a human being. As a story of redemption, the film is never about the inmates as some breed of miscreants and anti-heroes. It is made very clear that they and they alone are responsible for the actions from which they now seek redemption. The crime committed by each inmate is portrayed through vague, Americas Most Wanted-style reenactments. This technique is admirable due to the nature of the documentary; the film doesnt want to deny the magnitude of the crimes but doesnt want to dwell on it eitheran approach which, in a sense, represents a middle path that reflects Buddhism itself. The Dhamma Brothers takes what people typically think of as the more dismal aspects of the prison experienceisolation and repetitionand recasts them by having them serve a higher, and ultimately liberating, purpose. For ten days, the inmates-turned-students do not speak. For hours on end, they meditate in positions that come to take a physical toll. No telephones or televisions are available during the ten days, so that they are essentially in a prison within a prison. Normally, such circumstances would be considered disciplinary, but in this context the prisoners miraculously embrace them. As viewers watch each inmate make their transformation, the film gently urges us to make a connection to the way we treat the circumstances of our own lives, and perhaps to welcome the art of meditation or spirituality into our lives in order to find harmony not only within ourselves, but with others and our environment as well.