Alabama

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Deep in the Bible Belt, an ancient Eastern practice is taking root in the unlikeliest of places: Alabama’s highest security prison.

Behind a double electric fence and layers of locked doorways, Alabama’s most violent and mentally unstable prisoners are incarcerated in the William E. Donaldson Correctional Facility outside Birmingham. Many of them are here to stay. The prison has 24 death row cells, and about a third of the approximately 1,500 prisoners are lifers with no chance of parole.

“You’re dealing with the worst offenses that have been committed by humans in the state of Alabama,” says Gary Hetzel, the warden at Donaldson.

The lockup has a history of inmate stabbings, deaths and suicides and is the target of lawsuits. The prison is named for an officer killed here in 1990.

During chow call in the isolation blocks, food trays are slid through a narrow metal box built into the cell doors so the inmates can’t hurt the officer feeding them.

‘Seeing Things As They Are’

That’s a sharp contrast from the scene inside the prison gym, where about two dozen inmates in white pressed uniforms roam freely, working together to clear…

bed pads from the concrete floor.

For the past 10 days, the gym has been transformed into a peaceful Vipassana meditation hall.

“Vipassana means seeing things as they are,” says inmate Johnny Mack Young, as he kneels on a blue mat, resting back on a small wooden stool. This is the position he keeps for up to 10 hours a day during the intense silent-meditation course.

“For the first three days, the only thing we do is sit and focus on our breath,” Young says. “This is to still the mind and get the mind sharp.”

Isolated in the gym, the inmates wake up at 4 a.m. and meditate on and off until 9 p.m. They eat a strict vegetarian diet. They can’t smoke or drink coffee. And there is absolutely no conversation, only an internal examination of how the body is reacting.

“You’ll start feeling little stuff moving all around on your body,” Young says. “Some guys can’t handle this; some guys scream.”

It’s a rude awakening for some prisoners, Vipassana teacher Carl Franz says.

“Everyone’s mind is kind of Pandora’s box and when you have 33 rather serious convicts facing their past, and their own minds, their memories, their regrets, rough childhood, whatever, their crimes, lots of stuff comes up,” Franz says.

For Young, a convicted murderer, that stuff includes his childhood role in the accidental death of his baby sister, the fact he never mourned his mother’s death and his crime -– a drug-related murder.

“That’s one of the things that tortures me,” Young says. “We learn this stuff. We learn it too late in life.”

Now, aged 61 and likely in the last home he’ll know, Young says he just tries to have the highest quality life he can. He says that prior to taking the meditation course, he was in trouble a lot, fighting and trying to escape.

“It changed my life,” he says.

Dramatic Results

Dr. Ron Cavanaugh, treatment director for the Alabama Department of Corrections, says many inmates put their defenses up, denying responsibility for their crimes and blaming others. But the meditation practice, he says, chips away at those defense mechanisms.

“They have nobody to talk to,” Cavanaugh says. “So there’s nobody that they can deny stuff with or project everything with.”

Cavanaugh says inmates who go through the course have a 20 percent reduction in disciplinary action. But it hasn’t been an easy sell in Alabama, a state known for harsh punishment policies like chain gangs and hitching posts.

The Vipassana technique, though secular, is based on the teachings of Buddha. Soon after it started at Donaldson about a decade ago, the prison system’s chaplains expressed concern it might not be in keeping with Christian values. The state put an end to the program.

But Hetzel, the warden, saw the dramatic results and brought it back.

“I could see a significant decrease in behavioral problems, acting out,” Hetzel says. “The inmates that participated in those previous Vipassana programs seemed to be much calmer, much at peace.”

He’s also found they come out ready to help other inmates by volunteering in the prison’s hospice unit or leading self-help courses at the prison chapel.

Hetzel says he’s convinced the program is not religious and he’s encouraged staff members to take a mediation course to dispel misperceptions.

Donaldson Chaplain Bill Lindsay is still skeptical, but now tries to give Vipassana the benefit of the doubt.

“It’s kind of strange, something different,” he says.

But he acknowledges it seems to work.

“That’s the main thing,” he says. “What is a life worth, see, in this business? So if you can get just one, who knows?”

Clashing Cultures

To date, 430 inmates have gone through the Donaldson Vipassana meditation program, the only one of its kind in North America. There’s a waiting list for the quarterly sessions and the state wants to expand the offering to its women’s prison.

Filmmaker Jenny Phillips made a documentary called “The Dhamma Brothers” about the Alabama program and its unlikely marriage of an ancient meditation practice and an end-of-the-line prison.

“They’re clashing cultures,” Phillips says. “Yet when you bring them together, they fit.”

Behind the secure prison walls, Grady Bankhead, 60, says he’s walking evidence of that fit. A convicted murderer who came within hours of being executed before winning a new trial, he is now serving life without parole.

“Before I went to a Vipassana meditation, this isn’t what Grady Bankhead sounded like,” he says. “I was probably the angriest man in this prison.”

He says the meditation helped him deal with the root of that anger.

“When I was 3, my mother left my little brother and I out in [the] farmhouse, dressed us up like we were going to Sunday school or church, and said she’d be back in a little while,” Bankhead recalls.

He didn’t see her again until he was on death row. His brother had died.

“And I blamed me for not taking care of him,” Bankhead says.

Now, he’s recruiting other inmates to take the difficult course.

“We have to have some kind of balance back in our lives from the horrible things that we’ve done,” Bankhead says.

Meditation class helps lower violence at Alabama prison

February 2, 2011

Washington Post: Deep inside an overcrowded prison with a reputation for mayhem, convicted killers, robbers and rapists gather in a small room. Eyes closed, they sit silently with their thoughts and consciences.

Their everyday life is just outside in the hall – a cacophony of clanging steel doors, yelling and feet shuffling along cold concrete floors. The noise never really ends; peace is at a premium in Alabama’s toughest lockup.

Despite a history of violence at the William E. Donaldson Correctional Facility, which is named for a slain corrections officer, the prison outside Birmingham has become the model for a meditation program that officials say helps inmates learn the self control and social skills they never got in the outside world.

Warden Gary Hetzel doesn’t fully understand how the program called Vipassana (which is pronounced vuh-‘POSH-uh-nuh) can transform violent inmates into calm men using contemplative Buddhist practices.

But Hetzel knows one thing.

“It works. We see a difference in the men and in the prison. It’s calmer,” he said of the course that about 10 percent of the prison’s inmates have completed.

The word Vipassana means “to see things as they really are,” which is also the goal of the intense 10-day program using the meditative technique that dates back 2,500 years.

Vipassana courses are held four times a year in a prison gymnasium, where as many as 40 inmates meditate 10 hours a day. Most sit on cushions on the floor, while a few use chairs.

The courses begin with three days of breathing exercises – the prisoners learn to focus on bodily sensations so intently they feel the exhalations on their upper lip. Students are required to not speak to each other.

Outside volunteers guide their way, along with recordings of chanting and instructions.

On Day 4, students are told to begin letting their deepest thoughts percolate up through their consciousness so they can sense the effects on the body, like tension or anger. The ultimate goal is to learn not to react to those sensations.

Students are forced to grapple with their innermost selves. Some men are brought to tears; a few have thrown up. It’s not unusual for half of the students or more to quit or be sent back to the prison population for disobeying the rules.

Those who finish come out changed, prison officials say.

Convicted murderer Grady Bankhead said the hours of meditation forced him to accept responsibility for his crime and helped him find inner peace. Bankhead, who’s serving life without parole, radiates calm.

“I’ve been here for 25 years and this statement is going to sound crazy, but I consider myself the luckiest man in the world,” Bankhead, 60, said last month after the latest course at Donaldson.

For Ronald McKeithen, Vipassana became a tool for controlling his actions.

“I had a lot of anger issues, and this has given me a way to deal with it,” said McKeithen, 48, serving life without parole for robbery. Eyes shut, his face is relaxed during a weekly meditation session for prisoners who finish the program.

Vipassana courses have been taught in Indian prisons for decades and began in 2002 at Donaldson. The program was temporarily shut down over concerns among some Christians that Vipassana was some sort of evangelical Buddhism – it’s not, teachers and prisoners insist – but it restarted in 2006.

“It’s medicine for the mind,” said Timothy Lewis, 45, serving life without parole for robbery and assault.

About 380 state inmates have completed a Vipassana course, said Dr. Ronald Cavanaugh, who brought the program to Donaldson while working there and is now treatment director for the Alabama Department of Corrections. It took him three years to convince administrators to allow the program and to find the space for it.

A Department of Corrections study of about 100 inmates who completed the program and were still in custody in late 2007 found they had 20 percent fewer disciplinary actions after the course, Cavanaugh said.

“The goal of Vipassana is to change one’s relationship to thoughts instead of changing the content of the thoughts,” said Cavanaugh. “You don’t need to act or react to thoughts. You can just observe them.”

Vipassana courses have been taught at a few other lockups in California, Massachusetts and Washington, but ended for reasons including space limitations, security concerns and funding. Donaldson is currently the only U.S. prison with the courses, but advocates are trying to get others interested, said Harry Snyder of the Vipassana Prison Trust. The trust pays for volunteers to travel to the prison and conduct courses.

John Gannon, executive director of the International Association for Correctional and Forensic Psychology, said he applauds Alabama’s efforts.

“Anything that helps to reduce impulsivity is likely to reduce recidivism … and that’s what the process is about as I understand it,” said Gannon, of Pismo Beach, Calif.

Baptists far outnumber Buddhists in Alabama, and state corrections officials deserve credit for their willingness to try the program, said Jenny Phillips, a Massachusetts psychotherapist who introduced Cavanaugh to Vipassana meditation.

Phillips wrote a book and produced a documentary movie about the Donaldson program called “The Dhamma Brothers,” which incorporates the Indian word that refers to the concept in Vipassana of gaining happiness through doing good for others. It’s an older, alternate spelling of the word “dharma,” which is used more often in popular culture.

“You can feel the energy when another Dhamma brother passes by you,” said Bankhead, an inmate leader of the program. “You can relax. It’s one person calming five or six.”

While the warden said Vipassana helps officers and administrators keep a lid on Donaldson, the lockup is still considered the state’s roughest. It’s the last stop for inmates with behavior problems, and more than one-third of its approximately 1,500 prisoners are either serving sentences of life without parole or are on death row.

A judge is currently considering a prisoner lawsuit that claims Donaldson is so crowded and violent it violates inmates’ constitutional rights. State officials don’t deny that Donaldson has problems, but they dispute that the lockup is unconstitutionally harsh.

An organization for corrections officers has taken the unusual step of siding with the inmates by agreeing with some of their claims about Donaldson, but no trial date is set.

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Meditations to calm the edgiest lawyers

May 12, 2010

Recently, an acquaintance presented me with a small book. It was devoted to meditation. Perhaps the individual in question did not know me well, or knew me altogether too well. In particular, the donor either recognized or failed to recognize that I am entirely too twitchy to lie down, say “om” and allow my mind to empty itself until it is on a par with the brainpan of Paris Hilton.

The meditation book, I discovered, had a family. In the bookstore, there were collections of meditations for women who do too much, men from extraterrestrial locales other than Mars, people who don’t talk enough, chefs who hate cilantro, hairstylists with gambling problems, and people who like to watch curling, or perhaps it was hurling. Every over-or under-indulgence in the usual pursuits was represented by a pocket-sized volume equipped with 365 variations on the same theme: apparently, all of us need to become more serene.

The style was simple. Each page led with a quotation, followed by the “meditation,” a paragraph designed to make the reader more mindful of his neglects, addictions, behavioral or hypertrichological propensities. The daily input concluded with a thought for the day, or in some cases, such as for agnostics married to people who like poodles: a prayer.

It occurred to me that there was a missing category: Meditations for Lawyers! So, I thought I’d take a crack at it.

May 5, 2010

QUOTE FOR THE DAY: How sharper than a serrated knife is a Memorandum of Decision denying a Motion to Strike a thoroughly ludicrous cause of action.
– Cleopatra

MEDITATION: It is all good, even the authorities which do not control, including the laws of Nevada and Alabama. Consider the wisdom of the court’s decision. Breathe deeply to try to comprehend its obscure reasoning. The peace of the universe will brim up like boiling coffee. Understanding and letting go of needless whiny questioning and blaming the associate who argued the motion is the key to peace.

PRAYER/THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: I will accept the judgment of the Court. I will write a scathing electronic mail to my client excoriating the decision, and exculpating myself from blame. Help me, Mr. Spock, to disengage from my toxic and bothersome emotional reactions.

That felt pretty good, I thought I’d try again.

Aug. 9, 2010

QUOTE FOR THE DAY: Sometimes, in depositions, I think about committing grievous bodily harm to my opponent.
– St. Cauda Equinus

MEDITATION: Remember to limit your objections to form. Do not allow that aggressive tone to enter your voice, because the next time, there will be videotape. Be still in the knowledge that your client is doing the best she can. Only those who have weak cases resort to using belligerent tactics. Stop thinking about homicide. It will only cause you irritable bowel syndrome. Quiet your racing thoughts and do not click your pen like that. It’s annoying.

PRAYER/THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: I ask the Spirit of the Universe for the strength not to leap across the conference room and throttle my opposing counsel. I ask for the grace to remember that her Manolo Blahniks are compressing her toes painfully. I will not allow myself to think about the recent verdict against my client which allowed her to buy six pair of them.

It’s amazing. I feel wonderful. My pulse is down to 170. My mind is purging unhealthy thoughts, like tritium from a Vermont power plant. Next, “Meditations for Tax Attorneys Who Have Trouble Remembering Numbers;” “Reflections for Attorneys Who Whistle in Court,” and, “Daily Thoughts for Attorneys Who Wish They Had Majored In Ceramics.” Goodbye, indigestion! Hello, Simon and Schuster! •

[via Connecticut Law Tribune]

Amy F. Goodusky, a former paralegal, rock ‘n’ roll singer and horseback riding instructor, is of counsel at O’Brien, Tanski & Young in Hartford.

Prison inmates go Zen to deal with life behind bars

October 9, 2009

CNN: In his darkest moment, Kenneth Brown lost it all. His wife and kids, the housebroken dog, the vacation home on Cape Cod all vanished when he was sent to prison for an arson in 1996.

Trapped in his gloomy cell and serving a 20-year sentence that felt like an eternity, Brown, then 49, found himself stretched out on the floor. He was silent. His eyes were shut. His body did not move.

Brown, a man raised as a Baptist and taught to praise the Lord and fear the devil, was meditating.

“I try to focus on the space between two thoughts, because it prevents me from getting lost,” said Brown, who discovered meditation, yoga and Buddhist teachings three months into his sentence.

“This helped me stay on track and get me through prison,” he said.

Eastern religions encompassing meditation techniques have captivated hippies, 20-somethings and celebrities like actor Richard Gere. But since the 1960s, the art of meditation also has found a growing number of unlikely followers behind prison bars.

The inmates say meditation — an ancient practice that develops mental awareness and fosters relaxation — is teaching them how to cope in prison.

“Mostly, the people in Buddhist community are going into the prisons, providing programs, and word of mouth gets from one inmate to another,” explained Gary Friedman, communications chairman for the American Correctional Chaplains Association. “It’s a break from all the hustle and noise of the prison environment.”

There is no group tracking the number of inmates converting to Buddhism or engaging in meditation practices. But programs and workshops educating inmates about meditation and yoga are sprouting up across the country.

Meditation can help the convicts find calmness in a prison culture ripe with violence and chaos. The practice provides them a chance to reflect on their crimes, wrestle through feelings of guilt and transform themselves during their rehabilitative journey, Buddhist experts say.

In the past five years, books like the “Prison Chaplaincy Guidelines for Zen Buddhism” and “Razor-Wire Dharma: A Buddhist Life in Prison” have emerged.

“This is transformative justice, as opposed to punitive,” said Fleet Maull, founder of the Prison Dharma Network, one of the largest support networks helping inmates learn meditation and Buddhist teachings.

Since its inception in 1989, Prison Dharma Network has grown from one person — Maull — teaching Buddhist principles to more than 75 member organizations corresponding with 2,500 individuals, many of them inmates.

For the past seven years, Maull’s group has taught a weekly meditation class in Boulder County Jail in Colorado.
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Some inmates follow Zen Buddhism, a practice that originated in China, and meet weekly to focus their minds. Others practice Vipassana, a Buddhist practice founded in India, which consists of completing hundreds of hours of meditation in a short period of time.

Buddhism has gained momentum in the United States over the past 25 years, becoming the third most popular religion in America behind Christianity and Judaism, according to the 2008 report from the the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. About 1.7 million Americans call themselves Buddhists, and many of them are converts, the study said. According to the American Religious Identification Survey in 2008, there were 1.2 million self-identified Buddhists.

Some inmates, like Brown, may not label themselves official Buddhists, but they meditate, practice yoga and follow Buddhist principles on truth, responsibility and suffering.

The practice of meditation seeped into the heart of the Bible Belt in 2002. The Donaldson Correctional Facility, a maximum-security prison in Alabama, was notorious for violence. But a group of male inmates, including several murderers, completed a Vipassana meditation retreat that required more than 100 hours of meditation in 10 days.

One inmate, who was featured in the 2007 documentary “The Dhamma Brothers,” said Vipassana was harder than the 8½ years he had spent on death row. More than 120 men in Donaldson have gone through Vipassana at least once.

“They don’t feel so close to exploding,” said Jenny Phillips, director of the film. “They aren’t afraid to have conversations with people and to express themselves. They aren’t always on edge.”

Critics, including some prison officials, doubt that meditation works. They worry that it may be a tactic to convince parole boards to lighten a sentence.

In areas that are heavily Christian, some wardens are uncomfortable with introducing Eastern religions. Alabama prison authorities were initially skeptical about meditation but next year will designate an open dormitory for inmates going through Vipassana, said Ron Cavanaugh, director of treatment for the Alabama Department of Corrections.

He said corrections officers have seen lower levels of violence among Donaldson inmates who meditate.

In California, a state where the swollen prison population has resulted in dangerously overcrowded prisons, teaching conflict management is critical, said Anne Seisen Saunders, a Zen Buddhist instructor who was raised Christian.

Her Prison Meditation Project, based near San Diego, began a decade ago in one prison yard. Today, the program has expanded to five prisons, with an average of 20 inmates participating in each location.

Last week, the autumn sky transformed from a deep purple to light blue outside Kenneth Brown’s meager studio apartment. Inside, Brown sat on his bed, barefoot and deep in concentration, in front of a makeshift altar holding books a photo of the Buddha. Traces of incense billowed in the air.

Brown, now 62, resides in Georgia to be near his family. He says he was wrongfully convicted of arson. In 2005, a Massachusetts appeals judge reduced his sentence from 20 years to nine.

His body was motionless, his eyes closed and the palms of his hands facing upward.

These days, Brown’s practice of mediation helps him tackle the challenges of being unemployed with a felony record. The college graduate has been rejected from jobs catching stray dogs and cleaning hotel rooms.

But he’s got a lot to be thankful for: His daughters, his grandchildren — and meditation, he said.

The Dhamma Brothers

November 25, 2008

Yes!: East meets West in the Deep South. An overcrowded maximum-security prison—the end of the line in Alabama’s correctional system—is dramatically changed by the influence of an ancient meditation program. Behind high security towers and a double row of barbed wire and electrical fence dwells a host of convicts who will never see the light of day. But for some of these men, a spark is ignited when it becomes the first maximum-security prison in North America to hold an extended Vipassana retreat, an emotionally and physically demanding course of silent meditation lasting ten days. Read more here.

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