I have been facilitating study groups on Ethics for the New Millennium with inmates in the medium security prison in Maine now for about a year and I am always humbled and amazed by the kind of response I am witness to there. Whether it is men or women, young folks or older, so-called hardened criminals or newly incarcerated, the guidelines that the Dalai Lama puts forth for how to be an ethical member of society seem to be heard and felt differently than the way any religious dogma, societal laws or parental guidelines are received. Even though all these may be essentially saying the same things: do unto others, behave compassionately, live by the golden rule, etc, there is something clearer and cleaner about the message that comes from his way of thinking and communicating. They get it. [Read more...]
How it Works in Prison
Study Circles for Inmates
In the June, 2009, newsletter of The Dalai Lama Foundation, we announced that for a year the facilitators of Project Clear Light had been meeting with a group of 20 maximum-security inmates at the Mark Stiles Unit in Beaumont, Texas. They had been using Ethics for the New Millennium as a text, and the Study Guide as a starting point for their series of meetings.
The work begun by Terry Conrad, and by the inmates at the unit, resulted in a special study guide for inmates entitled Discovering Ethics: A Path to Virtue, which is available for download (PDF) and in printed (bound) form from Lulu.com.
The guide, like our other guides, is published under a Creative Commons license which allows modification, addition, duplication, and distribution for nonprofit purposes.
All of the guides are for use with Ethics for the New Millennium, which must be purchased separately. We urge you to purchase conveniently, you may be able to get the book today from a local bookseller. You can order copies online from Amazon.com or other online retailers.
Resources:
- The Study Circles page at The Dalai Lama Foundation
- Project Clear Light
- Order printed study guides (all formats)
- Emmanuel Ande Ivorgba expresses our appreciation to Terry Conrad for the new study guide
Gratitude for the NEW Study Guide for Inmates
TO: Terry Conrad and the Clear Light Prison Sangha in Texas
Dear Terry,
I am writing to congratulate and thank you once again for this excellent and most appropriate Ethics Study Guide that you have helped to develop for Prison Inmates. I have been going through the pages and I am so deeply moved by its clarity and depths. Surely, you have put in so much effort and energy in doing this, and on behalf of everyone in the great family and friends of His Holiness, I say thank you most sincerely.
You have indeed taken the lead and shown us the way. Our Prison system in Nigeria will be the greatest beneficiary of this Study Guide. I am wondering if you would have time to prepare and share with all of us, a 1-2 page summary of your experiences with the inmates as they begin work with this document. Your summary will be posted on the Study Circle blog, and hopefully on the Foundation’s Online Newsletter. This is an excellent example and we all have great lessons to learn from this.
Thank you so much and please extend my very warm regards to all the people involved with this work, and to all who will use it.
Sincerely,
Emmanuel
Engr. Emmanuel Ande Ivorgba,
Study Circle Coordinator
The Dalai Lama Foundation
