Please join us at FCM's Tampa Center on Saturday evening, November 5, when we will be showing The Dhamma Brothers, a dramatic story of human potential and transformation as it closely follows and documents the stories of a group of prisoners as they enter into a 10-day silent Vipassana retreat. The movie challenges assumptions about the very nature of prisons as places of punishment rather than rehabilitation. Despite the difficulty in obtaining permission to film inside a prison, the Alabama Department of Corrections allowed a film crew to document, not only the Vipassana program, but many other scenes and settings revealing the daily lives of prisoners and staff.

Before the retreat, the men openly express fear and trepidation, wondering what they will find when they look deeply within and face the consequences of past actions and trauma. We observe the transformation of the prison gym, a frequent site for violent battles among inmates, into a monastery, a separate, restricted place in which the inmate students can eat, sleep, and meditate in total seclusion from the rest of prison society.

This documentary is quite moving and has in part been very inspirational in FCM's Inmate Outreach program, headed by members Chris Gahles, Nancy Cunningham, Alex Lerner, and a small but growing group of volunteers.

There will be a panel discussion after the movie with Chris Gahles and Gary Hammond to talk about the FCM inmate outreach program.