Dhamma Brothers Film Analysis

Improved Essays
The underlying problem of the prison industrial complex will be defined through the prison industrial complex to exploit lower class citizens through capitalism, yet within the context of spiritual liberation of vipassana mediation as defined in Changing from Inside, Dhamma Brothers, and Doing time, Doing Vipassana. The film Dhamma Brothers, the internal spiritual freedom of Buddhism is analyzed within the context of prisoners of the prison industrial complex as a form of capitalistic oppression of lower class citizens in America. These films expose the primary theme of prison incarceration as a direct result of a hegemonic capitalistic system, which has exploited and detained increasing populations of inmates in this system. The Buddhist …show more content…
“Everything in life, you have to pay for, one way or another. In my life—its instant—I do something wrong and its there—pow!” (22:40). This aspect of the prisoner life in third world nations defines the neocolonialism of modern capitalism as a form of marginalizing members of the lower classes, which Buddhism offers a spiritual freedom from this ideology. Since many prisoners in Doing time, Doing Vipassana are forced into minimum or no-wage labor, they rely on mediation to relieve themselves of the burden of their incarceration in such a capitalistic system. Many of the inmates of people of color, but it shows that Buddhist meditation techniques provide a spiritual and mental counter to the materialism of capitalism, which got many of these prisoners into the prison system. The film Dhamma Brothers also defines the impact of vipassana mediation on four incarcerated men that seek out spiritual liberation from the capitalistic effects of the American prison industrial complex. The alarming level of American prisoners of African American and minority descent defines the over focus of Buddhism as an outlet for life-term inmates serving their time in these institutions. Dhamma Brothers defines the use of vipassana method of mediation to relieve the burden …show more content…
The filmmakers decided to experiment with vipassana techniques in order to see the effects of Buddhist spirituality in devolving the effects of materialism and capitalistic conditioning of the inmates: “How the could vipassana course be conducted without compromising security. We had to somehow integrate security right into the vipassana program” (Changing from Inside 14:37). This integration of Buddhist spiritual principles into a 1—day program defines the eventual success of the program to help inmates learn healthy lifestyles choices and the vipassana mediation techniques as a form of internal liberation from such a all-encompassing system of punishment and incarceration. These aspects of documentary filmmaking are also part of the Dhamma Brothers and Doing Time films, since they define the oppressive conditions of being in the prison industrial complex, and the necessity for internal spiritual liberation from a dysfunctional system of imprisonment. In many ways, the positive effects of vipassana mediation illustrate the importance of Buddhist spiritual principles and mediation as a form of internal liberation from the oppression of capitalistic systems of the prison industrial complex in the 21st

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Cohen, Andrew. " Creating Monsters: How Solitary Confinement Hurts the Rest of Us." The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, 18 Apr. 2014. Web.…

    • 1965 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The essay “How Long Has It Been Since You Smelled a Flower?” by Richard Shelton describes his experiences with prisoners. He begins by stating he’s worked at the “nexus where language intersects with the lives of prison inmates” for forty years (1). Shelton then begins to delve into the mistreatment of prisoners by the state, primarily by deprivation. Prisons were originally designed to isolate inmates and deprive them of the marvels of nature; this can still be seen in today’s prisons. Humans have an inherent connection to nature and when bereaved of this connection, it can harshly impair any sense a person has left.…

    • 791 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Throughout their sentence, prison inmates endured miserable life before and during the Prison Reform Movement of 1800’s, unlivable conditions, and physical abuse from the guards. “Men rarely become spiritually better by being made subject, through human discipline, to extreme bodily discomforts; these convicts are not made morally better by such treatment as they are subjected to here in the days of bodily weakness and pain” (Lightner 56). Prison Reform Movement from 1870-1930, greatly changed what type of treatment that was acceptable in prisons towards the inmates, much of these changes were due to the effort of Dorothy Dix and her efforts to investigate the prisons. When prisons first formed, people weren’t exactly sure how they should go…

    • 1175 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In Michelle Alexander’s book The New Jim Crow she argues the point of the new caste system in the United Sates has resulted in many people becoming incarcerated and then confined to a second-class status. In Chapter 2, Alexander’s focuses on the War on Drugs and how many are incarcerated, especially people of color. Furthermore, once they are released they are not free instead, they are discriminated against in the legal sense for the rest of their lives. Brought up again the Chapter 4, where it mentions how upon release the caste system operates in a certain way where ex-offenders are unable to reintegrate into society and the current economy.…

    • 839 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Nalini Nadkarni’s 2010 Ted Talk, “Life Science in Prison”, places two unlikely entities together to denaturalize a distorted societal view on the prison system, and more specifically, inmates themselves. Nadkarni does so by beginning her Ted Talk metaphorically; she believes that many consider trees as unchanging entities, much like their views on prisons. Using this metaphor, Nadkarni highlights the positive dynamisms in prisons often excluded from mainstream views, which only necessitates a shift in perspective. Ultimately, Nadkarni creates a unifying and moving Ted Talk on a sensitive, and perhaps uncomfortable topic by appealing largely to the rhetoric of logic (logos) and emotion (pathos), effectively employing relevant visual and verbal elements to enhance such appeals.…

    • 561 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The last five chapters of the book “The American Prison: Imagining a Different Future” written by Francis Cullen, Mary Stohr and Cheryl Johnson discuss some of the various prison systems that can be found in America, and the issues that surround them. The main focus of discussion for each chapter is the history of the prison, its effectiveness in running, its social context in modern day America, and the authors of the chapter’s personal thoughts on the importance of that specific prison type. The four types of prisons covered in chapters 9-12 are the private prison, the green prison, the small prison, and the accountable prison; chapter thirteen of the book talks about the lessons that should be learned from the book regarding the harm and…

    • 2111 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Changing the American Prison System Almost 50% of incarcerated Americans are reincarnated within 10 years. A depressing cycle that can be broken by investing in education. Education in prisons is extremely effective for the prisoners and for the justice system. Jimmy Baca’s “Coming into Language” demonstrates the unjust American prison cycle perfectly through his personal stories and thoughts.…

    • 1075 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    New Jim Crow Sociology

    • 922 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Chapter 4: The Cruel Hand This chapter considers how the caste system of operation, and once people released from prison. In many ways, the release from prison does not represent the beginning of freedom, but the humiliation and cruelty of a new stage of control. Official discrimination and social discrimination follow discourage offenders released to re-enter the larger society. Numerous laws and regulations discriminate against ex-offenders, prevent its significance for economic and social re-integration into the mainstream.…

    • 922 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    In The Cunning of History, author Richard Rubenstein discusses the elements within Germany and other countries of the world that contributed to the mass killings of the Jews in what we know as the Holocaust. Rubenstein further discusses the history of anti-Semitism that enabled the persecution of the Jews, and also compares the slave industry of the world wherein the importation and persecution of slaves in the United States and other parts of the world had existed pre-Holocaust. Rubenstein wants the reader to be able to peel back the emotional imagery and layers that encompass words like Auschwitz and Holocaust and look deeper at the true meaning of what really was going on and why it was able to happen the way in which it did. Analyzing…

    • 2133 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Prison Cultural Essay The purpose of this essay is to compare and contrast my culture and the culture of Stanley “Tookie” Williams the author of Life In Prison. The book takes place while Stanley is serving time in prison on death row for being convicted of murdering four people in 1981, during two separate robberies. Stanley is serving his sentence in San Quentin prison in San Francisco California (Williams, 9). Stanley is an african american male who grew up in South Central Los Angeles and in 1971 along with his friend, Raymond Lee Washington, started a street gang, which was known as the Crips (Williams,9).…

    • 919 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Sankofa Movie Analysis

    • 1226 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The Movie Sankofa accurately depicted the slavery experience in a very accurate manner, Sankofa itself is a word in the Twi language of Ghana that translates go back and study your past. The movie depicted slavery in almost the exact way it really happened, Sankofa shows us the if African American had the true picture of slavery experience, they would truly cherish and appreciate breathe of freedom we have today. In fact, this true because this current generation has no idea, on how the slave experience was really about, a lot of people prefer to even talk about this issue because they feel its incident that happened in the past. According to the movie, if we knew the pain and the hardship our forefathers passed through, it might affect…

    • 1226 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The crisis of mass incarceration is not felt evenly in the United States, race defines every aspect of the criminal justice system, from police targeting, to crimes charged, and rates of conviction. More Black men are in prison or jail, on probation or parole than were enslaved in 1850, before the Civil War began. Prison labor has its roots in slavery. After the 1861-1865 Civil War, a system of hiring out prisoners was introduced in order to continue the slavery tradition.…

    • 446 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Report on the Stanford Prison Experiment for PSYC 1111 The Office of Naval Research sponsored a study at Stanford University to "develop a better understanding of the basic psychological mechanisms underlying human aggression" and to identify which conditions can lead to aggression when men are living in close quarters for a long period of time (Haney, C., Banks, W.C. & Zimbardo, P.G. (1973)). This experiment took form within a model prison created in the basement at Stanford University to discover the variables found in prisons that can lead to aggression in people, i.e. guards and prisoners. The hypothesis explored was that ‘guards’ and ‘prisoners’ would react in different ways and their behavior and state of being would differ from each…

    • 963 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    A crowbar in the Buddhist Garden by Stephen Reid is a collection of writings, referred to his essays about his life and well as his time in prison. His writings give people are good look into the actual life and past of a criminal and also helps to personify the idea of what an offender or criminal is. These essays make out offenders to people real living people who have families and past lives, loves and experiences. This book includes four essays known as: The Last Score, Junkie, Leaving Their Mark, and The Art of Dying in Prison as well as a prologue and epilogue, each of which cover different times and aspects of the life of Stephen Reid both in and out of the penitentiary. From reading each essay one can better learn to understand the…

    • 1582 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Great Essays

    Bioethics In Buddhism

    • 1512 Words
    • 6 Pages

    The worship and teachings of Buddhism has had a significant impact on individuals and the wider Buddhist community. Buddhism claims to be a way of life that avoids the extremes of denial and indulgence and proposes a middle way. This is a key tenet that all adherents must follow, in order to achieve nirvana, the ultimate goal for all Buddhists. Subsequently, there are many teachings and practices which guide Buddhist followers on how to live a life in attaining nirvana, that affect people individually and society as a whole. The significant practice of Temple Puja and the teachings by the Buddhist texts, principles, the XIVth Dalai Lama and the Buddha himself, guide and outline adherents on issues that may impact upon their path of enlightenment…

    • 1512 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays