Path of Freedom…Because We’re All Doing Time.

 

Perhaps you’ve heard the story of Fleet Maull, who served 14 years of a 25 year sentence and turned his time in prison into an opportunity to help others find a new path through meditation and mindful responsibility.

Maybe you saw the films The Dhamma Brothers and Doing Time, Doing Vipassana.

Maybe you read the journal entries of Shambhala Atlanta heart member Jampa Pawo and were moved by his redemptive efforts to turn his final years toward a life of compassion.

Meditation has become a powerful tool for incarcerated men and women who are seeking the ability to forgive themselves, discover their basic goodness, and make choices that will help them forge radically responsible and rewarding futures. These prisoners are looking for The Path of Freedom.

This is a dynamic opportunity to help guide young people onto a path where they can work with their emotions in a healthy way, and find the life-changing gap that exists between impulse and regrettable action.  If you’re intrigued by this, you may want to find out more about the Path of Freedom group.

The Atlanta Shambhala Center sponsors a Path of Freedom group at the DeKalb Regional Youth Detention Center (RYDC). The class meets Saturday afternoons.

We would love to expand our base of instructors with volunteers who are interested in taking on engaging, satisfying work.

The DeKalb RYDC houses young men mostly between 14 to 16 years of age. Instructors must take the Prison Mindfulness Institute’s Path of Freedom online course.

The next online Path of Freedom course starts September 1, 2016.

The curriculum, written by Fleet Maull and Kate Krisp, includes training in: mindfulness meditation, emotional intelligence, communication, conflict resolution, and various resourcing and resiliency building skills. Participants develop greater self-awareness, improved impulse control, and greater social awareness which will give them a new positive vision for their lives.

The course is six weeks and costs $275. If you want to apply for the training, the application can be accessed at http://www.prisonmindfulness.org/projects/path-of-freedom/.

If you would like further information, please contact Doug Jackson ([email protected]) or Tommy Housworth ([email protected]).