
English: 
[♪sustained note♪]
[flag flapping in breeze]
[Path of Freedom]
[♪ music ♪]
[prisoners chattering]
[♪ music ♪]
- This is a tough guy world,
and we have to control
all of their movement
and their behavior
[Roberta Richman -
Rhode Island
Dept. of Corrections]
because that's the way
you keep an institution safe
for everybody who lives in it.
[♪ music ♪]
We have everybody here—
murderers and rapists,
sex offenders, drug addicts—
everybody.

Spanish: 
[goproject films]
[♪ ♪ instrumentos de cuerda]
Descubrí el trabajar con té
realmente por casualidad.
Derramé el té en un dibujo.
Los miro, y los leo como alguien
leería granos de café.
[Silent Crescendo]
[♪ ♪ instrumentos de cuerda]

Spanish: 
Bebo este hermoso™
té  pu-ehr chino.
El elemento de desaceleración.
El té nos permite respirar, movernos.
[♪ ♪ instrumentos de cuerda]
Las cosas enteras se inician con grandes manchas de té.
Es como un espacio vacío en el interior de la mente.

English: 
[1 out of every 100 Americans
is currently behind bars]
My name is Dennis.
I'm 52 years old.
I'm serving a 15-year sentence
for assaulting my wife.
My name is Louis, 35.
I sold narcotics
[clears throat]
since I was about 13 or so.
My name is Juan.
I'm 34 years old.
I'm here
for second degree murder.
Yeah.
Sadly, this is my charge.
My name is Celine.
I'm 39.
I'll be 40 soon.
I was given a life term.
[♪ music ♪]
A lot of times
what lands people in prison
[Fleet Maull -
Prison Mindfulness Institute]
and what brings them back
is a lack
of good problem-solving skills
and good communication skills.
[♪ music ♪]

English: 
[Richman] Fleet approached
us asking if he could
do some work in here.
We were challenged.
Our union wanted to know
how we could possibly bring
an ex-offender in.
[Maull] I served 14½ years
on a 25-year,
no parole sentence.
Hello.
[♪ music ♪]
Having served 14 years
boosts his credibility—
boosts his credibility
with inmates.
How's your week been?
- It's good.
[Maull] Yeah? Good.
What's up? Yeah.
Hey. Welcome.
When I got locked up,
I really hit a wall
of just seeing the craziness
of my life path
up until then
and the incredible
selfish decisions
I'd been making.
My son was 9 years old.
He was going
to grow up without his dad.
And I was just so deeply
full of remorse and regret

Spanish: 
[♪ ♪ instrumentos de cuerda]
Empiezo con la pluma,
y luego miro las manchas.
[♪ ♪ instrumentos de cuerda]
Es casi como un pequeño oráculo.
No me atrae ser santo, estar fuera de este mundo.
Sólo me permito un poco de espacio,
un pequeño momento.
[♪ ♪ instrumentos de cuerda]
No hay ningún intento de ser original.
Originalidad es totalmente irrelevante.
Si se ven como algo más,
¿por qué no?

English: 
that I just literally
started practicing meditation
like my hair was on fire.
So I became extremely
motivated to turn
my life around.
[♪ music ♪]
And so I was living
the life of this prison monk.
[♪ music ♪]
I was sourcing
a meditation group
twice a week in the chapel.
[♪ music ♪]
I started receiving letters
from prisoners
while I was in prison.
I had published some articles;
people knew about me
out in the world a little bit,
and they started
sending some of these letters
to me
thinking I would know
what to do with them.
I worked in
the education department,
and I had access
to a copy machine.
I would copy articles
out of books,
and I'd put together
a little thing
and I'd send it off
to a prisoner.
So it started off that way,
and I decided it was
a much bigger deal
than I could do
from my prison cells.
I think we have
a co-creative relationship
with our life.
We can't control other people,
we don't control life,

Spanish: 
[♪ ♪ instrumentos de cuerda]
Hay una cierta inteligencia interna,
profunda.
Una narrativa casi no verbal
que nos nutre, que
tiene su fuente natural.
Y así, estos dibujos intentan, ya sabes,
tocar el borde de eso.
[♪ ♪ instrumentos de cuerda]
[Dirigido por Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee. Producido por Dorothee Royah-Hedinger]
[Filmado y editado por Elias Koch. Música interpretada por E. Vaughan-Lee]
[Música de H. Scott Salinas. Mezcla de sonido de D. Chris Smith]
[www.globalonenessproject.org]

English: 
but is there some relationship
between what we put out
and what comes back?
Freedom before I came here
was just another word.
I had never been
to prison before.
All you know is what the media
and the movies
say about prison—
"Take care of yourself, man."
"Somebody's going to try
to take your manhood
or something."
You know what I mean?
I'm thinking I'm going
to come in here
and fight the world.
[Maull] In a prison like Moran,
there's a serious conflict
waiting around any corner.
It's an environment
where people's worst behaviors
are just right there
just under the surface.
[♪ music ♪]
When I first came in,
I fought with officers,
would beat up anyone,
would do the unthinkable
just because.
[Dennis] It's a vicious cycle
because once you come to prison
your life just keeps tumbling,
tumbling, tumbling,

English: 
and it's like
a never-ending wall
that won't stop building
unless you find some way
to get over that wall
or at least in front of it.
[Richman] What circumstances
did they have
to survive on the street
to bring them
to where they are now?
Do we want to save those lives,
or do we want to discard them?
The crimes I committed,
I brought shame
to not only myself
but to those who I love.
So I'm just really trying
to do something
to get out of that cycle.
Somebody's given us
an opportunity just
to meditate
and connect ourselves,
and that's golden.
So sit up with
that good posture,
just rest your hands
on your legs,
and just take
a moment to just feel.

English: 
[♪ music ♪]
[Richman] I've always
thought that the people
who survive
are so much stronger
than I could ever be.
I asked Fleet how he survived
and thrived the way he has.
He credits meditation
for having given him
the strength to live
his life in prison
and come out not as much
the worse for wear
as most people do.
I don't have a release date.
So I can only go home
when they decide I can.
So I learned to live
day by day,
and that helped me
to deal with prison,
and I could only
do that being in the moment,
being in the now.
[♪ music ♪]
It's like if I don't like
what's going on,
what can I do to shift it?
If I don't like
the relationship I have
with my boss or with one
of the COs or something,

English: 
could I approach
that person
in a different way?
Can I get creative
about what I'm doing
to bring about a shift
in the way things are—
in other words,
owning my own situation.
So how do you resolve that?
I take a breath and then
[chuckles] I step back.
Really, you have to.
[Maull] Then suddenly
get that there's
this whole thing there
that they thought
was who they are.
That's the only
reality they knew.
Suddenly they get to step
outside of that a little bit.
You just see the lights go on.
It's like
this sudden illumination.
It's like
a mini enlightenment of sorts.
And that's very powerful.
That's what keeps me coming.
The reality of it
is I'm living life,
and meditation
it has brought
a new perspective
in the way that it gave me
like a tool
to really look inside myself
and change the way I am.
[Richman] People don't
understand the value
of what they call
the soft stuff,

English: 
and I sometimes think
without the soft stuff,
no matter how much
hard stuff you have,
you're bound to fail.
You can live your life.
You can be yourself.
You can show others
that this isn't a place
to breed a better criminal;
this could actually
be a place to breed
a better person.
You're here
because the way that you were
didn't work.
So why not be better?
[prisoners chattering]
[Richman] The people
in prison are us.
They're not monsters.
And more importantly,
whether we want them to or not,
they're getting out.
So do you want them
to come out angrier
and meaner and more dangerous
than they were
when they came in,
or do you want
to do whatever you can
to change their behavior
while they're here?
We need people to see
and experience prisoners
stepping out of that culture

English: 
and doing something
transformative with their lives,
and then people
will start to have faith,
people will see people
coming back to their community
and they realize these
are human beings
and that human beings'
lives have value
and they're not expendable.
[♪ music ♪]
[This year 700,000 people
will return home from prison]
[♪ music ♪]
[directed by
Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee,
produced by
Dorothee Royal-Hedinger]
[cinematography by Elias Koch,
edited by Adam Loften,
sound recording by
Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee]
[music by H. Scott Salinas,
sound mix by D. Chris Smith]
[www.globalonenessproject.org]
