"When you take more than you need...

...you take from someone else." Quoted from Dorian Paskowitz in the new documentary about his family life on the road and surfing, called Surfwise. I definitely also recommend this movie (that is, to anyone comfortable with a brutally honest 80-year-old man talk about "eating p****"), now playing at Kendall Square theatre in Cambridge.

Related to this quote, Scientific American has a great opinion piece, called "Surging Food Prices Mean Global Instability" in their May issue about the lack of purchasing power as cause for famines, not lack of food.

In considering what to do with my (slowly) growing accumulation of financial wealth, this is the exact issue I don't want to exacerbate (even with my meager savings, it's still about the principle of the matter).

I shall meditate more on what an individual is to do. I have already be dieting -- a consumer diet, if you will, and one of conservation and preservation of resources. Including snacking less (it's out of habit anyway, not hunger), buying less, traveling less, reusing paper towels, "yellow mellow", and so on. Any additional ideas, please do share.

Dhamma Brothers: a documentary film of meditating prisoners

Very excited about going to see it this weekend in Brookline. The website features video clips and samples letters written by the prisoners about their inner transformations through vipasana meditation: www.dhammabrothers.com

Information below is from Coolidge Corner theatre website...

DHAMMA BROTHERS

Starts, Fri May 16
Filmmakers in attendance at Fri, May 16 & Sat, May 17 evening shows.
Big Screen show with filmmakers and post-film Q&A, Mon, May 19 @ 7:00

Donaldson Correctional Facility, situated in the Alabama countryside southwest of Birmingham, holds 1500 of the state's most dangerous criminals. Behind high security towers and a double row of barbed wire and electrical fence, dwells a host of convicts who will never see the light of day. But for some of these men, a spark was ignited. In January 2002, Donaldson Correctional Facility became the first maximum security prison in North America to hold an extended Vipassana retreat, an emotionally and physically demanding course of silent meditation lasting 10 days.

THE DHAMMA BROTHERS tells a dramatic tale of human potential and transformation as it closely follows and documents the stories of 36 prison inmates who enter into this arduous and intensive program. It challenges assumptions about the nature of prisons as places of punishment rather than rehabilitation and raises the question: is it possible for these men, some of whom have committed horrendous crimes, to change?

Directors: Jenny Phillips, Anne Marie Stein and Andrew Kukura, documentary, 1h16m

Showtimes at Coolidge Corner Theatre (Brookline, MA):
Fri., May 16 - 2:45PM, 4:45PM, 7:00PM, 9:00PM
Sat., May 17 - 2:45PM, 4:45PM, 7:00PM, 9:00PM
Sun., May 18 - 2:45PM, 4:45PM, 7:00PM, 9:00PM
Mon., May 19 - 2:45PM, 4:45PM, 7:00PM (Q&A after 7:00PM showing)
Tue., May 20 - 2:45PM, 4:45PM, 7:00PM, 9:00PM
Wed., May 21 - 2:45PM, 4:45PM, 7:00PM, 9:00PM
Thu., May 22 - 2:45PM, 4:45PM, 7:00PM, 9:00PM

Websites:
http://www.coolidge.org/node/1752
http://www.dhammabrothers.com/