Rev. Danny Fisher

Our friend The Brainy Gamer points us to this piece at PopMatters on the new documentary The Dhamma Brothers, which opened this past Friday at New York City’s Cinema Village. (It will also play in Boston, Los Angeles, Portland, San Francisco and Seattle in the coming weeks.) I blogged about the film, which documents a ten-day meditation retreat undertaken by thirty-six prisoners at a maximum security prison in Alabama, last November. The PopMatters piece includes the following endorsement of the film from Sister Helen Prejean, author of the essential Dead Man Walking:

The stories of The Dhamma Brothers ring with the truth and power of their experiences, and offer the hope for renewal and rehabilitation within a dismal and punishment-oriented correctional system. It gives you hope for the human race.

Here is a trailer for the film:

And while we’re on the subject of movies about Buddhism, the great Phil Ryan over at the Tricycle Editors’ Blog reminds us that How to Cook Your Life will be released on video soon. I blogged about this film last September: it’s Doris Dörrie’s new documentary about Zen Master Edward Espe Brown and his intertwined teachings on the Dharma and food preparation.

I recently received an email from Bill Hart, a Buddhist chaplain, informing me (and quite a few others) that the 4th Annual Buddhist Spiritual Care Symposium will be held October 18th at the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA.

Regular readers may remember my reporting on the 3rd Annual Buddhist Spiritual Care Symposium last year in this post. (A picture taken at the gathering is just above and to the left.)

If would like to be notified about registration, schedule, and speakers, join the Buddhist_Chaplaincy Yahoo! Group here. The Buddhist Chaplains Network website should also have more information as it develops.

I’ve got a couple more good items about His Holiness the Dalai Lama and his struggle for Tibetan autonomy to share with you.

First, our friend Katherine sends along this NPR interview with Pico Iyer, author of the new book The Open Road: The Global Journey of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama.

Journalist Pico Iyer has a long history meeting with the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader living in exile in India. Iyer joins Fresh Air to discuss how the fourteenth Dalai Lama is responding to the current Tibetan uprising and protest against Chinese rule.

Second, The Interdependent points us to the below trailer for The Unwinking Gaze, a new documentary about His Holiness.