In this episode, Chia-Ti Chiu talks with Vita Pires about her work with Lineage Project.

• Embodying a trauma-conscious and resilience-based methodology
• Unpacking privilege, biases, and blind spots
• The evolution of the Lineage Project

CHIA-TI CHIU (she/her) Chia-Ti has been working with the Lineage Project since 2009. As a senior teacher, she shares embodied awareness practices with youth in detention centers, alternate-to-incarceration programs, and public high schools. Chia-Ti leads trainings and professional development workshops, which promotes mindfulness through a trauma-conscious, social justice, and resilience-building lens. She also develops curriculum and mentors new teachers. Outside of her work with Lineage, Chia-Ti leads international yoga retreats and provides wellness justice consulting through her business onelovewellness. She is on faculty with the Garrison Institute's Contemplative-Based Resilience Project, which supports the sustainability of humanitarian aid workers, social service providers, and Congressional staffers. She believes in making wellness accessible, affordable, and relevant for all.

To Learn More About the Prison Mindfulness Institute, please visit www.prisonmindfulness.org

In this episode, John MacAdams talks with Garth Smelser about his experiences working with both incarcerated individuals as a chaplain and as a mindfulness trainer for corrections professionals.

• Stepping into the alien environment of custody
• Relating to inmates, relating to security staff
• What’s important about training corrections professionals

JOHN MACADAMS John MacAdams, CMT-P, is an IMTA certified professional mindfulness teacher as well as a 35+ year mindfulness practitioner and certified mindfulness teacher for over 20 years. He has more than 7 years experience working in corrections and public safety, and serves as a senior chaplain at the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Men’s Central Jail and Twin Towers Correctional Facility, part of the USA’s largest jail system. MacAdams has trained law enforcement, custody, probation & parole, border patrol and correctional officers in Oregon, California and Ontario, Canada.

To Learn More About the Prison Mindfulness Institute, please visit www.prisonmindfulness.org

In this episode, Martine Batchelor talks with Vita Pires about her experiences working with those in prisons and teaching Secular Buddhism.

• Developing the path of secular Buddhism
• Practices for fear and anxiety
• Working with those who have resistance to meditation and/or (seemingly) don't care about the consequences of actions

MARTINE BATCHELOR Martine Batchelor was a Buddhist nun in Korea for ten years. She studied Son Buddhism under the guidance of the late Master Kusan. She translated his book ‘The Way of Korean Zen’. Following Master Kusan’s death she returned her nun’s vows and left Korea to come back to live in Europe where she also studied insight meditation. She is the author of different books showing her interest in various subjects from Buddhism and ethics “The Path of Compassion” to Buddhism and Women “Women in Korean Zen”. At the moment she is focusing on meditation and compassion in daily life as in “Let go: A Buddhist Guide to Breaking Free of Habits”. Her latest book is The Spirit of the Buddha’. Since 2013 she has stopped writing books to take care of her elderly mother. Nowadays she writes articles, specially about mindfulness of feeling tones. One can be accessed here: https://mindrxiv.org/tkan4/ . She has been involved with the Silver Sante Study teaching meditation, mindfulness and compassion to seniors in France to see if this could prevent ageing decline (https://silversantestudy.eu/). She is part of the Teacher council of Gaia House. She is on the faculty of the Bodhi College. As people seems to points out often, she is practical and precise in her teaching which is seemingly simple but deep. She is interested in photography and art (martine’s Instagram). She is a multichoice teacher who is interested in what works for people and help them to develop their creative potential for wisdom and compassion for themselves and others. She teaches meditation worldwide but recently because of taking care of her mother she is teaching mainly in Europe.

To Learn More About the Prison Mindfulness Institute, please visit www.prisonmindfulness.org

In this episode, Matthew Hahn talks with cohost John MacAdams about his experiences with mindfulness while incarcerated and his work post-incarceration as a facilitator for Mindful Prisons.

• The value of creating safe spaces
• What happens after volunteers leave the facility
• Full circle, returning to Folsom Prison to teach the Dharma

MATTHEW HAHN Matthew is a member of the Boundless Freedom Project Sangha and a program facilitator for Mindful Prisons, a mindful community meeting behind the walls of San Quentin State Prison. A co-founder of the Recovery Dharma program, he teaches mostly to members of the system-impacted and recovery communities. Practicing meditation since facing a life-in-prison sentence himself in 2005, Matthew sat with his first sangha as a prisoner in Folsom State Prison. Since coming home in 2012, he has practiced principally within the Insight tradition, but has also studied in Burma within the Mahasi / U Pandita lineages. Matthew has been personally mentored by lay teachers within the Insight tradition and was empowered with lay ordination by Venerable Pannavati and the late Venerable Pannadipa.

To Learn More About the Prison Mindfulness Institute, please visit www.prisonmindfulness.org

In this episode, Richard Shankman talks with Vita Pires about his experiences teaching meditation in California prisons in the 1970s and how that has influenced his work to date.

• Early days (1970s) of contemplative programs in California Prisons
• Working with Youth (mindful schools)
• Importance of humility and ‘not knowing’ mindset when working with others with completely different life conditions

RICHARD SHANKMAN Richard Shankman has been active in bringing mindfulness practice into prisons and jails since the 1970s, when he began teaching meditation in San Quentin State Prison, the Marin County jail and a San Francisco drug and alcohol rehabilitation center. Richard was the Buddhist chaplain and started mindfulness meditation programs at the Salinas Valley State Prison and the Men’s Correctional Training Facility, both near Soledad, California. He has been a meditator since 1970 and teaches classes and meditation retreats at dharma centers and groups internationally. Richard is the guiding teacher of the Metta Dharma Foundation (www.mettadharma.org), and co-founder of the Sati Center for Buddhist Studies (www.sati.org) and of Mindful Schools (www.mindfulschools.org). He has sat on many silent, intensive meditation retreats for periods up to eleven months long. Richard is the author of "The Art and Skill of Buddhist Meditation" and “The Experience of Samadhi”.

To Learn More About the Prison Mindfulness Institute, please visit www.prisonmindfulness.org

In this episode, Jonah M. David talks with John MacAdams about his experiences volunteering and facilitating creative arts workshops in men's and women's prisons.

• Creative Arts programming; Giving a voice to the unseen
• The challenges of long-term artistic collaborations with inmates
• Personal growth from the wisdom found inside the walls

JONAH M. DAVID Jonah facilitates mediation and mindfulness workshops inside and outside of prisons. He creates films as well as produces media content for clients, with a focus in social justice, contemplative work, and creative arts. In his spare time, he likes to grow veggies, make pizza, and go for walks.

To Learn More About the Prison Mindfulness Institute, please visit www.prisonmindfulness.org

In this episode, Trime Persinger speaks with John MacAdams about her work as a prison chaplain with the Oregon Department of Corrections.

• Seeing Yourself and Loving Well in prison work.
• Stable, Caring Presence: providing environments where practice can flourish behind bars.
• Mindful Communication: the program, how it started, and what happened when the pandemic hit.

TRIME PERSINGER Trime has practiced meditation for 35 years and has been a prison chaplain in Oregon for 15 years. She leads a meditation group inside the prison that meets weekly, and she has coordinated three week-long meditation intensives. For the past two years she has recorded weekly mindfulness videos that are broadcast to inmates on a prison TV channel. These videos are also available online for staff viewing. In 2010 Trime developed The Art of Communication, a mindfulness-based course that teaches inmates skills for building relationships and resolving conflicts. Prior to the COVID pandemic, this course was offered in seven Oregon prisons.

To Learn More About the Prison Mindfulness Institute, please visit www.prisonmindfulness.org

In this episode, Bill Brown talks with Vita Pires, about his work with the Prison Yoga Project.

• The harm punitive incarceration causes for the incarcerated, staff, and families.
• Working with the body to discharge unresolved trauma
• Yoga as a tool for tapping into embodied wisdom

BILL BROWN, C-IAYT, Bill is the Executive Director of Prison Yoga Project, a non-profit organization that seeks to create a cultural shift toward a healing-centered approach to addressing crime, addiction, and mental illness through trauma-informed yoga and mindfulness. Bill began working with PYP in 2013 and has served in Federal, State, and County facilities. In 2016 he began offering training with PYP in trauma-informed yoga for incarcerated people and assumed the Executive Director’s role in 2018. He is a contributing editor to the Yoga Service Council/Omega Institute’s book Best Practices for Yoga in the Criminal Justice System. In his downtime, Bill enjoys the creative outlets of photography and cooking and is an avid reader of science fiction.

To Learn More About the Prison Mindfulness Institute, please visit www.prisonmindfulness.org