— After four years without doing violence, cultivating the wisdom and compassion of transformation, I started to realize that this life of suffering was a blessing. It has allowed a lot of 'bad' karma to run its course, giving me the opportunity to receive the Dharma and to practice Buddhism, and has made me a stronger person. —

 


— If one uses this time and experience of being in prison to practice meditation, to practice dharma, then being in prison, even though it is believed you are in prison by outside people, in reality it becomes a retreat for you. —

Lama Zopa Rinpoche

World Watch

Purdy prison inmates become Braille translators

By Ian Demsky, The News Tribune, July 10, 2008

PURDY, Wash. -- The women bent over their keyboards on a recent sunny afternoon. Page by laborious page, they translated textbooks and stories, musical scores and scientific diagrams into Braille so they can be read by the blind.

In the crowded room sat almost half the people in Washington state with national Braille certification from the Library of Congress. Two of the women have advanced qualifications in math and science, which only three others in the state share.

But beyond working in a world of dots few other sighted people ever attempt, they also are set apart from the rest of the population by something else chain-link fence and concertina wire.

Felicia Dixon and Michelle Gunderson are the two women at the Washington Corrections Center for Women at Purdy most recently to become certified as translators at the national level.

Click here to read the full article.

  • JUNE