Dhamma
in Advanced English
Phra
Pandit Cittasamvaro

A
Textual Study of Buddhist Views of the Kalama Sutta
Vamsapala,
ID: 5301201125


In the mid-1970s Vipassana was first tried within
a prison environment with two 10 day courses being conducted for jail officials
and inmates of a prison in Jaipur in the Indian state of Rajasthan. Despite the
success of those courses, no further jail courses were conducted in India for
almost 20 years. In 1993 a new Inspector General of Indian prisons, Kiran Bedi,
was appointed and in the process of trying to reform the harsh Indian penal
system, learned of the earlier Vipassana courses. She requested that additional
courses be conducted in the largest prison in India, Tihar Jail outside of New
Delhi. The results were dramatically sucessful. Based upon the success of these
courses, another course was conducted in April 1994 by Goenkaji and a number of
his assistant teachers for over one thousand inmates of Tihar prison with wonderful
benefit for all of those who participated.
The word Philosophy is Greek for
"love/pursuit of knowledge", but for Socrates philosophy is so much
more than that. Socrates does not merely love knowledge. For Socrates knowledge
is a way of life, in fact, the only way. When faced with the opportunity to
escape death on the condition that Socrates quit "philosophizing",
Socrates would rather die. Socrates also mentions that people should not fear
death since they don't know what it will be like. This shows that Socrates mind
is always open to new possibilities. In Socrates time, many people simply
believed what they were told, but Socrates did not just accept any answer.
