Episode 39: Fleet Maull, Director of The Prison Mindfulness Institute

READ TRICYCLE MAGAZINE Interview with Acharya Maull, "Prison Monk"Download PDF HERE Fleet Maull, a longtime student of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, founded Prison Dharma Network (now Prison Mindfulness Institute) in 1989 while serving a 14.5 year mandatory-minimum sentence for drug smuggling at a maximum security federal prison medical facility. He led a twice weekly meditation group in the prison chapel for 14 years (1985 - 1999). He also helped start the first inside prison hospice program and provided daily care to dying prisoners until his release. In 1991, he founded National Prison Hospice Association, launching a movement that now includes hospice programs in over 75 state and federal prisons. Fleet is an Acharya (senior teacher) in the Shambhala Buddhist Community. He is also a Sensei (Zen teacher) and dharma successor of Roshi Bernie Glassman in the Zen Peacemaker Order and a senior priest in the Soto Zen tradition. Acharya Maull has written many articles and given numerous interviews on a variety of prison related topics in publications such as the Shambhala Sun, Tricycle, Tikkun, Hospice Journal and Turning Wheel. He has also been a guest on NPR's Fresh Air program and other radio and television programs. His story was included in Roshi Bernie Glassman's book, Bearing Witness . He is the author of Dharma In Hell, the Prison Writings of Fleet Maull and leads prison programs, meditation retreats, chaplaincy and hospice trainings, activist trainings, bearing witness retreats and street retreats throughout the world. He is also the founder and executive director of the Peacemaker Institute and co-founder of the Upaya Chaplaincy Program. To learn more about Fleet Maull, read: "Prison Monk: Tricycle Interview with Fleet Maull" from Tricycle Magazine, Spring 2004