Doing Time, Doing Vipassana is a film about the Buddhist meditation practice called vipassana. Not a typical documentary film with footage of Buddhist monks or directions for practice, Doing Time puts this practice of meditation within a real life situation, a prison. It documents how prison inmates in one of the largest prisons in India came to learn vipassana and how doing this practice affected them.

The film begins with four men, from Somalia, Australia, England, and India, explaining why they were imprisoned and describing what life is like in Tihar Prison, a huge concrete structure housing 10,000 inmates. Having committed crimes ranging from murder to drug dealing, each man speaks of the violence that permeates life at Tihar, both among prisoners themselves and between guards and prisoners.

However when a new director, a woman named Kiran Bedi, is assigned to direct Tihar, attitudes within the prison begin to change. Bedi asks, "Is there anyone among us who hasn't wanted to take something not ours, to hurt someone who angers us? We are all potential criminals." From her perspective, the men must be treated with love and care so that they might learn to meet others with kindness. Attempting to create a more positive environment, she establishes a program for prisoners to receive outside visitors, listen to music, wear new clothing, and visit the prison canteen. But she knows these changes are minor, that what the men really need is a way to change the way they see themselves. Ultimately, Director Kiran Bedi arranges for a well-established vipassana meditation teacher, S. N. Goenka, to come into the prison and teach vipassana to a small group of inmates, after first running the same course for a number of prison guards.

The rest of the film documents the changes effected by these courses, focusing especially on the young men from Australia, Somalia, and England who are interviewed throughout. The young Somali and Australian are exceptionally perceptive and articulate about their own growth and the changes within the larger prison community, giving the audience a deeper insight into this experiment. Intersplicing these comments with images of tough prison inmates embracing after 10 days of sitting in meditation, the film encourages the viewer to see the possibility of real change. Yet at the same time, the speakers emphasize that once they leave the structure of Tihar, the key to any real change will be the self-discipline necessary to continue the practice.

Audiences from high school age through adult will find Doing Time engaging on different levels. As it follows the introduction of vipassana practice in the prison, the film thoughtfully recognizes the psychological and sociological dimensions of working with people incarcerated for criminal offenses. But the primary focus of Doing Time is the exploration of the effectiveness of this Theravadin Buddhist form of meditation. Though the film does not stress, or even discuss, these Buddhist origins, S. N. Goenka's clear direction for the structure of the teaching demonstrates the strong discipline of his own Buddhist training. Although distributed by Goenka's followers, the film is not in any way self-promoting. In fact, the filmmakers are careful to let inmates, guards, and prison directors speak for themselves, as they assess the effectiveness of vipassana practice among several different prison populations, not simply those taught by Goenka.

Doing Time is an excellent film that might be used to evoke discussion and further research in a variety of classes including sociology, religion, and criminal justice. The final frames conclude that teaching vipassana practice has been successful in major prisons in India, as well as in Taiwan and the United States. But more accurately, the film has no real conclusion. Even better, my appetite was whetted to learn more about these prison experiments, and more about vipassana practice.