Transcendental Meditation Programs in Prisons

DLF has been working within the Oregon Prison System since 2009, teaching Transcendental Meditation (TM) to, as a tool to reduce stress, and improve physical and psychological health.  Over two hundred inmates have learned TM since our program began and has had powerful positive results.  Researched found that TM practice produced significant reductions in criminal thinking error, psychological distress, perceived stress and trauma symptoms and increased spiritual well-being.  The inmates who have learned TM are the best spokespeople for our program.

My name is Kevin and I have been practicing TM since March of 2009. I am doing a life sentence and have been incarcerated since 1987 at the age of 18. I find there are several ways TM has touched my life. I came to prison with addiction, depression, and a string of traumatic life experiences that I had either lived through or perpetrated on others.  The surprise wasn’t that I was in prison, but that I hadn’t killed myself before I could make it through the doors.

Shortly after starting TM I found that life started to make more sense, it didn’t solve my problems but seemed to create a space where I found answers quickly. I know that my sense of depression lightened dramatically and I have so much more energy to love myself and by extension love others. The long term affects have allowed that spaciousness to grow into a real sense of being present, in all my areas of life. My creativity and sense of joy and compassion are so different that the best way to describe it is to say I’m finally grateful to live. TM didn’t fix anything so much as taught me how to fix myself. As for short term changes, my blood pressure dropped 20 points in the first 3 months.

Try TM, it will change you.

Kevin Roper

OSCI Inmate