17 June 2011 Volume: 21 Issue: 11 Australia's ... - Eureka Street

Volume 21 Issue: 1117 June 2011spiritual director of the organisation. The FPMT has monasteries and nunneries in sixcountries, meditation centres in 40 countries, and runs health and nutrition clinics, hospicesand programs in prisons around the globe.According to its website, the FPMT provides ‘integrated education through which people’sminds and hearts can be transformed into their highest potential for the benefit of others,inspired by an attitude of universal responsibility’.In the 1980s and ‘90s Courtin was editorial director of the FPMT’s Wisdom Publications,and editor of its magazine, Mandala.From 2000 to 2009, she was founding director of the FPMT’s Liberation Prison Project in theUSA which looked after the spiritual needs of hundreds of prisoners spread through some 150institutions, sending them Buddhist literature and letters, visiting and giving teachings andadvice.In this role, she once asked Lama Zopa to write a card to a young Latino prisoner serving alife sentence. He wrote: ‘Your prison is nothing in comparison with the prison of ordinarypeople: the prison of ego-grasping, the prison of attachment, the prison of anger, depressionand pride.’Courtin often repeats these words, and they have inspired her to take Buddhist teachings tobroader society, to spread its message among ordinary people. This is now her main work.©2011 EurekaStreet.com.au 5