Social Justice and Self-Responsibility - Guest: Fleet Maull, Prison activist and author, Radical Responsibility

My guest, Fleet Maull, is a criminal justice activist and integralist who shares the story of his time in prison and the work it has inspired. In the 1980s Fleet was a contemplative psychology graduate and student of Buddhist teacher Chogyam Trungpa. But a double life caught up with him as he was convicted of drug trafficking, and he ended up serving 14 years in prison.

While behind bars, Fleet sought to put his Buddhist training to work and began teaching meditation in the prison chapel, eventually founding the Prison Mindfulness Institute and The Prison Hospice Association. Today Fleet continues his work in what he calls mindfulness-based emotional intelligence training, which has proved to be remarkably successful in sparking transformation for people inside and outside of prison.

In this conversation Fleet shares wisdom gained from decades of work with countless prisoners, virtually all of whom, he discovered, had been victimized themselves, the realization of which was central to their healing.

Fleet reflects on the evolution of the social justice movement, and the challenge that woke activism brings. He seeks to integrate the best of the personal- and social-responsibility models, as well as brain science, into a more inclusive view of whole system transformation.

I talked to Fleet as he took a break from an in-depth training program he was conducting for law enforcement and corrections officers in Ottowa, Canada.