Free Event & Film Screening!
Watch below from Saturday, July 31st, 2021, our special DVA Speakers Series event, In Conversation: With Thomas Wade Jackson, director of the award-winning, feature-length documentary, A Prayer for Compassion, and Bob Isaacson, President and Co-Founder of Dharma Voices for Animals.
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A Prayer for Compassion is a feature length documentary that strives to inspire and encourage those already on a religious or spiritual path, to expand their circle of compassion to embrace all life, regardless of species, and make choices in alignment with this value. The film follows Thomas Jackson on a quest across America, that ultimately takes him to Morocco for the UN Climate Conference and throughout the Indian subcontinent to ask the question, “Can compassion grow to include all beings? and Can people who identify as religious or spiritual come to embrace the call to include all human and nonhuman beings in our circle of respect and caring and love?” Drawing on traditions including Christianity — evangelical, Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Friends (Quakers), Seventh Day Adventism, Unity, and more; Judaism; Islam; Hinduism; Buddhism; Jainism; the Native American tradition; Unitarian Universalism; Zoroastrianism; and the “spiritual but not religious” point of view — A Prayer for Compassion calls on people of faith and spiritual seekers of every stripe… DVA President Bob Isaacson, DVA Advisory Council member Will Tuttle, Lisa Levinson of IDA USA, and other friends of DVA appear in the film. |
Thomas Wade Jackson: Thomas Wade Jackson received his Masters from Florida State University’s College of Motion Picture Arts, where his thesis film, Slow Dancin’ Down the Aisles of the QuickCheck, won both the Student Academy Award and the Student Emmy Award, as well as 20 other awards and honors. He is the founder of The Compassion Project, a multi-media production company, and director of the award-winning, feature-length documentary, A Prayer for Compassion. Thomas, who is a vegan and animal rights activist, lives in the woods of North Florida with his daughter and their cat friend Obi Wan, and is currently in production on his next documentary, Compassion in Action: Bringing the Elixir Home. |
Bob Isaacson: Bob Isaacson was a civil rights-human rights attorney for twenty-five years, specializing in defending people against the death penalty. He presented and won a landmark case in the Supreme Court of the United States, which limits the power of the police to arrest people without sufficient grounds, when he was 27, the second youngest attorney in history to appear before the nation’s highest court. Bob Isaacson was drawn to the Buddha’s teachings on the path to the end of suffering 24 years ago and continues to be inspired. Since he began Buddhist practice, Bob has participated in 25 meditation retreats of one month or longer. Bob currently teaches the Dharma (the Buddha’s teachings), leads two Sanghas (on-going groups of practitioners), and leads day-long and weekend retreats in the San Diego area, having been trained in Spirit Rock Meditation Center’s Community Dharma Leader Program. It did not take Bob long to realize the disconnect between the Buddha’s teachings of compassion and non-harming toward all sentient beings and the actual practice of Buddhist teachers and followers who continue to eat animals. This disconnect led Bob to join with several friends in 2011 to launch the non-profit organization, Dharma Voices for Animals (DVA). DVA is the only international Buddhist animal rights/animal advocacy organization in the world. DVA relies on the Buddha’s teachings to engage Buddhist centers and communities around the world, especially in Asia where over 98% of Buddhists live. |
