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BEARING WITNESS
NEWSLETTER FOR WESTERN SOCIALLY ENGAGED BUDDHISM - FEBRUARY 2010 BUDDHIST PRISON PROGRAMS ISSUE
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CONTEMPLATIVE JUSTICE Mind Body Awareness Project
teaches meditation to at-risk and incarcerated youth......read more
The Center for Mindfulness & Justice teaches mindfulness to corrections officers......read more
MULTI-MEDIA
PODCASTS Buddhas Behind Bars
Interview with Al Albergate, Vice General Director of SGI-USA, who speaks about his son’s imprisonment and his own efforts as a volunteer Chaplin at Corcoran State Prison in California......listen
Changing from Inside
tells the story of the introduction of Vipassana meditation courses into the North Rehabilitation Facility. ....read more....view
Dhamma Brothers
The end of the line in Alabama's prison system, is dramatically changed by the influence of an ancient meditation program......read more
The Zen Peacemakers and Bernie Glassman return to Auschwitz for a Bearing Witness Retreat on Nov 1-5, 2010.
To read descriptions and/or to register, please click here. This retreat includes Youth from Israel, Palestine, Poland, Germany, Switzerland, USA, and other countries.
In this issue of Bearing Witness we focus on Buddhist prison chaplaincy
and ministry programs. As Alan Senauke reminds us, with only 5% of the
world’s population, the United States has 23% of the world’s prisoners –
more than 2,400,000 behind bars, and many millions more in the parole and
probation systems. This staggering fact is a daily reality for you who
experience America’s “corrections” system from the inside, as prisoners,
family members, friends, employees and volunteers. For most of us,
however, the violence and despair of life in a cage is inconceivable.
Here we can see the challenge and the promise of socially engaged Buddhism
– a practice that goes on inside and outside of our lives. By discovering
that our own suffering is a cage of hatred, greed and delusion from which
we are desperate to escape, and by recognizing that spiritual practice –
not only meditation, but ritual, prayer, reflection, bodywork, and many
others – are keys to freedom that we can learn to use, we join the circle
of all those who are incarcerated, those who minister to them, and those
who awaken in the dharma.
The Newsletter serves as a clearinghouse for information about
western socially engaged Buddhism. Announcements of upcoming events and
resources may be found in the sidebar at the left. Our Directories of
Western Socially Engaged Buddhism are quite possibly the most
comprehensive anywhere: please follow the links there to visit many groups
and projects. If your group or resources you know about are missing,
please write to us with the reference. We will make sure it is added.
The theme for the next issue of Bearing Witness will be “Dharma and Mental Health.” If you are active in this area, please write to us so that we can profile or mention your work.
Please help promote the cause of Socially Engaged Buddhism by
sharing this URL with friends, associates, sangha members and groups you think would be interested. Click on the line below, "Send mail using your own address book".
The National Buddhist Prison Sangha (NBPS) is a nationwide network of Buddhist volunteers who correspond with inmates, visit prisons, and create and lead practice groups. It originally formed in response to the request of a NY State prison inmate.
.....read more
Prison Dharma Network
Fleet Maull
Prison Dharma Network (PDN) was founded in 1989 by Fleet Maull, a federal prisoner then serving a 14-year sentence for drug trafficking. Since its founding, PDN's Books Behind Bars program has provided books on meditation and contemplative spirituality to over 25,000 prisoners in over 900 prisons around the world.
.....read more
Our justice system isn't set up for transforming our karma. It's not about reconciliation between people, it's not about restoring the community to balance, bringing wholeness, after someone has offended. It's patriarchal, and hierarchical and it does not bring us together to talk directly. . .....read more
I vividly remember my first night of teaching. I drove alone into the prison parking lot with trepidation and excitement. The drizzling damp November evening gave the lights of the facility an especially eerie glow and the shimmering concertina wire and block house architecture conjured images of death camps. .
.....read more
Buddhas Behind Razor Wire: Practicing with the Women of FCI-Dublin
by Hozan Alan Senauke
My vision of engaged Buddhism is that social service and advocacy necessarily go hand in hand. Offering meditation is the service component; studying the societal basis of our prison system and possible alternative responses to poverty, racism, and crime is what I think of as advocacy. My objective is not to relieve women of responsibility and the unfolding karma of their particular crimes…That is work each prisoner has to do herself, looking closely at her life, and considering how she will choose to live in the future. We have all spent many intimate hours at FCI Dublin talking about this in moving and sometimes disturbing ways. But we also need to investigate broader causes and conditions that lead to the U.S. having the largest single prison population and the highest rate of incarceration in the world, according to the government’s own National Institute of Corrections.
.....read more.
On the day of Al’s precepts ceremony, he was radiant; I had never seen him so self-possessed… The prison called me the next day asking me to resign. .....read more
A Lotus In A Swamp by William (Red) Graham Gowanda Correctional Facility
An inmate shares his story and expresses gratitude for receiving "Prison Chaplaincy Guidelines for Zen Buddhism" by Ven. Kobutsu Malone, which he was initially denied. .....read more
If it’s Thursday, this must be County Jail
by Gary Koan Janka
As a means of reducing the anxiety around our teaching meditation, we reached out to the director of the Los Angeles area chapter of the World Community for Christian Meditation, a wonderful woman in her early eighties who agreed to join us. In this way, the offering became one of shared spirituality, which also eases the concerns of Christian inmates who attend the group class.
.....read more.