A searchable directory of the network of organizations, associates and groups providing meditation, mindfulness or contemplative programs in prisons around the world.
If you are looking for organizations or groups in your area providing prison dharma programs inside prisons, please explore this directory and contact the organization or group directly.
If you are an organization, group or individual that provides prison, meditation, yoga (or other contemplative) programs and are not yet listed in our Prison Dharma Network Directory, please click here to submit a listing for your project. We get hundreds of requests a year from people looking to volunteer in local programs and/or people seeking help for prisoners.
If you would like to volunteer in one of our local PMI projects in Massachusetts or Rhode Island please fill out our application here.
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Can send a correspondence course series of 15 formal study courses on Tibetan Buddhism taught by Geshe Michael at the Asian Classics Institute in New York. Free to prisoners.
ASIAN CLASSICS INSTITUTE, attention: Correspondence Course, 7055 Juniper Drive, Colorado Springs, CO 80908 U.S.A.
Our group at Attica is a non-sectarian meditation group, meeting every Thursday night for about 2 hours of meditation and a little period for Questions & Discussion afterward. The group was originally started years ago, then languished after a few years. Recently there had been much interest in some of the inmates to re-establish the group, and the Attica Chaplains were considering doing so and leading it themselves, even though they were untrained in meditation (to show how powerful inmates' were becoming!). Just at that juncture, I was given a contact to the former leader, who then directed me to the Chaplain been the original Volunteer Advisor for him. I called her immediately, and was joyously received! The inmates, the Advisor, and of course, I too, were all overjoyed to have found one another just at the right moment!
I have been a member of the Rochester Zen Center for some 40 years, and sitting with the inmates has challenged and deepened my own practice, as well as giving me an opportunity to give something back to the Dharma after so many years of receiving the teaching freely given.
Visiting prisoners inside Bangkwang central prison to help them establish a meditation practice and uplift their spirit by integrating purpose and meaning back into their lifes. When we have more volunteers, we\'d like to expand to Khlong Prem prison as well.
Prisons Served: Bangkwang
Started in 2002, our Restorative Justice program promotes healing, and supports skill-building by offering ongoing, weekly NVC trainings in San Quentin State Prison, and in jails in Sonoma, Mendocino, and Santa Cruz counties. We have wanted an active Restorative Justice Program since we first began, and were delighted when San Quentin Prison approached Diana Lion of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship about being part of a new program at San Quentin, the Success Program. Diana contacted us asking if there were trainers available, we in turn asked the members of our first Leadership Program year if they would be willing to provide trainings inside the prison; six people volunteered.
Border Mindfulness runs the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction program for inmates at the Beechworth Correctional Centre in Victoria.
A group of volunteers from meditation centers in the Twin Cities, and others interested in human liberation. The Beverly White Community Outreach Project is sponsored by the Minnesota Chapter of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship (BPF). Nationally, the BPF is an organization that has made connections between meditation, non-violence and social justice for 25 years. We are an ecumenical Buddhist effort to teach mindfulness practice to those in difficult circumstances. Affiliated with the Twin Cities BPF. Group goes to Shakopee State Prison (women only), Oak Park Heights Prison (super-max security), Stillwater and St. Cloud (maximum security), Faribault (medium security), Appleton (private prison), and Red Wing (secure juvenile facility). Hour to 2-hour meditations guided by outreach group members at least once a month, day-long retreats have been done in most of the aforementioned facilities.
http://cloudsinwater.org/interest-groups/
Prisons Served: Shakopee State Prison, Oak Park Heights Prison, Stillwater, St. Cloud, Faribault, Appleton, Red Wing
Karma yoga practice serving women incarcerated by providing them with the tools to achieve enlightenment through kriya yoga.
Blue Flower Yoga is a kriya yoga practice. Kriya yoga is a combination of spiritual techniques that enable the practitioner to balance the energies of the body and the mind to attain enlightenment. In kriya yoga, we follow the ashtanga (eight-limbed) path set forth by the great sage, Patanjali.
Prisons Served: South Boise Women\'s Correctional Center
Weekly meditation classes are taught by volunteers at the Suffolk County House of Corrections (the Boston county jail). Drawing from the meditation traditions of Buddhism, mindfulness, yoga, and the martial arts, the program has been successful. Richard Geller has taught since 1996, and Janine Marra since 2010.
Tampa Bay prison meditation projects affiliated with the Buddhist Peace Fellowship (There is no BBF prison work, but the Tampa Bay BPF website does have a recently updated prison information page:
http://www.floridanastuff.com/BPF/bpfmtg.htm
Prisons Served: Hardee Correctional Inst, Bowling Green FL - Sponsored by Southern Palm Zen Group, Boca Raton FL (http://floridazen.com/prison/). Three other volunteers also regularly visit with this group - usually one volunteer each week.
Avon Park Correctional Institution, Avon Park FL, Sponsored by Hokori Zen Center, Lakeland (http://www.hokorizencenter.org/). One other volunteer also visits. One or both of us visit monthly.