A searchable directory of all of our Prison Dharma Network (PDN) member organizations 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 mindfulness or prison dharma programs inside prisons, please explore this directory.
If you are an organization, group or individual that provides inside mindfulness, meditation, yoga (or other contemplative traditions) programs and are not yet listed in our Prison Dharma Network/Prison Mindfulness Directory, please click here to submit a listing for your project.
We are steadily building a coalition of organizations and individuals effecting social change and transformation in our justice system. Please join us!
- Alabama (1)
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- California (33)
- Canada (4)
- Colorado (6)
- Connecticut (5)
- District of Columbia (2)
- Florida (8)
- Idaho (1)
- Illinois (6)
- Indiana (2)
- International (21)
- Iowa (2)
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- Maine (2)
- Maryland (2)
- Massachusetts (12)
- Michigan (2)
- Minnesota (3)
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- Nevada (1)
- New Hampshire (5)
- New Jersey (2)
- New Mexico (4)
- New York (8)
- North Carolina (4)
- Ohio (2)
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- Oregon (5)
- Pennsylvania (4)
- Rhode Island (3)
- Texas (7)
- Vermont (1)
- Virginia (3)
- Washington (6)
- Wisconsin (4)
- Wyoming (2)
In 2001, the Arcata Zen Group was contacted by an inmate incarcerated in Pelican Bay State Prison, near Crescent City, for help in establishing a Taoist/Buddhist Study Group. AZG members travel to Pelican Bay every Saturday to sit with this sangha. Locally, AZG members lead meditation in both the men's and women's
sections of the Humboldt County Correctional Facility on Thursday
evenings.
Prisons Served: Pelican Bay State Prison, Humboldt County CF
Pathway Zen is a lay sangha whose primary purpose is the teaching of Zen. It is affiliated with Sun Mountain Zen and Sanbo-Zen International, a network of Zen centres around the world.
Pathway Zen teaches the Path of Freedom course to prisoners in Brisbane Australia.
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
Runs the Dhamma Dana Publication Fund that distributes scholarly Buddhist books freely [dana] to inmates and non-inmates. No inside programs.
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
