Shambhala Prison Community update
January 11th, 2011

The SPC evolved once again into a new form during 2010. After some years ago having let go of a central office staff, and subsequently having adopted a decentralized structure, based on volunteer groups serving prisons on site, in the last year we dissolved this latter base as well. Over a 13-year period, beginning in 1996, we did successfully initiate quite a few prison projects, which grew to maturity, to the point where the local groups have been managing themselves quite well. Over the last three years, our projects in Amsterdam, Warsaw, Portland and Salem (OR), Milwaukee, Chicago, Florence (CO), and Florence (AZ) have made the transition entirely to on-site volunteer management.

In the last year, we incorporated into our work a project, called Peaks and Valleys, located in Boulder, Colorado, working with addicted youth through music.

For the last five years, the SPC has conducted prison volunteer trainings—23 of them, in many regions of the United States and several countries. Training will remain a centerpole of our work. It has been an oral transmission up to this time, with little or no written documentation. This was quite intentional, in order to retain the essence of the training without diffusion, and also to respect the personal quality of the communication. Meditation has become more widespread in prisons over the last 15 years, as it has become more accepted in the outside society. The SPC’s experience, we feel, may now be put to best use in outlining the path of the prison volunteer, as well as contributing our collected experience to the larger society, and we are at work taking these steps.

We are deepening and expanding the governmental relations we have established. For instance, are exploring a pilot project with a prison in the United Kingdom, as well as maintaining relations in place with several governmental agencies in nations around the world, and in American States.

The SPC is focusing its curriculum on the amazing educational treasure trove bestowed on the world by the great meditation master and scholar, who always acts as the inspiration for our work, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. Especially the secular Shambhala teaching stream provides the ur-texts and vision for such work in the criminal justice environment. The SPC is joining with the Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche Library Project, held by The Vidyadhara Foundation, in fostering contemplative library collections in prisons and criminal justice administrations, and in establishing a reference library of Trungpa Rinpoche’s own teachings. To this end, we are very open to receiving donations of appropriate books, magazines, and recordings. Anyone inspired by this project is invited to let us know of your interest.

While our budget has been significantly downsized to reflect the retraction from on-site prison work, contributions, as always, are put to good use in supporting the expenses of volunteers for the projects outlined above. We are seeking $10,000 during 2011 towards this end.

We are currently modernizing our website, to make donation easier. We are also moving our mailing address over the coming months. In the meantime, we would appreciate donations sent by check to:

Shambhala Prison Community
1345 Spruce St.
Boulder, CO 80302
USA

February 2010
A Update from the Executive Director:

2009 was a year of continuing evolution for the SPC. We have entered a period of encouraging local prison volunteer efforts to go on their own steam, and realigning the SPC’s role within the prison Dharma movement. The SPC is evolving into a more purely educational organization. Over the last five years we have conducted 30 initial trainings for volunteers, in 23 cities.

In 2009 we saw four local prison efforts fly on their own wings. In November, the SPC closed its Milwaukee branch. A local group of volunteers now manages visits into two units in the Milwaukee Secure Detention Facility. Our efforts could not have succeeded without the cooperative efforts of Tonen O'Connor, the doyen of the Soto Zen sects in Milwaukee, who has volunteers working in ten or more Wisconsin prisons.
 
Earlier in the year we withdrew from the Oregon Department of Corrections, in response to local initiative to take over the work at the Oregon State Penitentiary, where the SPC sheparded 19 or so meditation weekends over a three-year period.

In early 2009, our two-year training for ten employees of the Polish prison system, again established with the help a Soto Zen lineage in Warsaw, came to conclusion.

Our work with Dharma teachers in Holland coincided with a ground-breaking movement within the Dutch government, to employ four Buddhists half-time, with offices in Dutch prisons, to provide Buddhist instruction and services to Dutch prisoners.

In 2008 and throughout 2009, the SPC reinitiated work in seven Arizona prisons. We are continuing to work with a Muslim community-based organization in one of the most conflict-ridden neighborhoods in Chicago, training youth leaders in meditation. We are also continuing to work with the Boulder County, Colorado, criminal justice system in different capacities, and in Colorado prisons.

In the works is a plan to propagate the teachings of the great meditation master and scholar, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, and his predecessors in the Kagyu and Nyingma lineages of Tibet, in the criminal justice environments. Stay tuned for developments in this arena.

As always, we could use donation. A little bit goes a long way with the SPC, as virtually every penny we raise goes to fund the expenses of volunteers; we maintain no central office function to speak of. We need only about $15,000 a year; we could do a great deal with that amount in 2010.

With earnest aspirations for the establishment of a just and sane world, starting at the bottom,

Bill Karelis
Executive Director