A team of volunteer Buddhist chaplains from area sanghas has been serving the Correctional Training Facility (CTF) at Soledad since January 2003. The volunteers meet with male inmates of this large, level-2 prison every Tuesday evening in an interfaith chapel, where they teach and lead mindfulness meditation, give brief dharma talks, and facilitate discussions. The sessions always end with a heartfelt metta meditation.

Members of the Vipassana Santa Cruz and Insight Meditation Center sanghas, acting as volunteer Buddhist chaplains, have facilitated  meditation programs at Salinas Valley State Prison (SVSP) for the past 4 years. SVSP is a level-4/maximum security prison. There are two programs that run simultaneously on Tuesday afternoons. They include Qi Gong, guided meditation, a short dharma talk, and discussion and end with metta.

Donations of dharma books and magazines for distribution to inmates or the SVSP and CTF libraries are always welcome. Such donations may be brought to the Vipassana Santa Cruz sittings and given to prison mentors who are part of the VSC sangha.

Sangha members with at least a year of Theravadin Buddhist daily sitting practice and who have completed at least one 10-day Theravadin meditation retreat are invited to apply to join this service project. New volunteers are mentored and trained. This experience  is quite remarkable and strongly supports Buddhist practice.

For more information about serving at CTF (currently on Tuesday evenings), please contact Hugh McMillan at . For information about serving at SVSP (currently on Tuesday afternoons), please contact Bruce and Jill Hyman at .

There is also a need for practitioners who are available to correspond with Prison Sangha members. See Prison Pen Pal Project for more information.

For information about contributing to the prison project newsletter see: The Sangha Connection.