Our Prison Sangha at Nevada State Prison, Carson City
A PRISON SANGHA
By Jeff Froschauer
On Tuesday evenings at 5:55 PM, Christy Tews, Steve Swartz and I gather at the bottom of One Tower of Carson City’s Nevada State Prison (NSP). We sign in, leave car keys, cell phones and driver’s licenses and are given visitor’s badges. Anything we bring with us is searched for contraband; then we proceed through the metal detector. Our walk into the prison takes us through two loudly clanking sally-port doors to NSP’s visiting room where we arrange chairs in a circle. We sit and talk Dhamma while we wait for the incarcerated members of our NSP Sangha to arrive through other clanking secure doors.
The NSP Sangha is the brainchild of NSP’s Warden, Gregory Smith. Warden Smith and I have been colleagues and friends for many years and he has taken an interest in my Buddhist path. One day during one of our many casual conversations I told him how beneficial I thought meditation would be for the inmates in Nevada’s Department of Corrections. Greg surprised me by suggesting that I start a group at NSP.
I was intrigued by the idea. I’d been attending DZIMC’s Monday night Sangha regularly for less than a year yet in my heart I knew I did a much better job of telling my friends how beneficial meditation was than actually meditating. Don’t get me wrong, I meditated. A few days a week I’d sit on a cushion for 15 to 30 minutes and every few seconds wonder how much time was left in my sit. I’d make plans on how to improve my “meditation room” and I’d wonder what I’d have for breakfast that morning. Once in a while my thoughts would be interrupted by a simple realization – I’m breathing! Then I’d remember that I should also try and pay attention to that. I wondered how well I might be able to lead a Sangha.
Thank goodness for Christy and her love of the Dhamma. I introduced the idea of a prison meditation group at our Monday night Sangha and asked for volunteers. She immediately offered to join me. After the logistics were worked out with NSP’s administration, we had a place and a time. All prison volunteers are required to attend a ½ day training; pass a background check and pass a tuberculosis test. Christy and later Steve were approved to volunteer after negotiating this process.
NSP Sangha gathered for the first time in June of 2010, and it’s been a wonderful experience. The inmates who attend have changed over the months, though a couple of guys have been with us from day one. Six inmates have attended steadily over the last few months. Some have mentioned they are “lifers” others haven't mentioned their sentences. Few have volunteered information about their crime/s. Other guys come and go. One of our earliest attendees was recently released from prison after serving 15 years.
Christy is our learned leader, Steve is the quiet, reflective type who offers excellent food for thought when he speaks to the group, and I’m the talker who likes to be involved in the discussions. Our inmates seem to follow similar patterns. We have a talker like me, some profound thinkers like Steve and a couple of guys with quite a bit of knowledge from a life lived, at least in part, quite mindfully, like Christy.
Once we settle into our chairs and have said our hellos, we sit for 30 minutes, sometimes with a guided mediation. We follow that with discussion, often prompted by something one of the inmates commented on the week before. The discussions are always stimulating. In fact, almost every week we end our group with a rushed Metta meditation – it’s a common occurrence to hear the visiting room doors being cycled open and closed as the control officer reminds us we’ve run out of time.
On a personal note, I am grateful for this path I am on. I’ve been blessed to have been led to the Buddha’s teachings and to the doorsteps of DZIMC’s Sangha. And I am so very grateful to the men who come sit with us on Tuesday nights. Seeing men who I know have lived hard lives in a hard environment and have memories of acting in some very unwholesome ways, close their eyes and offer loving-kindness to themselves, to us and to all beings, is quite humbling. And when they talk we get to experience the wisdom that their hard lives have gathered. The wheel of the Dhamma is at work at NSP. Christy, Steve and I may be the volunteers for the NSP Prison Sangha, but I promise you we get as much out of our Tuesday night Sangha as any of the inmates do.
Christy’s comments: For many years I’ve felt moved to offer the Dharma in a prison setting – and also fearful of doing so by myself, especially among a group of male prisoners. When Jeff offered the opportunity to join him I was grateful. I am a curious sort – I always want to know what other’s lives are like. Life in prison is impossible for me to imagine, and this would be the closest approach I might make. Watching Dhamma Brothers, a documentary about a Sangha in an Alabama prison, brought me up against the biggest reality for these men. Grady Whitehead says, “This is my home. I will live here for the rest of my life. I want to make it the best home I possibly can.” Many of our NSP Sangha will live here for the rest of their lives. The Dhamma has been a wonderful gift in my life. I am honored to be able to offer it to others who might use it to make their home the best it can be.
Steve's comments: Many years ago I read a story about teaching meditation in prison. I'm not sure of the source but it went something like this: After a session one of the inmates spoke to the teacher and said if he had understood before that feelings were transitory and had been able to resist acting on them he would not have “had to kill his best friend”. This statement hit me like a thunderbolt. I immediately recognized that this guy had just directly experienced something that, had he known sooner, would have had a profound impact on his own and on many others peoples lives. Since this realization is one of the first things that people get when they simply sit and watch their breath I have been very clear from that day forward that this lesson/truth is one that all beings would benefit from. I decided that I would pursue any opportunities that arose to help spread this understanding especially to adolescents and inmates. I began telling people I was interested in this kind of work, when I heard that our Sangha had begun to donate books to prisons I spoke of my interest in Prison Dharma and when I heard that Christy and Jeff were actually doing it I immediately made contact. Once a week we volunteers leave all of our worldly possessions behind and voluntarily walk into a world where we have signed away many rights and privileges that we normally enjoy. This act of giving and trust is not lost on the inmates. They have expressed profound gratitude. The prison administration says that the reason they allow volunteers inside is because their staff are safer when prisoners remember that they are human beings. The inmates thank us for looking at and treating them as human beings. I hope that by sharing the Three Jewels with them that suffering will be reduced in the world. I thank them for helping me intensify my practice. This is a win/win/win deal for me. It is definitely worth the time and risk.
