certificate
+ Connection
Encouragement for the incarcerated student's spiritual journey
If “hurt people hurt people”
then maybe “heard people, hear people”
— BPM Homework Buddy/Volunteer
(“Hurt People Hurt People” quote attributed to Michael Pritchard, comedian and youth activist.)
Certificate of Completion, which inmates can include in their Parole Review packets.
Our Course and Workbook’s Integration Questions are written specifically for the kinds of situations and stresses common to those doing time in prison.
The answers from inmates are deeply profound, honest, and sincere. They reflect back the unwavering power of the Buddha’s teachings to transform anyone who will integrate the teachings into their lives!
Every packet of homework received is responded to with a personal, in-depth reply from one of BPM’s volunteers, all seasoned Buddhist practitioners from various traditions.
Inmates who complete the course receive a certificate of completion, which they can include in their Parole Review packets.
BPM volunteers who respond to homework packets are seasoned Buddhist practitioners from a variety of traditions. They all find that responding to the incarcerated learners is deeply meaningful, and serves to shatter many assumptions about prison and prisoners.
This process truly represents the cycle of generosity. Each one, teach one!
“A Profound Opportunity”
what it means to be a BPM volunteer-homework buddy:
I cannot explain how much these letters touch my heart. E. was/is a drug addict a gang member, a Trump supporter... his story really shatters so many of my assumptions about people who end up in these situations. Sometimes after reading packets like this — I just sit for a long time and watch my viewpoints fall away like broken glass.
The benefit is mutual, between us and the inmates. Through sharing our experiences with Buddhist/spiritual practice with inmates, we can make a positive difference to them that will benefit them, it may even help their lives turn for the better. At the same time, it helps reinforce our practice as well. The key word is sharing. Listening to what the inmates say, in their packets, really helps increase our perspective of what they are and have gone through, because in many instances it is very different from our journeys.
{Volunteering for BPM} has given me a profound opportunity to practice humility. It has helped me to step down off any dharma soap box and really drop into my heart, meeting whoever I am responding to from a place of human to human, heart to heart. And what a compassion practice! When, and if, I get triggered by something that I am reading, I start with deep compassion for myself and then deep compassion for other and our human condition. Powerful practice for noticing where my heart wants to shut down.
Responding to homework packets has deepened my own integration of spiritual / Buddhist wisdom. Being incarcerated is so, so challenging — and yet it’s incredible to read the many ways that inmates describe how they work their life to be more empathetic, open, and clear minded — it inspires me every day. I have had countless experiences where I reflect on the responders’ level of integrity in doing the work and walking the path.
Being part of the Buddhist Prison Ministry Project has been deeply impactful. I’m perpetually humbled by inmates’ knowledge of Buddhist philosophy, as well as other faith traditions. They have really revealed a lot of my blind spots in the Buddha Dharma- I often need to research sutras/terms they mention!
But perhaps even more meaningful is how these individuals have turned their situation to the path. They are indeed Bodhisattvas, transforming their time in prison into retreat, devoting themselves to study and practice. I am profoundly grateful for their inspiration and the gift of reading their insights.
If hurt people hurt people then maybe loved people love people” and heard people, hear people- and the more deeply we can learn to love and to listen, the more possibility we have for transforming our world and its inhabitants.