Sitting Inside: Buddhist Practice in America's Prisons [Paperback]

Kobai Scott Whitney (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 2002

Sitting Inside is about surviving and waking up to the world—even in the harsh world of prison. Whitney is honest about the difficulties of working with both inmates and prison staff. But prison work yields honest rewards too—we neglect it at our society's peril.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Scott Whitney is a writer and magazine editor who lives in Honolulu. Before moving to Hawaii, he studied at the San Francisco Zen Center. Before that, he spent five years of his early adulthood in a Catholic monastery. He has been a student of Robert Aitken Roshi since 1981. Aitken Roshi gave him the Buddhist refuge name Kobai, which means "Old Plum."

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Holding Back Disaster He who puts an end to former crimes
By taking up the way of peace,
Illuminates the world
Like the moon freed from a veil of clouds.

—Angulimala Sutta Without much foresight, let alone wisdom, the United States has spent the last two decades imprisoning about two million of its adult citizens. We now lock up more of our population than does Russia, and more than any modern industrial democracy. Despite the fact that U.S. crime rates have been decreasing since 1993, politicians play to the fears of the voters and strut in public to prove how tough they are on crime. New, more punitive sentencing laws have become popular with legislators and prosecutors and have resulted in an unprecedented increase in prison building. This boom in pork-barrel prison projects has taken up some of the slack created by the defense-spending cuts that followed the end of the cold war. Another war—the war on drugs—has led to the imprisonment of more than a million men and women, cutting them off from the treatment they need and the chance to change. Instead, we have given them a chance to deteriorate and to become less human. Yet throughout this archipelago of razor-wired penal institutions, some inmates are making efforts to reform their behavior, values, thoughts, speech, and emotions. Many have begun looking to Buddhism as a way of making sense of their daily lives and as a way of coming to terms with the life-and-death issues of human life. Outside prison walls, American Buddhism is finding its own way within the religious and intellectual landscape of modern North America. Inmates have joined with others to explore alternatives to an unsatisfactory or nonexistent childhood experience with organized religion. American Buddhists have started responding to the inquiries and needs of prisoners who want to learn what Buddhism has to offer. This book is written for these two audiences: inmates who want to start a Buddhist practice and Buddhists outside of prison who want to help them do so. Some chapters of this book, such as chapter 2, are intended especially for inmates; others, like chapter 6, are specifically for Buddhist prison volunteers. I am writing for those who feel they are imprisoned as well as for those who think they are free. People in prisons are, of course, not physically free, but many have discovered their own liberation through meditation, the cultivation of compassion, and the practice of the Buddhist precepts. Prison guards think of themselves as free, because they live outside the perimeters of the prison walls and fences—yet many security workers are just as imprisoned as the inmates, trapped in a workplace of boredom, mistrust, and lurking violence. We who live outside sometimes feel unfree because we are imprisoned by our habits, fears, and impulses.

Product Details

• Paperback: 218 pages
• Publisher: Prison Dharma Ne[t]work (June 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0971814309
• ISBN-13: 978-0971814301
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #425,972 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Useful to anyone interested in Buddhist practice, April 26, 2005

By 

Bodhipaksa (Newmarket, NH) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Sitting Inside: Buddhist Practice in America's Prisons (Paperback)

Kobai Scott Whitney is a Zen Buddhist practitioner who is employed as Buddhist Chaplain for the state of Washington and who has also done time himself. As such he's ideally placed to write a book on Buddhist practice in America's prisons. The subtitle is potentially misleading, however. Rather than being a survey of Buddhist practice in American penal institutions, Sitting Inside is a practice handbook for inmates and prison volunteers alike.

For inmates, Kobai offers an overview of key Buddhist teachings such as the Eightfold Path and the Four Noble Truths, introduces the practice of ethics (with specific reference to situations that inmates are likely to encounter in prison) and teaches 14 meditations that range from simple calming exercises to more existential reflections on, for example, "Who Is Sitting?" These teachings are likely to be helpful for anyone insterested in Buddhist meditation.

For prison volunteers, Sitting Inside offers insights into the unique pressures facing those in prison, as well as the difficulties that may arise in conducting meetings in the face of resistance by Christian chaplains, and potential pitfalls in relations with inmates. As a prison volunteer myself I am grateful to Kobai for hastening my learning.

Additionally, Kobai does an excellent job of highlighting the cruelties and shortsightedness of America's dysfunctional penal system, which has been accurately descibed as the "Prison-Industrial Complex" because of the way it has eveolved as a collaboration between politicians and business in order on the one hand to win votes by boosting incarceration rates and on the other to provide a cheap source of labor.

One oversight in the book is the lack of any guidance from prisoners and volunteers on the complex and difficult area of making the transition between prison life and the outside world. What can spiritual communities do to provide support for inmates after release? What are the difficulties that inmates typically face in trying to gain acceptance in a practice community? How does a spiritual group deal, for example, with accommodating a convicted sex offender, providing spiritual support for the parolee while protecting the group? Kobai's insights on these matters would have been most welcome.

Despite this reservation I would highly recommend Sitting Inside to all who are interested in meditation. Our own problems tend to shrink in significance when we encounter those less fortunate than ourselves, and our self-confidence can be increased by seeing others making positive changes in their lives in circumstances that are considerable less advantageous than our own.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Everything under one cover, January 29, 2006

By 

Philippa Money (England) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Sitting Inside: Buddhist Practice in America's Prisons (Paperback)

This book would be an excellent help for anyone - buddhist or not - facing difficult circumstances

On the buddhist side - it was an amazingly clear summary of what being buddhist means and how to survive difficult circumstances. It is the book I have been needing for years. I cannot recommend it highly enough as a clear, compassionate explanation for all those interested in buddhism - whether or not they are going to prison. It set out clearly the basic tenets of buddhism (noble truths, eightfold path, the precepts, and includes a sutra) with explanations. It is rare to find this basic information in one book with very clear explanations

On the non-buddhist side it has many suggestions on how to deal with problems and with people - using imagination, relaxation, meditation, and, where necessary, action (including legal action etc).

The only downside is that it covers so much that on first sight some parts may seem irelevant to soem people - information for the prisoner on how to survive and stay at peace, to the wider faith community on how to deal with prisons, and to those who may be dying in prison.

I am a UK citizen - and even though the book was obviously based on the much harsher more punitive US prison system, it was still extremely helpful. I found the arguments for a more rehabilition orientated approach by the prison system very compelling.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars PROBABLY THE MOST IMPORTANT BOOK FOR ANYONE SENT TO PRISON, December 1, 2011

By 

Eugene Finley (Bolinas, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Sitting Inside: Buddhist Practice in America's Prisons (Paperback)

Given the rotten over crowded and mean spirited conditions in our prisons, this book deals with how humans can survive this system of massive brutality with Buddhist practice. It is one of the few hopes for those within the system. A truly beautiful work by wonderful people working to help people survive the horrors of American prisons.