A Garden of diversity, the Sacred Sangha we serve:

I just got back from prison.

That phrase often surprises my friends, what did you do now ko shin, is one response.

Nothing I say, I just sat!

That's what it is, a wonderful Sangha of men in a prison near my home.

Today, two new members came, these wonderful Sangha seem so fluid, I often meet men in one of the other Sangha I serve when they are moved around.

What a crew, what a community. After many years of this practice I have learned to love these men.

Their honesty, seriousness and humor, and their dedication to the Dharma and to the Path.

Three brothers have taken precepts in this Sangha recently.

But the doors are locked.

In this state most our leaders don't care about these beings anymore and the keys are locked away.

Yet, there is a sense of freedom that comes in practice, just sitting, and a sense of compassion as we learn to act our compassion with our "celly" the security staff and administration...

Then the anticipation of being out, of being freed, which can be a smoke screen so often, they just sit right through it all, welcoming the pain, the uncertainty, the injustice and the reality of their unskillful acts that landed them where they are.

Now, awake, or trying to be awake to this moment they like you and me, can become skillful and free!

In closing a Poem from The Inner Passage, by Bob ko shin Hanson, 2011

Man, I am really comfortable here today
It is quiet here
Can't even hear the heavy doors that close people out or in
That's right I am really comfortable here today

In a prison, in the place where the Buddha's come and sit
Quiet, that's right no bull shit, just Dharma,

How can one be comfortable here?
In a place where you are brought here for unskillful means?
Yea, that's it, letting go, sitting quiet, and listening to your breath

Are you comfortable where ever you are?
I bet!

Think about a cell, the cell we all live in…
What does it mean to let go and be free not from your cell but in it?
Freedom, yes, oh freedom!