The Human Kindness Foundation

We just came back from an inspiring presentation by Bo Lozoff, co-founder of the Human Kindness Foundation. Bo is the internationally renowned founder of the Prison-Ashram Project:

In 1973, Bo Lozoff and Ram Dass came up with the idea to help prisoners to use their prisons as ashrams if they were tired enough of seeing themselves as convicts just biding their time until they were released. Ram Dass funded the work, and Bo began corresponding with prisoners and, with their feedback, developing spiritual materials especially suited to that environment.

Neither Bo nor Ram Dass ever imagined that hundreds of thousands of hard-core convicts would be interested in such an idea. But within the first couple of years, the letters began pouring in and have not stopped to this day. By 1975, the Prison-Ashram Project had become Bo's full time job, and that same year Sita committed herself to the work as well. Bo & Sita have visited over 500 prisons, leading thousands of workshops. Bo's books, in particular the well-known We're All Doing Time, have become "the convicts' Bible" in institutions around the world. All of these books, as well as many of our tapes, are sent free of charge to any prison inmate who requests them.

Bo is also a well-known spiritual teacher, musician, and author. Prior to coming to his talk, I had never heard of him or his work, and I came away truly inspired by the work he is doing for prisoners all over the U.S. He has probably visited more prisons (more than a thousand) than anyone in the U.S. He reminded us that our home state of California has more prisons (and yet more in the planning stages) than any other state or nation. In Folsom state prison, 2 inmates share a 5x7 foot cell 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It was Dostoyevsky who said you can judge a society by its prisons, and by that measure California and the U.S. is doing terribly.

Someone in the audience asked him about what we can do to reform the prison system. He paused and looked discouraged, then he replied that he does his work because it is the right thing to do. If he measured his work in terms of reforming the prison system, he would have given up a long time ago.

He also described a year-long retreat (a year of silence) he took and how it has changed his outlook and approach to life.

Check out his tour schedule and go see him in person, I recommend it highly. If you can't see him in person read about his work and make a contribution.