Dear Family,
Picture an island off the southern coast of India, a little bigger than West Virginia, filled with tropical jungles teeming with coconuts, bananas, monkeys and elephants, and surrounded by the Indian Ocean. That’s the tiny, beautiful country of Sri Lanka that looks like a little speck on most globes and maps.
In August, Sita and I were brought to Sri Lanka by the wonderful Sarvodaya Movement, a Gandhian grassroots organization that has become a major force of hope, change and self-empowerment throughout thousands of villages across Sri Lanka. We visited their three biggest prisons, several remote jungle villages, and I gave the “Fourteenth Annual Kanchana Abhayapala Memorial Lecture” to a public audience in Colombo, Sri Lanka’s biggest city, which has a population of several million people, and feels like New York City at rush hour.
About 75% of the seventeen million people in Sri Lanka are Sinhalese Buddhists and the primary language of the country is called Sinhala. Hindu Tamils make up the next largest group - about 18% of the population - and the other seven or eight percent are split between Muslims, Christians and others. Sri Lanka was freed from British rule in 1948, shortly after India’s independence.
But increasing tensions for several decades have escalated between the Tamil minority and Sinhalese majority, and at this point there is almost a civil war raging that has resulted in thousands of deaths. There are occasional acts of terrorism such as car-bombings and assassinations, followed by predictably over-zealous governmental reactions. There are complaints of oppression and injustice and torture - all the political realities that are so common throughout the world, yet for some reason look so much more tragic, foolish, and unnecessary on a small island where it seems like it would be so much easier for people to figure out how to get along with each other, sipping coconut milk and eating delicious banana custard.
We human beings seem to find it impossible to keep things simple and direct. We seem to resist the obvious fact that everyone in our population - wherever we live - must have access to the necessities of life, must have a fair chance of providing a decent life for their loved ones, and must have a voice in the decisions that affect their lives. When any government provides this access to all its population, that nation will be secure and peaceful. Oh sure, there will always be street crime - individuals acting selfishly to get things they want, or taking revenge on people who have wronged them - but that’s a whole different thing than what has always been called a “Movement.”
What creates a movement is injustice, unfairness, any systematic way people are treated solely because they are ??? . You can fill in the blank with any color, nationality, religion, gender, sexual orientation; you can fill in the blank with how you view war, or taxes, or marriage or schooling or abortion.
In our own lifetimes, in our own nation, you and I have seen the Civil Rights Movement, Anti-war Movement, Native American Rights Movement, Women’s Rights Movement, Gay Rights Movement, Anti-Death Penalty Movement, Pro-Choice Movement, Pro-Life Movement, Animal Rights Movement, Homeschooling Movement, Prisoners’ Rights Movement and several major ecological/environmental movements - and they’re all really about the same principles. People want to be heard. They want power in the decisions that affect their lives, they want their government’s laws and policies to reflect their most basic values, they want fair access to cultural and ecological resources, and they want a reasonable degree of freedom to live as they choose, so long as it brings no harm to others.
So, beautiful Sri Lanka is mired in one such struggle, and we can only send our prayers and blessings that both sides will find it in their hearts to sit down with each other and figure out a way to live in goodwill so they can enjoy their wonderful island nation together.
Sarvodya
From Sita’s journal: August 27th: Bo and myself at the lecture hall with Dr. Ariyaratne and the sister of Kanchana Abhayapala, a young human rights lawyer who was murdered in 1989.
Our hosts for this trip were the dedicated people of Sarvodaya, Sri Lanka’s largest and best known nonprofit organization which has made an enormous difference in the lives of Sri Lanka’s poorest people. Sarvodaya was created in 1958 by Dr. A.T. Ariyaratne, who has been called “the Gandhi of Sri Lanka.” Sita and I were pleased to spend a lot of time with Dr. Ari, as he is called, as well as his wife, adult children, grandchildren and his many followers.
Sarvodaya has a village-based model of empowerment to help the rural poor to take more control over their resources and their lives. They send hundreds of staff and volunteers to thousands of villages helping to initiate “Shramadan” projects where everyone gets together to accomplish a specific task such as creating a community water system or improved waste processing, or building a home for people who live outdoors. Their volunteer lawyers sit for hours in jungle villages hearing the practical problems of people who have no identification, or who don’t know whether or not they own the tiny piece of land they have lived on for many years - things like that.
It is truly amazing how many projects Sarvodaya is involved with, and how deeply respected and loved they are throughout their nation. Sita and I were privileged to have been introduced to their work. We send our deepest thanks to Dr. Ari and his family, plus our guides Shirani, Shevon, Charika, Taranga and others whose names we did not master enough to attempt mentioning!
Little Miracles
Aug. 24th: Near Ratnapura, in the rainy central jungles of Sri Lanka, a woman and her two children in their home, built from cardboard, paper, and tarps.
In one of our jungle village visits with the Sarvodaya staff, I spent a little time with a woman and her two children who had been living in a paper hut or outdoors for quite some time. The village project was trying to coordinate how to build her a sturdier shelter sometime soon. We wished her a speedy transition to a better home.
Aug 24th: Our “spare change” put the roof on the woman’s new home.
A week later, when Sita and I were taken to the Colombo airport for our return flight home, I tried to cash in my remaining Sri Lankan money - 4,200 rupees (about $42 cash) - and was refused by the exchange service because I did not have my original receipt from when I got the rupees. I certainly didn’t have much use for rupees in America, and 4,200 rupees is a pretty big hunk of cash in Sri Lanka. So I asked our friends, Shirani and Taranga, to please take it and do something special with it. Shirani immediately had the idea to apply it to the house being built for the village woman and her children. As it turns out, what was just a little bit of leftover money for me, was enough to provide the whole tin roof of her new dwelling. The woman and her children are now living indoors in their dry and secure hut.
Sri Lanka’s Prisons
Aug. 21st: Hmm, my memory may be faulty, but I don’t recall ever being welcomed like this at an American maximum security prison… That's Bo and me in the back.
As our car approached Welikade Prison, Sri Lanka’s largest maximum security facility, I noticed a lot of commotion at the entrance. About fifteen ceremonial dancers in beautiful red and black costumes and several drummers were gathered in front, and several officials were with them. I turned to our guide and said “What’s all that about? What’s the occasion?” She said, “Oh, that’s for YOU! That’s your welcome to the prison.”
Sure enough, Sita and I were escorted to the center of the throng, the dancers and drummers began their spectacular show all around us, put flower garlands around our necks, and then, still dancing, led us into the prison grounds like a parade. What an experience!
We then discovered that the dancers, who were extremely skilled and professional, were all inmates. Wow. Then we met with the warden for awhile - he was one of the officials leading us in - and then sat in on the end of a three-day prisoner meditation retreat, where about two hundred prisoners were waiting to meet us.
No troupes of dancers appeared at other prisons we visited, but the welcomes were all as enthusiastic and warm as the first. At each facility, the warden himself greeted us and spent time describing his facility, programs, and struggles to us, and then we met with very open and sincere prisoners, and some staff, who were curious about our work.
Aug. 24th: The man on the left made the necklaces - the one on the right is our English speaking prisoner friend. That’s Bo in the back already looking and feeling sick.
At Mahara Prison, one English-speaking prisoner came to the front and gave me and Sita two extraordinary coconut-husk necklaces with a little blue “jewel” in the center which was actually made of pieces from a blue plastic toothbrush. These are really superb necklaces which took months to make. The prisoner explained in perfect English that his friend (whom we then met) made them for us. The English-speaking prisoner knew all about us because he has had a copy of We’re All Doing Time for many years. Imagine - in the middle of a jungle in Sri Lanka! Sita & I were very moved by how far across the world We’re All Doing Time has reached, and the gratitude and respect shown toward us.
Sri Lankan prisoners work in many types of prison industry, and we were given tours of the various weaving looms, coconut oil pressing operations, sewing shops, soapmaking and kitchen facilities. Bear in mind that most of these industries operate without electricity! Foot pedals, hand cranks, and pulleys provide the power, and it was very humbling as well as educational to be reminded of how much can be accomplished without what most of us would call “modern conveniences.” The inmates make clothes for all the prisons, plus soap and some prison office furniture.
Speaking of furniture - one of the rough parts to adjust to is, that a prison cell in Sri Lanka means just that - a concrete cell with nothing in it. No bed, no mattress, no stool - nothing. You live and sleep on a concrete floor. Death Row prisoners spend 23˝ hours a day in their bare concrete cells.
Although Sri Lanka continues to sentence people to death, no execution has been carried out since 1976. In my public lecture, I encouraged the people of Sri Lanka to go ahead and make it official that they have banned the death penalty since they no longer use it anyway. Sita and I were shown the gallows in Bogambara Prison, built to accommodate three hangings at one time; it was a very grim sight.
All in all, prison is prison, regardless of the many cultural or environmental differences between such diverse nations as Sri Lanka and the USA. People don’t want to be there, and some, like most of you reading this newsletter, are doing everything they can to deepen their spiritual lives as well as improve their practical situations.
Paying Our Dues
I got sick in the middle of our stay in Sri Lanka, some sort of minor lung infection that I took antibiotics for, and the local doctor instructed me to stop taking my malaria-prevention pills until I finished with his antibiotics. It all seemed to go okay, but then a couple days after coming home, I got really sick and within a week my doctors here were convinced I had malaria, and treated me for that (the treatment consists of three days of some enormous, nauseating pills that almost feel like chemotherapy).
Well, I did get a lot better, but not totally. And then, a few days later, I started getting really sick again, and so did Sita. Back to the doctor, tests showed we both had Dengue Fever, another tropical mosquito-borne disease which has no treatment or cure. It’s epidemic in some parts of the world and some people die from it. We apparently didn’t have a fatal case of it, but we were both pretty sick for a couple weeks and are still, two months later, slowly recovering our energy. It was a very rough September!
This is a typical Sri Lankan cell - there’s nothing inside but a concrete floor.
That made me realize how awful it must be to get so sick in a concrete cell, without sympathetic friends, family, and doctors around to keep you in positive spirits. There must be many Sri Lankan prisoners who endure Dengue Fever - which is also called “bone-crushing fever” because it can be so painful all over the body - by laying in their concrete cells all day and night being too weak to eat or move. The human spirit endures so many things on this Grand Journey we all share. Hopefully every illness or misfortune we suffer can strengthen our bond of empathy with all creatures. This one certainly did that for me and Sita.
Perhaps everyone reading this (this means you) can close your eyes for just a moment when you finish this paragraph, and feel your empathy and compassion for all creatures who are suffering at this moment in countless places around the world - the lonely, the sick, the depressed, the injured, the forgotten, the fearful, the dispossessed - and send a simple blessing of goodwill and encouragement. Don’t imagine your silent brief blessing is meaningless. Even Jesus said that our thoughts count as much as our actions. Give yourself a moment to send out encouraging thoughts to all those who may feel discouraged all over the world.
GOOD WORKS:
Inmates Give Warden First Humanitarian Award[Editor’s Note: This article was written by Larry Langston, a longtime friend of ours in the Nevada State Prison.]
Warden Budge put none of us in prison, but it is true that he is charged with keeping us here and how he keeps us here is what’s in question. There are some who feel a prison sentence should mean continuous punishment throughout incarceration.
There’s no argument, that except for the rare case, we put ourselves in prison. And we did it through our poor choices and decisions - and contrary to what some may think - we are suffering the consequences.
Most of us will get out of prison at some point and that raises another question. What kind of person is being released, not so much to, but on society?
Warden Budge, coming up through the ranks in his career, has seen first hand the detrimental effects of warehousing inmates. He has seen hundreds of inmates caught in the revolving door of recidivism. He might not have a cure for the disease, but he is attempting a treatment - using large doses of compassion.
Warden Budge demands that we be treated as human beings. He has seen our positive response to kindness and our enthusiasm over opportunities to better ourselves.
Despite strong resistance and resentment from both inside the prison and out, he has accomplished fantastic things in Nevada State Prison.
And it is not so much the physical changes that Warden Budge has made in the prison that deserve recognition, as much as the emotional and spiritual relief he has granted us. In more ways than one we truly have become - “free on the inside.”
For the most part, we no longer have the sense of “us against them,” and remarkably, we can feel we have an ally in Warden Budge - someone in charge who will listen to us and care about what’s happening in our lives.
Those of us who have been in this prison a long time consider Warden Budge a humanitarian.
He is firm yet fair, approachable, reasonable and always looking for a way to help us feel better about ourselves.
Warden Budge knows helping us become better people “in here” will mean we will be better people “out there” and maybe, just maybe, not need another trip back to prison.
Warden Michael Budge is the very deserving recipient of this prison’s first-ever award of this nature - not because of what he has done - but because of the kind of person he is to have done it.
God bless Michael Budge.
LETTERS
Dear Bo and Sita,
Sincerely hope this letter finds you and your family in the very best of health and good spirits. Pardon me for this small interruption into anything you may be in to at this time and grant me just a few minutes of your time. I just had to write you to let you all know how much Deep & Simple
(go here for information on this book) has touched me.I mean it touched my heart in a way that I’m seeking for your help in bringing me and my son, D, back together. I know the Human Kindness Foundation can send my son some books on family coming together and what its like to Love as God Loves. The way you explained yourself in
Deep & Simple made me look at my situation toward my son and I, he’s 17 years now and I haven’t seen him or talked with him or communicated with him since I’ve been in prison and I’ve been in prison going on 10 – years.You see Bo, his mother and I had a bad relationship and now she don’t want me to have anything to do with her. My son is too young to handle this responsibility of visiting me and communicating with me, so I have to go through his mother if I want to give him money or just write because she gets all the mail. So that really leaves me out of the picture.
In other words my son’s mother keeping my son away from me and causing him to think I don’t want to do anything for him or love him at all. She brainwashed my son all these years so now he don’t want to have anything to do with me. Bo, I am hurting behind this and can’t get my life together. I tried going to family court but she still having her way which the Judge told her to give my son the right to communicate with me but my son was not in court to hear or to know this. The Judge also told her to give my son all my mail which I don’t think she do because I still have not got one letter back when I write to him. Bo please help me communicate with my son.
Bo, I just don’t have anyone here to help me with this problem on the outside. I don’t know what else to do and can’t take this pain any longer. I done lost all the hair on the top of my head since I’ve been in prison worrying about my son and his mother; I’m stressing out. Don’t get me wrong. Your books are doing the job its just that I need one more step and that’s for you to send my son, some books and please try to get him to write me, I know you can help me.
I thank you and Sita in advance for all of your time, concern, and consideration toward my problems. Thanks. God bless you all.
Always Love Bo, C
Dear C,
I deeply sympathize with your feelings of being cut off from your son’s life. Since even the court has said you should have access to him, you should let the court know your wife is not obeying the judge’s instructions, and see if anything can be done about it.
But now that your son is 17, he’s almost an independent adult anyway. In another year or so, your wife may still have some influence over him, but no authority to say he cannot see you or write you. The challenge will be how to contact him so that he can begin making his own choices about knowing you.
One of my staff, Richard, has a 21-yr-old son whom he has not seen since the age of 5 months old. Like you, he is very eager to know him, so we located the adoptive parents and called them. They said they have no problem with Richard contacting his son, but they wanted us to know that the son “hates” his real father, that he has grown up saying he would kill him if he ever met him (he blames Richard Sr. for the death of his mom).
So for now, Richard Sr. is being patient, staying in touch with Richard Jr.’s adopted parents, seeing photos of him, but the adoptive parents have not told Richard Jr. yet about his dad. Jr. is in Army boot camp and they don’t want him to face such a difficult, complex thing until he gets a little more settled into his adult life.
The reason I mention this story is because Richard Sr. is dying to meet his son, to let him know how much he loves him – but finally, after a lifetime of selfish convict living, he actually wants to do whatever is best for his son – even if that means waiting longer, even if it means NEVER contacting him. This time, Richard doesn’t want this to be just about getting what he wants.
I suggest you do some similar soul-searching, C, because it is your fault, not your wife’s, that you were not around to be a good father to your son. You committed crimes and landed in prison. Sure, your wife could have been much kinder about letting you keep a relationship with D, but let’s keep the focus on who created this terrible situation in the first place: You did.
So accept the fact that you did not care enough about D having a father outside of prison, and re-lease the bitter-ness you hold toward your ex-wife. She screwed up, but you screwed up first, and you screwed up bigger. Your son may have an entirely false impression of you, like Richard’s son has of him. Hopefully you can find a way to straighten that out at some point. But it won’t be by blaming your wife. It will come about by saying to your son, “I am so sorry I abandoned you by committing crimes and going to prison. I was a terrible father, even though I always loved you. I want to be a better father from now on.”
Maybe if you expressed that same sort of thing to your ex-wife, she might not feel so determined to keep you away from him. Jesus said “remove the BEAM in your own eye before talking about the speck in another person’s eye.” He was talking about this exact kind of situation.
Your attention has been on how unfair your wife is to you. Her keeping D away from you is nothing compared to how rotten a father you were. In fact, she probably sincerely feels it is better for D to have nothing to do with you. Up to this point, C, maybe she’s right. Ever consider that? You could write to her explaining that now you understand she has been just trying to be a good mother and protect her son, and you’re sorry for all the pain and hardship you have brought into their lives.
Love acts for the sake of the beloved. Meditate and pray on all this, read this letter several times, see if you can open your heart and mind past C’s selfish interests, and I think God will grace you with the best way to handle this situation. Be willing to be patient and self-sacrificing if need be. It’s time to be a good father, not just to get what C wants. I know this is tough advice, but I hope you take it, for your sake and your son’s.
Love, Bo
Dear Mr. Lozoff,
I am doing six years in Snake River. It is one of the newest prisons in Oregon. I don’t like to talk about my charges because it was their word against mine and you see where I ended. I’m not bitter, but with my charge I fear for my life, and from being raped as well (if you know what I mean).
Before I came to prison I never stayed in one spot for more than a year, except for when I was in the army. I was taken from my home when I was six years old because my stepfather raped me for two years. I was put in foster homes, one right after the other, and when I turned thirteen I ran away. I grew up living on the streets, stealing what I needed or I begged for money. I have lived every where in the world except I have not been to Russia or Africa or Australia.
I never got a proper education only a G.E.D. but a lot of inmates don’t even have that. I’m sorry for rambling on but I thought you’d like to know a little about the person that’s writing you for help. My mental health counselor gave me your address after I tried to kill myself for the third time.
An inmate told me about We’re All Doing Time
(go here for information on this book) and said it has been helping him. He told me that meditation and yoga have been the most help.I’ve been in prison for almost a year so I have plenty of time to get my head on straight. I’ve done most of my time in the hole because I tried to take my own life and I feel safe here because they put me in a cell by myself.
I have been dealing with the death of my little brother (17) and the death of my one year old son. My brother had picked up my son to babysit while my mom was at work. While driving back to his own apartment he was hit head-on by a mack truck that was having steering problems. The driver of the truck walked away with out a bruise, my son died in the car (they think he died on impact and didn’t feel anything), and my brother died in the I.C.U after 5 hours in the O.R. My mother couldn’t take it and took her life two hours after my brother died. I loved my mother don’t get me wrong but I had resentment for her for most of my life and she was more of a person who I met twenty years later who gave birth to my brother. I was just starting to get to know her so I don’t feel as strong feelings for her as for my brother and son. Is that wrong?
I still think of ending my life but something inside me is saying “don’t do it, someone out there still loves you” but the only people who loved and cared for me died. I have no family left and only one friend on the outside but he was in a car accident and can’t write anymore so I’m alone and lost and need help to find myself again if I ever had my self to start with.
Any info or advice would help greatly and I hope that you’ll write back and give me insight. I know you’re just stumbling along in your own journey and don’t know all there is (or you’d have left your earthly body still alive to Join God and leave your body to live its life here on earth or have already known that I need help and had helped me already,) don’t get my remark the wrong way I’m just saying that not everyone is perfect and nobody has all the answers.
May God always shine on you, E
Dear E,
I’m sorry to hear you’ve had so many tough breaks recently. Why you are alive and your whole family dead is one of God’s mysteries that may never be answered. But each one of us has a choice of faith – the faith that God’s mysteries are never just “unfortunate accidents” or “bad luck,” but rather, important pieces of a spiritual puzzle that we cannot understand. Even the toughest breaks we can ever imagine are still opportunities for us to walk through a door that can lead to good things not just for us, but for the world.
It’s hard. Sometimes it may seem almost impossible. But the strongest, deepest, best people who have ever lived have told us “you can do hard,” and “nothing is impossible with faith in God.” So we have the choice of whether to believe them, and start trying to make lemonade out of all those lemons we’ve been handed, or else just to lose hope and get through the day on drugs, tv, scams, hustles, etc. – which you can see people doing all around you in prison, can’t you? That doesn’t seem like a very joyful way to deal with our shit, does it?
My books are being sent you in a separate package. You said that “all the people who cared about you are dead.” Well, that’s not true, E. We care about you, and even the inmate who told you about We’re All Doing Time obviously cared enough about you to tell you that, didn’t he? Not only that, but there are incredibly powerful, loving people all over the world – real live saints – who care about every one of us, and protect us to some degree by the power of their prayers. I swear to you that no one in this world is completely unloved or uncared for. Enjoy that.
As you said, you have plenty of time now to look into this spiritual jigsaw puzzle you’ve been handed. That’s what my books can help you to do. Nothing is holding you back, little brother. Do it. Focus all your energy on your spiritual journey – the REAL one, which is about unselfishness and kindness to yourself and to everyone around you. We’ll be here as your friends while it unfolds.
Love, Bo
A Little Good News is a publication of the Human Kindness Foundation, which is non-profit and tax-exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the IRS code. Donations and bequests are welcomed and are tax-deductible to the full extent of the law. All money goes directly to support HKF’s work, helping us to continue producing and distributing free materials to prisoners and others, and sponsoring Bo Lozoff’s free lectures & workshops and the other projects of the Foundation. © 1997, Human Kindness Foundation
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