From Venerable Ajahn Khemadhammo

Angulimala, the Buddhist Prison Chaplaincy Organisation, has just passed its eleventh birthday and entered the twelfth year of its existence. And I will soon be entering the twentieth year of my life in British prisons.

From the beginning, mindful of the Buddha's own active life of forty-five years after his Enlightenment dedicated to the uplift of humanity and of his injunction to wander forth 'for the welfare and happiness of many, out of compassion for the world, for the good, welfare and happiness of devas and humans', our concern has been simply to make available in an often forgotten and misunderstood corner of our society the Teachings of the Buddha. There there are suffering human beings unable to come to us, unable to hear the Dhamma, whose suffering persists for want of the Dhamma - if they cannot come to us, then we must go to them. To do that a team of visiting chaplains, now more than forty strong and representing the breadth of main-stream Buddhism in this country, is in place and visiting a large proportion of Britain's expanding prison estate. Supporting them are myself and two co-ordinators, a secretary / treasurer and a growing membership, as well as three patrons, one of whom, Lord Avebury, is particularly lively, making our criticisms and concerns heard where they most need to be heard. Some of that membership are active as pen-friends to prisoners giving them an important link with the world of Buddhism on the outside and contacts and support for the future when the gate opens and they are released. Others in the membership are frustrated at not being used and doing nothing and are anxious to do something; but their membership and support - their presence - is absolutely vital, enabling us to do more than we possibly could without it. And just because nothing has been asked of them yet, doesn't mean that tomorrow the phone won't go with me on the end of it! This work is still only gradually developing and we are still having to cope with our own growing pains and a system that is still sometimes less than friendly.

Our sole interest then has been to make Buddhism available in the prisons of the UK and we have tried to make this an offering and to go about it in the spirit of Dana or Giving. When we first set up Angulimala, we went to the Prison Service Chaplaincy (exclusively Christian and dominated by the Church of England) and in effect offered them a service. All we have ever really asked for are reasonable facilities within individual prisons and the right to go about our business unhindered. But from time to time we have found ourselves compromised by the Prison Act of 1952, the forty-four year old Act of Parliament that still governs how the prisons of England and Wales are set up and run. You may remember it was concern over the restriction placed on freedom of religious inquiry by Section 10 of this Act that was behind a successful public meeting held at the Buddhist Society in September 1991.

In recent years the Chaplain General has called intermittent consultations that have brought together representatives of other Christian denominations as well as those of the principal non-Christian religions, but while these have been better than nothing they have not provided the 'other faiths' with any satisfactory means of redressing complaints. After the last meeting, therefore, I and the Muslim and Sikh representatives discussed the possibility of a meeting with the Home Secretary and I later enlisted Lord Avebury's help.

It was a gloriously sunny spring afternoon on March 27th as first Bashir Ebrahim-Khan and then Indarjit Singh and myself arrived at Lord Avebury's office opposite the House of Lords for a brief 'pre-meeting'. After we'd gone over again various points we hoped to make and made sure that we had all the relevant documents, including copies of our discussion paper Religion in the Prisons of England and Wales which argues that the present chaplaincy arrangements are objectionable in principle, and proposes that there should be an Advisory Council on Religion in Prisons, we strolled across the road, past the policemen and their metal detectors and through an unobtrusive ground-floor entrance into the House of Lords. There we followed Lord Avebury though a maze of corridors and staircases until the carpet changed from red to green and he pointed out that we were then in the Commons. Still following him and hopelessly lost by this time, we ended up behind the Speaker's Chair and outside Michael Howard's office. After a short delay we were ushered in and greeted by the Prisons Minister, Ann Widdecombe, who opened the meeting. A few minutes later we were joined by the Home Secretary. Of course it didn't last long. We tried to make our case that it was unreasonable that the Church of England should still be accorded a special position by legislation and that when legislation is introduced to reform the Prison Act 1952, the chaplaincy should be replaced by a multi-faith agency in which all religions are treated as equal. Then we distributed copies of the discussion paper and the Home Secretary said he would consider our proposals carefully. Before leaving I presented both Michael Howard and Ann Widdecombe each with a small, mounted, cast reproduction of an antique head of the Buddha.

Our discussion paper concludes: 'In some prisons there are well-planned arrangements for other faiths, and good working relations between the other faiths and the C of E chaplain. This does not alter the fact that the present arrangements are objectionable in principle, and highly vulnerable to financial pressures and the idiosyncrasies of local management. ... The place of religion in the life of the prisons is important, because the months or years of seclusion ought to give the individual the chance to reflect on his or her place in the world, and his or her obligations to a higher law than Parliament's. If the state encourages this process, it is serving the best interests of both the prisoner and society as a whole. But at the beginning of the 21st century, it will be inconceivable that we should retain provisions which confer special privileges on one denomination of one religion, in a society which is proud of its diversity, equality and tolerance.'

If you have the necessary equipment and are able to surf the Internet you will find this discussion paper in the Penal Lexicon on the World Wide Web under the address http://www.penlex.org.uk/. If you don't have the equipment it can be made available by snail-mail, but, please, no frivolous requests as really I'm busy enough.

Meanwhile, our more usual activities carry on as usual. We've recently had another big delivery from Taiwan of Dhamma books for free distribution, for which we're very grateful. Half this latest consignment is for the Forest Hermitage and half for Angulimala. More Buddha-rupas are in preparation for distribution to Buddhist prisoners and two more large Buddha-rupas are under way for future Buddhist shrines or 'Buddha Groves' that we hope will be created in more and more prisons. Completion of the Buddha-Grove in HMP Liverpool is not far off, but one of our first Buddha Images, one of those cast in extremely heavy Fibracem - five well-built men are required to shift it - has been specifically asked for for Liverpool and as it cannot be easily moved the final dressing is a slower job than for the lighter and more recent fibre-glass versions. Then I believe there will be another in Manchester, and I have just heard that Brixton has given the go-ahead. We're also talking about one in Broadmoor. And I'm trying to complete the preparation of a new edition of Buddha - Daily Readings.

Take care and be happy.

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