SokukoJi Prison Project
Sokuzan Bob Brown is a member of the Chaplaincy Advisory Council of the Michigan Department of Corrections in Lansing. This group of ministers and chaplains meets quarterly to address religious practice issues for inmates in various correctional facilities in Michigan. Bob has been going into prisons in Minnesota and Michigan since 1999 as a volunteer for Shambhala Prison Community, Liberation Prison Project and SokukoJi Prison Project.
Currently, Bob is providing meditation classes in all four security levels in five Michigan prisons: Ernest C. Brooks, Muskegon; Michigan Reformatory, Ionia; Parnall Correctional Facility, Jackson; Lakeland and Florence Crane Correctional Facilities in Coldwater. Additionally, in August, Bob and a SokukoJi community volunteer will be traveling for the first time to prisons in the Upper Peninsula to provide meditation instruction and dharma talks to Buddhist inmates there.
Bob is training volunteers to go into prisons with him and eventually on their own. Bob is being helped by the members of SokukoJi Buddhist Community and the Liberation Prison Project with travel expenses, books, malas and other practice materials. Volunteers also are needed to write letters to inmates and to donate supplies.
SokukoJi is also developing a prison re-entry program to assist paroled inmates to re-enter society. We are looking for funding to further promote this community program.
If you would like to assist in any of the SokukoJi Prison Project works, please contact Bob at 269.213.4813 or email him at robertbrown43@gmail.com for more information.