Angulimala

Angulimala Workshops for Buddhist Prison Chaplains

The next Workshop is on Saturday, December 5th.

In 2010, the Angulimala Workshops will be on the first Saturday of March, June, September and December, that is March 6th, June 5th, September 4th and December 4th.

The start time is 10 o’clock in the morning at The Forest Hermitage.

New chaplains, for the first three years, are required to attend at least two of the quarterly training workshops in each calendar year. After that it’s at least one per calendar year but really the more you can come to the better.

The workshops are important for several reasons that I know most well understand. They offer support and friendship, they enable us to share information and good practice, they are an opportunity to offload concerns and difficulties, they remind us of what we are supposed to be doing and help us to do it better and they keep us together. And I think they’re often good fun.

These Workshops are for Buddhist prison chaplains only, otherwise attendance is by invitation and to Angulimala members only.

Needed: more Buddhist chaplains.

Buddhist Prison Chaplains are there to make available Buddhist Teaching and Practice in their prison. They are to encourage the development of Morality, Meditation and Wisdom and to be a ‘good friend’ to Buddhist inmates and staff. I hope they will succeed in making a real Buddhist contribution to the life of their prison. To join our team and be a Buddhist prison chaplain you need to be a committed Buddhist living by a moral standard of at least the Five Precepts and you should be a regular meditator. You also need a competent understanding of Buddhist Teaching and Practice with a knowledge of Buddhist schools other than your own and you must be willing to help those of other schools. I hope that anyone doing this will enter into the work whole-heartedly and will be prepared to devote a certain amount of time and trouble to it. All Buddhist prison chaplains should be members of Angulimala and it is important to our drive to gradually raise the standard of our work as well as to the well-being of everyone concerned that all our chaplains attend at least one of the four training workshops held quarterly at The Forest Hermitage. At these you will find support and advice, resources and training, encouragement and companionship.

Prisons that we are particularly concerned to find a Buddhist chaplain for are as follows:

HMP MOORLAND (Yorkshire)

HMYOI WETHERBY in W Yorkshire

HMP FEATHERSTONE (near Wolverhampton)

HMP GLOUCESTER

HMP LEYHILL

HMP KIRKLEVINGTON GRANGE (North East)

HMP HOLME HOUSE

HMP BULWOOD HALL (Essex)

HMP CHELMSFORD

HMP HAVERIGG (Cumbria)

The former all house men and for them it might be more practical for a man to be the Buddhist chaplain but the following is a women’s prison and there the preference would be a woman Buddhist chaplain:

HMP MORTON HALL near Lincoln

This is not an exhaustive list and the situation changes from time to time, sometimes quite suddenly. Please get in touch with me if you would be interested in serving in any of these prisons or if you would like to support our work and help in any other way.