California Prison
Dharma Walk

February 1 – March 4, 2001

Oakland to Lompoc

Na Mu Myo Ho Ren Ge Kyo

The California Prison Dharma Walk is an interfaith pilgrimage to the major prisons of California to vigil, pray, and seek a more humane alternative to imprisonment. Dharma is a word used in the Buddhist spiritual teaching, meaning universal or natural truth.

This walk is an invitation – an urgent cry – to dissolve the walls of punishment, of shame, of fear, and of isolation that separate the incarcerated and the non-incarcerated. It is a call to all of us to connect and learn, to see what is the reality of prisons in California, and across the United States. We believe that by seeing this reality of vast and preventable suffering and injustice, we will be moved to profoundly change the nature of the correctional system.

The old notion that punishing a perpetrator somehow alleviates the suffering of a victim does not match the reality of human nature. Who is imprisoned? For what reasons? The spiritual, psychological, emotional, and physical suffering which incarcerated men, women, and adolescents endure goes on with little or no knowledge or apparent concern of the larger society. With rare exception, the overwhelming result of imprisonment is the profound deterioration of the human spirit, the breakdown of essential human capacity for trust, the destruction of the already battered sense of self worth. The violence of this increasingly punitive system is devastating for those incarcerated and for their families; it is also harmful for those who work in the prisons and the criminal justice system, and for all members of society – because all is connected.

Even in the relatively small number of situations where people need to be restrained because of violence or threat of violence, we believe the thinking that guides this restraint must be realistic and responsible, not based on shame. We – all citizens – are responsible for the policies of punishment carried out by the state. We are responsible for these policies, and we are deeply affected by them.

The initiator of the walk, Sister Jun Yasuda (affectionately known as Jun-san), has been a Buddhist nun for over 25 years. She has worked extensively with indigenous spiritual leaders and many religous people, and she has personally walked several times across the United States and other continents, offering her prayers for peace and social justice.

She will likely not be giving speeches during this prison walk, but offering her prayers and ceremonies. Therefore, she is asking local activists to help organize and speak their messages at local events along the way to bring public, media, and government attention to the many prison-issue related social justice and global peace issues.

Jun-san will help conduct a memorial ceremony at the Los Angeles Nipponzan Myohoji Dojo on January 14th at 11:30 a.m., after which an afternoon meeting to finalize walk events planning may take place. Please join the CA-prison-walk eGroup to post your ideas and commitments for local events along the walk route.

We will walk approximately 15-17 miles per day, visiting about 22 prisons and covering about 500 miles in total. Drugs and alcohol are strictly forbidden to participants. You are welcome to join us for a day, a week, or any amount of time that you would like .

California Prison Dharma Walk Schedule

Click here to read a letter from a convicted felon named James Trimble.

Since 1976 the monks, nuns, and followers of the Nipponzan Myohoji order have participated in numerous long distance walks, chanting and drumming their prayers along the way for global peace and social justice issues:

• The Continental Walk for Social Justice and Disarmament in 1976
• The American Indians' Longest Walk in 1978
• The Long Walk for Survival in 1980
• The World Peace March to UN SSDII in 1982
• Many, many more walks over the years including walks from Auswitz to Hiroshima, and a recent walk following the slave trade route back to Africa.

The Nipponzan Myohoji Buddhist Order was founded by the late most venerable Nichidatsu Fujii (1885-1995), from whom Mahatma Gandhi took up chanting and drumming NaMuMyoHoRenGeKyo, a prayer for peace and social justice.

M.V. Fujii in his lifetime became a major figure in ecumenical peace activities involving many different religous denominations and social causes, and he was an instrumental figure in convening the Interfaith Conferences of Religious Workers which precipitated both the first and second United Nations Special Sessions on Disarmament (1978 and 1982).