Part of a special section on American Buddhism, Race, and Power. Many Buddhist programs in US prisons focus on reforming incarcerated people. Often the leaders of these programs celebrate their incarcerated students for undergoing extraordinary transformations from so-called angry prisoners into calm and compassionate bodhisattvas. Those deemed exceptional may attain celebrity status and often receive privileges both within prison and…
Tag: prison chaplaincy
Reflections on My Experiences Working as a Death Row Chaplain in Japan
Part of a special section on Buddhist Chaplaincy in the United States and Japan. Editors’ note: Rev. HIRANO Shunkō has served as a prison chaplain among death row inmates at Tokyo Detention House for more than forty years. He is a priest of the Jōdo Shinshū Honganji sect and the former abbot of Chūgenji temple in Ichikawa, Chiba. He is also the…
REVIEW: Karma and Punishment: Prison Chaplaincy in Japan, by Adam Lyons
Adam Lyons begins one chapter of his volume, Karma and Punishment: Prison Chaplaincy in Japan, with a joke he says he heard regularly among kyōkaishi, a Japanese role he translates as “prison chaplain”: “Why did you become a prison chaplain? ‘Because I did something terrible in a past life to deserve it’” (p. 216). The wry joke encapsulates some of the heavy and complex stressors that the position entails. Adam Lyons’ volume skillfully navigates the complex tensions involved in the role at present and how it developed since the late 1800s. Karma and Punishment takes the reader on a historical journey to show the origins of kyōkaishi; he shows both how they changed and what stayed consistent through different periods of history. Along the way, Lyons ties these developments to a valuable discourse on the religion-state relations and the evolving laws that oversee those connections.