ON THE INSIDE

JAIL INMATES USE MEDITATION TO OVERCOME ANGER

At Seattle's North Rehabilitation Facility, petty criminals, alcoholics and
drug addicts sit silently in a dark room for 10 hours a day, hoping to
bring inner peace to their messed-up lives.

For these dropouts of 12-step programs and halfway houses, it's worth a try.

"What else do I have to lose?" asked Rose Clinton, 31, one of seven women
who volunteered this month for the jail's second Vipassana course.

She has had two crack-addicted babies, one of whom died, and has lost count
of the times she has been in jail for drug dealing, prostitution, robbery
and assault.

Her forehead bears a jagged scar from a bottle hurled by an angry drug
dealer. Welts on her wrists remain from the day in 1992 when they took her
third baby away and she tried to slash her wrists with a broken crack pipe.

For most of Clinton's adult life, introspection has been limited to the
desperate, daily calculus of an addict: "You think about where your next
hit's gonna come from, or who you're gonna beat for some money."

For 10 days ended March 7, Clinton pursued purer thoughts. Waking at 4 a.m.
to the sound of a gong, she spent hours in "noble silence," sitting on a
cushion, her eyes closed, a blanket wrapped around her.

With help from a Vipassana instructor, she and her fellow students learned
to observe their breathing and other bodily sensations. They learned to
feel an itch and not scratch it, and they saw at least the possibility of
doing the same with the anger and craving that have ruled their lives.

"We call it mental boot camp," said jail administrator Lucia Meijer, who
authorized the program last fall after being persuaded to attend a 10-day
Vipassana course herself. Her first impression, as she struggled to hold a
meditation position for an hour, was that "these people must be sadists."

No magic, no pills

Later, she decided Vipassana meditation has the potential for building
inmates' self-discipline and insight.

"It's not a magic trick or a pill," Meijer said. "It's hard, conscious
effort. It teaches them how to control themselves, how to go inside and
deal with what's there."

Meditation comes in many forms, from the contemplations of Christian and
Buddhist monks to the secular Transcendental Meditation.

Vipassana is considered the Marine Corps of meditation. As taught today by
Indian teacher S.N. Goenka, it claims a direct lineage to techniques
practiced 2,500 years ago by Buddha.

Its nonsectarian approach welcomes students of any religious belief. But
its rigors put off most people: Of the 4,000 students who take courses each
year at the four Vipassana centers in the United States, only an estimated
10 percent embrace it permanently.

Adherents believe they have found a captive, eager audience in jails and
prisons -- if only they can convince skeptical jailers.

Even at Seattle's North Rehabilitation Facility, a minimum-security jail
with a reputation for innovation and a focus on treating chemical
dependency, the Vipassana program is a major disruption.

Prisoners separated

The students must be housed in a separate wing. Instructors and assistants
insist on living at the jail during the course. The kitchen must prepare
special vegetarian meals. Loudspeakers must be disconnected. Everyone who
works with the students, including guards, must be graduates of a 10-day
Vipassana course.

In the program's favor: It's free. All Vipassana courses are run by
volunteers.

It's too soon to tell how well the Seattle program keeps inmates on the
virtuous path after their release. But jail officials say behavior changes
were striking after the first course in November, which graduated 11 men.

Everyone mentions Ernest, a huge, menacing ghetto warrior who spoke in
grunts before the Vipassana course. Afterward, he was hugging everybody and
declaring that love is the answer.

Richard Jimerson, whose alcohol-related crimes have bounced him in and out
of jail for years, has attended two more Vipassana courses and volunteered
to help at three since his release from jail in December.

A year ago, Jimerson was "sad, lost, a waste," said Stephanie Maxwell, a
vocational specialist at the jail. Now, she said, he is "focused, honest,
thoughtful."

Jimerson, 31, put it this way: "The rattling in my brain got put to sleep."

Seven started, seven finished

Vivian Snyder, instructor for the women's Vipassana course, said her inmate
students were more chatty than those on the outside. But they were typical
in other ways: They fell asleep in the first days. They threatened to quit.
They thought they were being brainwashed. They were wracked by headaches
and nausea.

Lila Bowechop, 33, said one side of her face went numb -- the same feeling
she used to get after alcoholic binges -- and she thought she might die.

In the end, though, they rallied. Seven women started and seven finished,
an improvement over the men's course, which lost six students.

"They worked harder than any group I've seen," Snyder said. "They didn't
spend a lot of time on philosophical debates. They know they're suffering."

On the seventh day, rage boiled up within Clinton. It was a stew of old
pains and regrets, made all the more maddening because she thought she had
dealt with them long ago. She cursed. She cried. She knew she'd have to
quit.

And then the anger passed. Like an itch.

Clinton hopes to keep meditating on the outside. She hopes to get a high
school equivalency diploma. She'll settle for avoiding behavior of the sort
that put her away most recently: stabbing a woman with a screwdriver and a
knife.

"Now I know I don't have to get that mad," Clinton said. "I know there's a
way I can come out of that anger."

Copyright 1998 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.