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We regularly have 70 to 80 inmates in our center every month, including some who participated in previous courses.

Q:  It has been two years since you started teaching meditation in Insein Prison. Have you been able to organize retreats every month?

A:  We have been able to organize it every month since we started. The prison warden has also lent us a hand. He has replaced a wooden floor at the center and fixed the beds. I always see new stuff in the center every time I visit there. Some items were donated by prisoners, while others were provided by the prison. I have experienced a similar situation in Thayarwaddy Prison as well. I don’t know about the prison in Mandalay, since I haven’t been there yet. We are now preparing to open a new meditation center in Monywa Prison. We just haven’t been provided with the type of building we want. A meditation center should be located in a separate compound, and should be in a restricted area where only people with permission can enter.

Q:  How long did you negotiate with the authorities before you were given permission to establish meditation centers inside prisons?

A:  We started talking about it a long time ago, before 2000. Perhaps we were finally given permission to start the program in 2008 because Interior Minister Maj-Gen Maung Oo and others were interested in it.

Q:  Do you think you will be able to open meditation centers in other prisons?

A:  We are planning to open more centers, but the problem is that we don’t have enough vipassana teachers. Besides our prison retreats, we are running more than 20 meditation centers across the country. But the authorities want us to establish retreat centers in all 42 prisons in Burma.