Bo Lozoff

Bo Lozoff (January 10, 1947 – November 29, 2012) was an American writer, interfaith humanitarian, and co-founder of several nonprofits. Many of Lozoff's nonprofit activities aim to improve the lives of prisoners and the previously incarcerated.

Bo Lozoff

Quotes

• Everyone is born with a spiritual responsibility also, as specific as our hearts pumping blood: We must learn to love one another, to receive and express goodness. It doesn't matter whether we believe in it or not. Obey it and we will thrive, disobey it and we won’t. Period. Isn’t that wonderful? Our human justice system may be all screwed up, but the Divine Law treats us absolutely equally.
• Look all over the world and see the people who unselfishly receive and express goodness, who are dedicated to the cause of love. They’re the only people who are truly happy. They have tapped into the one mysterious, wonderful connectedness that frees them to live full-time in love. Some of them had great childhoods, some were horribly abused, some are pretty, some are homely, some tall, some short, rich, poor — our situations are always unequal, but life does not judge us by where we’ve been, what we own, or what has been done to us; life judges us by what we do.
  • Sacred Living, Sacred Practice, Human Kindness Foundation (1994)

• Coming out of retreat and looking around at my own culture, looking at the crises that we are in, the problems that exist in the American family, I saw that on one hand, many of us have come a long way in order to be able to acknowledge Eastern masters, saints from other traditions. But where are the American realized beings?... What this country needs more than anything else is for us to become elders, walking the streets and doing our jobs, really happy, classic, ageless spiritual human beings. So that's the opportunity we have and I don't think any people in the history of the world has ever had more access to the methods and ideas for how to do that. We are very fortunate in that way, even if you’re in prison.
  • Sacred Living, Sacred Practice, Human Kindness Foundation (1994)

• We realized that this wasn't something that would happen sometime, or later, or in a few years. We thought, oh shit, we have to do this thing now... I can still remember sitting at that long table with all those big-shots [in Washington, D.C. at the Bureau of Prisons] and marveling that just a few years earlier, I sat around with revolutionaries arguing about how to blow up those very buildings. Life is very funny.
• The need was there. These were people who had changed their lives, their values, while they were in prison. And they were getting ready to be thrown back into a society that wouldn't support that... We wanted to provide a place for ex-cons to live before moving out on their own.
• Here are people who go out into the world with two strikes against them. First, they're felons, with all that conjures up for people. Second, they don't know how to work for a boss. Don't know how to handle a schedule, how to show up on time, how to manage the obligations. When they leave us, it's like they're swimming upstream.
  • Quoted in Bio-Kindness: Bo Lozoff wants to raise $1 million and put ex-cons to work at a biodiesel refinery in Orange County by Melinda Ruley, Indy Week, (28 April 2004)

• In the midst of global crises such as pollution, wars, and famine, kindness may be too easily dismissed as a ‘soft’ issue, or a luxury to be addressed after the urgent problems are solved. But kindness is the greatest need in all those areas.
  • Quoted 5 Simple Things You Can Do Today to Spread Kindness at Work, Aga Bajer, Thrive Global, (20 May 2019)

About

• Lozoff decided to apply for a position as a prison guard at the new federal prison...He didn't get the job, but the assistant warden was curious about why a guy like Lozoff--a young man active in the protest and counterculture movements of the '60s and '70s--would want a job as a prison guard... Lozoff leveled with him, told him he was a Karma Yogi who suspected his spiritual path might involve service to prisoners... amazingly, the assistant warden responded with enthusiasm... Lozoff... soon found himself teaching classes in individual jails and prisons... Ram Dass, also had taken a great interest in prisoners; the Lozoffs met with him and the three began to craft a plan for helping convicts turn their cells and prison yards into ashrams, places of spiritual growth and freedom.
  • Quoted in Bio-Kindness: Bo Lozoff wants to raise $1 million and put ex-cons to work at a biodiesel refinery in Orange County by Melinda Ruley, Indy Week, (28 April 2004)

• Police described the incident in a media release: Responding to a 3:34 p.m. call, Puna patrol and Traffic Enforcement Unit officers determined that the 65-year-old man was operating a 2003 Suzuki motorcycle and traveling north on Route 130 when a 1999 Lexus multi-purpose vehicle being operated by a 66-year-old Pāhoa man failed to yield the right of way and made a left turn onto Leilani Avenue. The motorcycle operator was not wearing a helmet and was dead at the scene.
  Lozoff received praise from the Dalai Lama, who wrote the forwards for two of his books, and from the late children’s TV host, Mr. Rogers, who listed Lozoff among his heroes... An innovative thinker, he sought ways to re-integrate former prisoners into society, and founded the environmental non-profit, Carolina Biodiesel, to both promote biodiesel and to create jobs for former prisoners.
  • Musician, lava lover Bo Lozoff killed in Puna crash, Big Island Video News (30 November 2012)

• We’re All Doing Time, by Bo Lozoff. This simple, straightforward book is widely read by inmates for the message of spiritual hope it imparts... When you’re locked up, you are just sitting there with your mind... You’ll do things like go to church and read the Bible. You’ll be looking for something. This book, which had letters from ex-prisoners and current prisoners... teaches you how to meditate and pray and do yoga. This book, for me, it was my guide to getting free.
  • Beyond ‘Orange is the New Black’: 8 eye-opening prison books, Carolina A. Miranda, Los Angeles Times (9 August 2014)