Finding freedom: practicing Dharma in prison

From time to time, people in prison write to the FPMT to request a copy of Mandala (the address is in the back of Wisdom Publication’s books), and we happily offer them an ongoing subscription to the magazine. At the moment, some forty prisoners receive Mandala.

Many of them also express a wish to correspond with someone who can help them with their Buddhist practice. The first person I began to correspond with wrote in March last year. He had just turned twenty years old, he said, and was in prison for life and “would like to personally get involved in the Buddhist way of life.”

From the start, I was moved by his sincerity and easy acceptance of his situation: “Even though I find myself in a pretty bad predicament and may never set foot on the streets of North America again, this does not bring me the slightest uneasiness. . .it is the least of my worries. My main interest is helping and giving true happiness to others.”

An American-born Mexican, he has been involved since the age of eleven in gangs in Los Angeles, and has spent most of his life since he was twelve in the California prison system, where gang activity and violence have a powerful life of their own. During the past eighteen months, he has totally transformed his way of life and now devotes himself fully to the Dharma (see “Searching for a way to leave no one behind: the transformation of a Mexican gangster“).

Imprisoned at Pelican Bay, the top security prison in the state, he spends all his days and nights locked in his cell, except for an hour-and-a-half, alone, in a small, enclosed exercise yard. He agrees, however, with Lama Zopa Rinpoche, who wrote to him in January this year: “. . . actually, it’s just a concept: what you label and how you use the place. For another mind it is the same as a hermitage.” Rinpoche told him that his external prison is nothing compared with the inner prison that most people live in: the prison of self-centeredness, jealousy, desire and anger.

He says, “This cell is a pure realm for me, truly the best environment to help me develop my mind in renunciation, bodhicitta and emptiness in order for me to be of greater benefit to others. . . .”

He is one of many prisoners I have the honor to communicate with and visit these days. Every one of them inspires me with his dedication to practice, his wish to not waste time, his willingness to practice in what would normally be considered atrocious conditions; they know they have no choice. The constant noise in the cell blocks, for example: this alone could make life intolerable. “The racket is deafening and resembles nothing less than bedlam and chaos,” says Paul Dewey. Through their letters, four of these men, Paul Dewey, Milo Rusimovic, Timothy Haremza and J.W. Johnson, give a taste of their transformation and their sincere practice. Two of them speak of their devotion in the Buddha Tara, based on their own direct experience of her. Jimmy Tribble also wrote to Mandala of the benefits of Dharma in his life.

[Name withheld]‘s cell mate in cell 108 at Pelican Bay, until they moved to separate cells recently, was another Mexican gang member from Los Angeles. He, too, is now devoted to the Dharma — and he, too, moves me beyond words with his heartfelt practice. He “didn’t like the feeling that arose” in his mind when I asked him (three times) for his permission to publish his letters here, so he declined. He is definitely dedicated to giving up the eight worldly dharmas.

I am so grateful to the other men who write to me, too: James Travassos, Ralph Ospalski, Aaron Morrison, Paul Boulerice and, more recently, Richard C. Berg, Russell Zalkin and David A. Roe; to the men of the Buddhist group of A Yard at Pelican Bay, whom I visited several times (but am now prevented from doing because of a prison regulation): Joseph, Yen Chiu, Apple, Dowdy, Dino, Vo, Benjamin and the others; and to Mitchell, Lief and the other men on death row at Kentucky State Penitentiary for their hunger for spiritual experience. Without doubt, every one of them has inspired me to practice more strongly, has helped me know there is no time to waste.

Joyce Smith-Moore writes here, also, of her involvement in helping Buddhism become accepted for the first time in American prisons, in New York State in the seventies, where her husband Jim has been imprisoned for thirty-five years (“Buddhism breaks into prison“).

Finally, Jarvis Jay Masters writes moving, eloquent stories of his experiences in prison, from his cell on death row at San Quentin in California (see “Writings from death row“). Thirty-five now, Jarvis has been in the California prison system since he was twelve and has been involved in the (black) gangs of Los Angeles. It is clear from his stories that Dharma has helped him lay bear his heart to himself, and they vividly show the sweetness and skill of his compasssionate practice.

Jarvis’s stories are from his book, Finding Freedom: Writings from Death Row, just published by Padma Publishing. We thank them for allowing us to borrow their perfect title. May every living being find freedom!

Ven. Thubten Kunsel