Speaker 1: Dear Governor is a production of I Heart Media and
Speaker 1: three Months Media. If you are moved by Jarvis Masters
Speaker 1: and his thirty years struggle on San Quentin's death throw,
Speaker 1: and you'd like to support his cause, please consider signing
Speaker 1: a petition on his behalf. Visit free Jarvis dot org
Speaker 1: slash podcast to sign your name to an open letter
Speaker 1: to California Governor Gavin Newsom, Dear Governor Newsom, Dear Mr
Speaker 1: Governor Newsom. This is an open letter to Governor Gavin Newsom,
Speaker 1: Dear Governor Newsom. There's an adage made popular in n
Speaker 1: fifty four by President Dwight D. Eisenhower that there are
Speaker 1: no atheists in a foxhole. The idea behind this phrase
Speaker 1: is that anyone who finds themselves in the position of
Speaker 1: extreme stress where death is all but imminent, he or
Speaker 1: she will seek comfort in a higher power or after
Speaker 1: being sentenced to death. We've all heard stories about men
Speaker 1: and women turning to God, finding redemption, or being born again,
Speaker 1: but there is surprisingly little research to prove this phenomenon
Speaker 1: as anything but anecdotal. Official statistics on religious affiliations in
Speaker 1: prison are not publicly available, and there are also those
Speaker 1: who lose any sense of faith that they once had
Speaker 1: after being sentenced to death row. Considering such bleak and
Speaker 1: inhumane conditions, Jervis j Masters falls into the former camp
Speaker 1: he found his religion as the walls of the capital
Speaker 1: injustice system began to close in on him in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty six, tighter and tighter until they can find him
Speaker 1: for a lifetime in a nine by four cement and
Speaker 1: steel wire cage. On last week's episode, we met Melody
Speaker 1: irma child Chavez, the investigator on Jervis's defense team who
Speaker 1: first introduced Jarvis to Buddhism. This week, we meet another
Speaker 1: woman who was instrumental in nurturing and reinforcing Jervis's burgeoning
Speaker 1: Buddhist mind. My name is Susan Shannon. I am a
Speaker 1: Buddhist and interfaith chaplain. I provide spiritual support for incarcerated
Speaker 1: people and people who have recently gotten out of prison,
Speaker 1: as well as spiritual direction for the general population. I
Speaker 1: am also a CPE instructor, and CPE is a program
Speaker 1: that chaplains need to go through in order to get certified,
Speaker 1: so I am actively involved in training other chaplains. When
Speaker 1: did you begin your chaplain see at Quentin two thousand
Speaker 1: and eleven. And how long did you work with the
Speaker 1: general population before you started working with those on death row. Oh,
Speaker 1: I started in on death row almost right away. Jarvis
Speaker 1: and I started one on one probably close to the
Speaker 1: beginning of two thousand twelve, and we had one on
Speaker 1: one visits every week for I believe it was a
Speaker 1: couple of years before others began to want to get
Speaker 1: in on the fund that we were having. I understand
Speaker 1: when you first started your one on ones you were
Speaker 1: just sitting outside Jarvis's cell door, not sitting standing standing, Okay,
Speaker 1: And what was that like? Because I know when I
Speaker 1: talked with him on the phone it is so loud,
Speaker 1: so many voices. Did did they quiet down so that
Speaker 1: they could eavesdrop on you? So it was kind of
Speaker 1: one on It was one on one, but with like
Speaker 1: ten years listening in. Yeah, well, yes, there was definitely that.
Speaker 1: And there was also, luckily for Jarvis and myself, father
Speaker 1: George Williams, who was the Catholic chaplain there, who put
Speaker 1: us together. I saw that Jarvis and I had a
Speaker 1: lot in common with our spiritual practice, and Father Williams
Speaker 1: was able to secure for us a small room and
Speaker 1: so It was only really one or two times that
Speaker 1: I had to stand on his front porch, as he
Speaker 1: would say, and the rest of the times we were
Speaker 1: able to sit in a small room, which was great. However,
Speaker 1: every night that I went into death Row, I walked
Speaker 1: to buy Jarvis to cell, and so pretty much every week,
Speaker 1: whether it was his group that was called for our
Speaker 1: Buddhist services or not, I would stand and visit with Jarvis.
Speaker 1: I think I was cleaning the floor and the Catholic
Speaker 1: priests George Williams are calling brother George because I didn't
Speaker 1: like the term father, so I call him brother George.
Speaker 1: I said, how are you doing? He said, I brought
Speaker 1: somebody to see you. I said who? And she stepped
Speaker 1: out from around and she says, I think we have
Speaker 1: the same teacher, and we do the same and if
Speaker 1: I can do anything to help you, and if you
Speaker 1: know other people who might need some help, I'm here
Speaker 1: is father George. Brother George is going to allow me
Speaker 1: to come in here on the tier is sponsor me.
Speaker 1: You know, he was gonna use his credentials to allow
Speaker 1: me to come in. And maybe you and I can
Speaker 1: do some practices together, and maybe you and I can
Speaker 1: figure out how we can extend this to other people
Speaker 1: on death Row. Jervis Masters recalls meeting Chaplain Susan Shannon
Speaker 1: from his side of the front porch one of particular kind.
Speaker 1: It was really really funny. They had this thing when
Speaker 1: they call self front. I think it's called self front.
Speaker 1: Is that when you're allowed to sit in front of
Speaker 1: some on sell. You know, I never knew. I never
Speaker 1: could imagine I had been here along long, long decades
Speaker 1: that they would let her sit on death Row, on
Speaker 1: the tier and there, and we're meditating to get it.
Speaker 1: It was without the power of this Catholic praise, he
Speaker 1: would never even begin to happen. So that's how much
Speaker 1: juice he has. So we're sitting there and you know,
Speaker 1: I said, you know, Susan, I know some of these mantras,
Speaker 1: and you're asking me to say some of these mantras instead.
Speaker 1: And you know, there I learned because you just hear
Speaker 1: it all the time and it just becomes a part
Speaker 1: of your your song, you know. And we were doing
Speaker 1: this and people start laughing all over the Dawn building.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm trying to tell Susan because her eyes
Speaker 1: was cold, I said, Susan, she was doing her thing.
Speaker 1: You know, Susan, can you hear all these people laughing?
Speaker 1: And she she leaned in, she says at us, and
Speaker 1: I it, yeah. And I was sweating all over the place.
Speaker 1: I was just pouring sweat. I had my whole little
Speaker 1: naturals wet. Like I got out of the shower because
Speaker 1: I didn't want to tell this deep practitioner to stop
Speaker 1: you embarrassing. You know, I just had this go do this,
Speaker 1: you know, And I did, I really did, and I
Speaker 1: was so happy that I did. And I felt, if
Speaker 1: I can do that, I can do anything. You know,
Speaker 1: I mean, you can do anything. Did you guys really
Speaker 1: develop a friendship? How do you describe that a teacher
Speaker 1: student relationship. I think it's hard to not develop a
Speaker 1: friendship with Jarvis because he is so jovial and inquisitive
Speaker 1: and good humored and deep that he finds his way
Speaker 1: into your heart no matter what. And as a chaplain
Speaker 1: and as a female in a man's prison, I always
Speaker 1: felt like I needed to uphold the best possible boundaries
Speaker 1: I could. But Jarvis wears his emotion on his sleeve.
Speaker 1: And as we would sit and talk together, life happens
Speaker 1: and stories happen and we would laugh and we would cry,
Speaker 1: and most definitely a very very deep connection. It wasn't
Speaker 1: so much created as as much as it was discovered
Speaker 1: to have already existed before we even met. What were
Speaker 1: year one on one's like did you read from texts? Or?
Speaker 1: At first? Jarvis had a lot of questions. Like many
Speaker 1: of the men, he had seen certain things written, but
Speaker 1: didn't know how to pronounce mantras, for example, or certain
Speaker 1: sanscrit or Tibetan words. He wanted to know the explanation.
Speaker 1: I would always asked him, well, what what are you
Speaker 1: really interested in? And for a while we worked on
Speaker 1: the pronunciation of mantras. For a while, we worked on
Speaker 1: or shared together the different schools of Buddhism, some of
Speaker 1: the different schools, most of the time with Jarvis. And
Speaker 1: this is what makes him such an exceptional practitioner. Is
Speaker 1: he uh? I was trying to think of how I
Speaker 1: could articulate this to you guys. He he embodies his
Speaker 1: practice on a day to day, minute by minute level.
Speaker 1: So a lot of our conversations were about things that
Speaker 1: had happened to him or things people said, conversations. He
Speaker 1: had challenges he had with other people things he had observed,
Speaker 1: and what would be the Buddhist approach, and he would
Speaker 1: talk about I would ask him, well, what was your approach,
Speaker 1: and we would talk about his approach. And he always
Speaker 1: wanted to ground into some kind of Dharmic foundation, and
Speaker 1: most of the time he was already there. He's a
Speaker 1: he's a very advanced practitioner, explained Dharma. Well, Dharma is
Speaker 1: the word that is used for the teachings of the Buddha.
Speaker 1: Dharma means the path, the way, and so if you
Speaker 1: are studying Buddhism, you're studying the dharma, the Buddha dharma.
Speaker 1: And Jarvis and I both adhere to the Tibetan tradition.
Speaker 1: In fact, as you may have read, we share a teacher,
Speaker 1: Chunda Ku, which is what was my key to going
Speaker 1: into death row in the first place, convincing Father George
Speaker 1: that this was a very rare coincidence that Jarvis not
Speaker 1: only share the same Tibetan teacher, but this teacher gave
Speaker 1: us both the same practice, the red tarer practice. So
Speaker 1: that was really really profound. And tell me what the
Speaker 1: red tiers well, Tara is the feminine manifestation of the deity.
Speaker 1: Of compassion in Tibetan Buddhism, so Tara is like the
Speaker 1: divine feminine are are married, and Tara's compassion and healing energies,
Speaker 1: as well as her activity energies, are manifested in different ways.
Speaker 1: So in the Tibetan tradition, there are numerous depictions of
Speaker 1: different facets of the same deity. So Tara's main facets
Speaker 1: remain manifestations are green Tara, which is the manifestation of compassion,
Speaker 1: White Tara, which is the manifestation of healing, and Red Tara,
Speaker 1: which is the manifestation of enlightened activity. And chug Datuku
Speaker 1: gave Jarvis and I both the Red Tara practice to do. Now,
Speaker 1: have you known about Jarvis before you started your chaplaincy there?
Speaker 1: Had you read his books? Or how did you find
Speaker 1: that key to get into death row? My last year
Speaker 1: of Masters in Divinity program, I took a prison ministry
Speaker 1: course and I found that going into San Quentin, which
Speaker 1: was part of the course under Father George Williams, was
Speaker 1: my new monastery. I felt very activated and I began
Speaker 1: to read. Father Williams is also a criminologist, and so
Speaker 1: his course was rich in the criminology and all kinds
Speaker 1: of readings we did, and I found my appetite to
Speaker 1: be immense and insatiable. And eventually I was led to
Speaker 1: Jarvis's books, which is where I found that he and
Speaker 1: I shared the meeting and relationship with chunkda Tuku as
Speaker 1: well as the red tarp practice. Did that give you
Speaker 1: shivers when you saw that it did? And you know,
Speaker 1: the truth of interconnectedness is crazy. The other thing about
Speaker 1: Jarvis and I that we discovered over the years and
Speaker 1: we continue to we probably know ten twelve people in common.
Speaker 1: And and that's insane, right, like a sixty year old
Speaker 1: white woman coming into San Quentin State Prison having ten
Speaker 1: or twelve people in common with a death row inmate
Speaker 1: who's been in there for however many years. So the
Speaker 1: times we discovered our interconnections with other people were just
Speaker 1: mind blowing and continue to be so. To know that
Speaker 1: Jarvis had this connection with Chagdutuku made it very clear
Speaker 1: to me that I was in the right place and
Speaker 1: that our paths were going to cross. And before I
Speaker 1: met Jarvis, I would visualize Tara above death Row every
Speaker 1: time I walked in and just imagine her sending love
Speaker 1: and light and healing and divine feminine concern and care
Speaker 1: and protection to all the men they're never really having.
Speaker 1: In my wildest imagination, how large our connection would end
Speaker 1: up to be. The more that Jarvis studied the Buddha,
Speaker 1: the more he realized he wanted to share what he'd
Speaker 1: learned to commune with his neighbors who may equally benefit
Speaker 1: from these newfound practices. And while pre COVID religious services
Speaker 1: abounded in the general population, this was not the case
Speaker 1: on death row, particularly for those who did not identify
Speaker 1: as a Christian or a Catholic. Back in the eighties,
Speaker 1: there were no Buddhist courses or services at San Quentin,
Speaker 1: no formal Buddhist teachers or chaplains assigned a death row
Speaker 1: up next. How Jarvis and Chaplain Shannon, and the threat
Speaker 1: of a lawsuit managed to change the status quo for
Speaker 1: those on death row open to the Dharmic path for
Speaker 1: a on time. Before he met you, Jarvis wanted to
Speaker 1: have a Buddhism class on death row, but he was
Speaker 1: not permitted to do that. But you were able to
Speaker 1: do that because of your capacity as a chaplain. How
Speaker 1: did that come to fruition towards the end of Jarviston
Speaker 1: my one on once. We we always talked about the
Speaker 1: heart of Buddhism and that which is beyond time and
Speaker 1: space and beyond form and bars and all of that,
Speaker 1: and what that is is the the Bodhi Cheetah, the
Speaker 1: enlightened heart, the awakened heart and mind of of the Llama.
Speaker 1: And we always knew that chugged A Touklu's heart heart
Speaker 1: mind would not have put us together if it was
Speaker 1: just for him and I that was our Lama was
Speaker 1: beyond that, and and so we knew that at some
Speaker 1: point our group was going to grow. What happened was
Speaker 1: that another inmate on death row who identifies as Buddhist,
Speaker 1: filed a petition to begin a lawsuit against the cdc ARE,
Speaker 1: saying that his spiritual needs were not being met as
Speaker 1: a Buddhist. So pretty much the only thing that gets
Speaker 1: the c d c ARE to make any kind of
Speaker 1: change is that kind of a threat. So that because
Speaker 1: I had already been going in, I had clearance to
Speaker 1: go in. I had all the right paperwork to be
Speaker 1: considered a chaplain by the prison, even though I wasn't
Speaker 1: a staff chaplain, because they don't formally acknowledge Buddhist chaplains.
Speaker 1: It just naturally fell to where our group began to grow,
Speaker 1: and it grew rather quickly. How big did it grow?
Speaker 1: In about a year and a half. It went from
Speaker 1: Jarvis and I two, myself and six other men. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Why is it that they don't officially recognize um a
Speaker 1: Buddhist chaplain. It's that they don't visually recognized Buddhism as
Speaker 1: one of the five main faith traditions that the state
Speaker 1: prisons acknowledge, and those five are Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim,
Speaker 1: and Native American. In spite of numerous lawsuits, they still
Speaker 1: don't recognize Buddhist or Inner faith. However, you could tell
Speaker 1: by the rapid growth of our group, and by the
Speaker 1: work I did in the main line, and and just
Speaker 1: looking around and what's happening across the world. The tools
Speaker 1: and skills that Buddhism offers are very non sectarian. They're
Speaker 1: very useful and adaptable to all other faith traditions. So
Speaker 1: it's it's just a matter of time, I think. Tell
Speaker 1: me about the first group gathering you had at the
Speaker 1: Death Row Chapel. Yeah, so it did start slow, and
Speaker 1: the way that the even though it grew fast, it
Speaker 1: started slow. And I'll explain that the men on Death
Speaker 1: Row are organized by the cdc R into groups called yards.
Speaker 1: And I forget how many yards. There are, thirteen or
Speaker 1: something yards. There's a lot of yards. And those yards
Speaker 1: are organized according to all kinds of things raise former
Speaker 1: gang affiliation um, maybe even crimes um, people who are disabled,
Speaker 1: et cetera. So the rules are that men of different
Speaker 1: yards can't mix. So that meant that though I had
Speaker 1: sixty five guys signed up at the most, I could
Speaker 1: still only see one yard at a time. The chapel,
Speaker 1: what is about gosh, my bad measurement probably about long,
Speaker 1: maybe not even ten ft wide. It's an old shower
Speaker 1: area and it's encased in that diamond wire that is
Speaker 1: used for the bars, the prison cells, et cetera. Including
Speaker 1: on the top and up above us always was a
Speaker 1: guard with a rifle. There's little sally ports that the
Speaker 1: men were. The shackled men were brought in by their
Speaker 1: tier guards, who they called they kind of affectionately called
Speaker 1: their ride. So um, if somebody was on the second tier,
Speaker 1: the second tier guard would bring them down, you know,
Speaker 1: shackle them up, bring them down, I'd be sitting in
Speaker 1: the There were five wooden benches bolted to the floor
Speaker 1: in the chapel and three cages that weren't We were
Speaker 1: never supposed to call them cages, but that's what they
Speaker 1: were about, phone booth sized cages in the back. And
Speaker 1: those cages were where the men would sit if they
Speaker 1: if I had a mixed yard group, which I had
Speaker 1: for an entire for quite a while, so as the
Speaker 1: men were brought into the sally port and led to
Speaker 1: the cage, I would sit as far away from them
Speaker 1: as I felt the guard needed me to for him
Speaker 1: to feel safe, because they're always wanting to protect people.
Speaker 1: The guard and the inmate knew exactly how did sort
Speaker 1: of dose. He go around to where the inmate would
Speaker 1: be backed into, go forward into the cage, turn around,
Speaker 1: and one fell swoop move. He would put his hands
Speaker 1: behind him. The guard would shut the cage and locked
Speaker 1: the cage, and the inmate would put his hands out
Speaker 1: the little port of that's about the as of a
Speaker 1: shoe box, and the guard would unshackle his hands. The
Speaker 1: inmate would turn around and sit down. The guard would
Speaker 1: lock the little place where the man's hands came out
Speaker 1: and we would begin so and I always have to
Speaker 1: wear a bulletproof stab proof vest whenever I went in.
Speaker 1: Were you ever frightened? No, there was maybe one time
Speaker 1: when I should have been frightened. There was. There were
Speaker 1: some kind of funny times there where when I look back,
Speaker 1: I think most people would have, you know, panicked. There
Speaker 1: was one time when I was with Jarvis in the
Speaker 1: little room and it was the end of a nine
Speaker 1: hour day. I always had to go in. Um My
Speaker 1: time's going into death row were part of a bigger schedule,
Speaker 1: so I didn't pick and shoes when I could go in.
Speaker 1: So that this was at the end of a nine
Speaker 1: hour day. Jarvis and I had spent about an hour
Speaker 1: or so. I was hungry, I was tired, it was
Speaker 1: getting late. Um and there was a medical emergency on
Speaker 1: the ground tier so the whole prison shut down. I
Speaker 1: couldn't leave until this man died and was brought out
Speaker 1: in all this, and so I was there for a
Speaker 1: long time. Um. And and that was fun in a way,
Speaker 1: because it was always fun to be with Jarvis, but
Speaker 1: it was also hard in terms of keeping my My
Speaker 1: blood sugar was really low, you know that kind of thing. Hum.
Speaker 1: There was another time, when a guard who was new
Speaker 1: brought an inmate in to the chapel. It was going
Speaker 1: to be a one on one and unfortunately I knew
Speaker 1: why this inmate was on death row, which never mattered
Speaker 1: to me. I mean I was there as a chaplain
Speaker 1: to address matters of this spirit and matters of the heart,
Speaker 1: so I had good boundaries around um all the rest
Speaker 1: of what comes with death row. But the guard, instead
Speaker 1: of putting him into the cage, which this man and
Speaker 1: I had been seeing each other for now, probably about
Speaker 1: eight years, so we knew each other. Well, the guard
Speaker 1: just let him go. And so I'm standing there, I'm
Speaker 1: sitting there and this you know inmate, who is never
Speaker 1: free like that around a free first and shackled, you know.
Speaker 1: He looked at me. I looked at him, and we
Speaker 1: both just raised our eyebrows. It was pretty funny. We
Speaker 1: both just kind of raised our eyebrows and the and
Speaker 1: shrugged our shoulders. And the inmate was he he was perfect.
Speaker 1: He kept his hands behind his back and he said, um, officer,
Speaker 1: aren't you forgetting something? And the officer can I swear here?
Speaker 1: Can I? Absolutely? The officer up on the gun the
Speaker 1: gun rail up above us. He looks down. He goes, dude,
Speaker 1: you gotta keep him shackled, and and the officers like ship,
Speaker 1: oh shit, oh shit, shit. He just started taking out.
Speaker 1: And I'm sitting there, Oh my god, anybody else would
Speaker 1: be scared shitless, and hear me and this inmate are
Speaker 1: just kind of cracking up, and he sits down, and
Speaker 1: you know, the guard is I'm sure worried he's going
Speaker 1: to be losing his job or getting you know, that
Speaker 1: could have been my retirement, right, And we both just
Speaker 1: see he looks at me and he goes, that's never happened.
Speaker 1: So that was the time when I probably could have
Speaker 1: should have been scared, but I wasn't. I was sort
Speaker 1: of amused up next, how the Buddhist curriculum on San
Speaker 1: Quentin's death Row evolved. According to the Pew Research Center,
Speaker 1: three and four prison chaplains believed the access to religion
Speaker 1: related programs on the inside is absolutely critical to successful transformation.
Speaker 1: Having piqued the interest of dozens of men on San
Speaker 1: Quentin's death Row, I asked how chaplain Susan Shannon helped
Speaker 1: develop their Buddhist curriculum to satisfy the array of believers
Speaker 1: and practitioners. What I found was that as more guys
Speaker 1: began to show up, there began to be some kind
Speaker 1: of positioning with the guides, like, well, somebody maybe came
Speaker 1: from the Zen tradition or was had read some books
Speaker 1: on Zen, and they thought Zen was all there was.
Speaker 1: Or somebody else came from the Soco Gakai tradition and
Speaker 1: he thought that was all there was. And then there
Speaker 1: was the Tibetan tradition, and they thought that was all
Speaker 1: there was. So I said, you I saw right away it.
Speaker 1: It was gonna be a bit of a pissing contest,
Speaker 1: and I said, you know it, No, we're not gonna
Speaker 1: do that. We're gonna focus on what the different schools
Speaker 1: of Buddhism have in common, and the common goal is
Speaker 1: to cultivate a warm heart and interconnectedness, and that's what
Speaker 1: we're going to focus on. So I created this big
Speaker 1: chart of comparison chart of all the Buddhist schools, and
Speaker 1: I created a twenty two page outline that brought us
Speaker 1: through step by step most if not all, of the
Speaker 1: main topics that all schools of Buddhism cover. And that
Speaker 1: took us about two and a half years. I gave
Speaker 1: all the men the outline and I began to go
Speaker 1: through it. Um I began to get really good at
Speaker 1: this because by the time I had eight yards, I
Speaker 1: was teaching the same thing for eight weeks in a row.
Speaker 1: And UM, it took us two and a half years
Speaker 1: to go through this. How do you have eight yards
Speaker 1: in the tiny, tiny room? And I could only see
Speaker 1: one yard at a time. Once the yards grew, I
Speaker 1: couldn't see a mixed yard anymore. And with this this
Speaker 1: kind of recognition of how the guys were beginning to
Speaker 1: argue about their tradition, I also made the decision that
Speaker 1: they agreed to that our sessions were not going to
Speaker 1: be practice sessions. They were going to be study sessions.
Speaker 1: And yet even though they all agreed on that, it
Speaker 1: didn't happen that way. What happened was I found that
Speaker 1: they had a deep, deep love of meditation. So what
Speaker 1: I did was, as part of this twenty two page outline,
Speaker 1: I extracted from Buddhist ceremonies a few of the main
Speaker 1: elements that I felt were going to be really useful
Speaker 1: to the men's lives. And this is how we structured
Speaker 1: every time that I went there. Every every group. We
Speaker 1: structured them in this way that began with breathing together
Speaker 1: with a meditation. Began with a meditation where we set
Speaker 1: our intention, and we called in all of our spirit guides,
Speaker 1: all of the enlightened beings, all of the teachers, um,
Speaker 1: anybody who has ever taught us anything that related to
Speaker 1: our own realization. We brought them in. We consciously and
Speaker 1: verbally brought them a little little space there and uh.
Speaker 1: Then we would go through some breathing, some posture and
Speaker 1: breath and it was the most This is where beauty
Speaker 1: comes in. The men dropped into meditation so deeply. They
Speaker 1: would sit there, and I wish, this is something I
Speaker 1: thought all the time. I wish I could share this
Speaker 1: image with the rest of the world. I would open
Speaker 1: my eyes and I would look at these men sitting here,
Speaker 1: and they would be glowing, and they would be so
Speaker 1: at peace. And here they were in the darkest place
Speaker 1: in the universe, one of the darkest places in the universe,
Speaker 1: and they would be um sending love out, sending love
Speaker 1: out to the people they loved, sending love out to
Speaker 1: the people they had issues with, sending love out to
Speaker 1: their victims, sending love out to all the people that
Speaker 1: they'll ever or never meet, and these men were just
Speaker 1: just these beautiful, beautiful faces of peace. And so meditation
Speaker 1: did become an important part of our daily programs. And
Speaker 1: not only that, but without fail, the entire cell block
Speaker 1: would quiet down. And I'm talking seven twenty guys or
Speaker 1: however many are in there now, but at the time
Speaker 1: it was like seven guys stacked in cells five tiers
Speaker 1: high with this amazing cacophony, and the whole place would
Speaker 1: quiet down. What I found on Death Row is that
Speaker 1: it's the razor's edge of impermanence. Life and death happened
Speaker 1: very regularly on Death Row and there is probably not
Speaker 1: a cell that hasn't had a suicide in it. You know,
Speaker 1: no inmate has control over their life, so at any
Speaker 1: given point in time, they could have their cell torn up,
Speaker 1: they could be taken away for something that they did
Speaker 1: or did not do. I mean, impermanence is lives on
Speaker 1: Death Row, and so so does However, because of that
Speaker 1: kinetic energy, so does the power of transformation. And that's
Speaker 1: what I was trying to harness with these men, was
Speaker 1: the ability to spiritually transform. You guys are standing or
Speaker 1: sitting on the rocket launcher here on Death Row. You know,
Speaker 1: all you can do really is spiritually transformed, and they did.
Speaker 1: Over the years that I worked with the men, both
Speaker 1: Death Row and Mainline. The hunger for transformation that I
Speaker 1: found there far surpassed anything that I ever witnessed in
Speaker 1: Tibetan monasteries in Nepal. And I just saw this incredible
Speaker 1: zest and love for for transformation, for making amends, for
Speaker 1: really looking at their own hurt and how that fueled
Speaker 1: them to hurt others, and this deep hunger to feel
Speaker 1: and heal what they had done in society. So in
Speaker 1: this regard people who have maybe caused you the most
Speaker 1: harm in this bigger picture, or maybe the ones who
Speaker 1: were teaching you the most important lessons for going forward.
Speaker 1: I we didn't talk a lot of out Jarvis and
Speaker 1: his spirituality, but I will say that just just now,
Speaker 1: that he is a profound um human being who embodies
Speaker 1: his Dharma, his his Buddhism is in his blood, bones, marrow, sinews,
Speaker 1: and heart. Nothing comes easy in prison, but then to
Speaker 1: the Buddhist mind, all is a matter of perspective. Following
Speaker 1: is an excerpt from Jarvis's audio book Finding Freedom. How
Speaker 1: death row broke and opened my heart on how he
Speaker 1: managed to improvise amala, a string of Buddhist prayer beads
Speaker 1: with little access to anything, while in solitary confinement in
Speaker 1: San Quentin, taylan all prayer beads. It was past midnight.
Speaker 1: The prison night watchman was making his routine body count
Speaker 1: down the tier when I awakened from a late evening
Speaker 1: snooze with plans to get up and spend the rest
Speaker 1: of the night. During my meditation practice. I pass the
Speaker 1: length to myself for a while, or eight feet of it,
Speaker 1: preparing myself with the repetitions of the Tara prayer. Suddenly,
Speaker 1: I was struck by an idea for a way to
Speaker 1: make my own mala, my own prayer beads which I
Speaker 1: could use to keep track of the repetitions. I spun
Speaker 1: around my cell looking for what I would need. Since
Speaker 1: the very first day of learning this prayer, I wanted
Speaker 1: a mala to help me with my practice. My teacher,
Speaker 1: Rimpoche and other practitioners who came to sin Quentin to
Speaker 1: visit me had often offered to bring me one, but
Speaker 1: prison authorities had denied them permission to do so. I
Speaker 1: gathered a pair of prison issue jeanes, a Sports illustrated
Speaker 1: and a bottle of Thailand all and sat down at
Speaker 1: the front of my cell. I picked and pulled at
Speaker 1: the seams of the jeans until I got hold of
Speaker 1: a good piece of thread. I unraveled more than I
Speaker 1: meant to. Oh, A gaping hole widened down the leg.
Speaker 1: I'll get another pair somehow, I resolved and put the
Speaker 1: thread aside. I opened the Sports illustrated to the middle
Speaker 1: and took out one of the staples. I straightened it
Speaker 1: out and sharpened it on the rough concrete floor beside me.
Speaker 1: I had to be very quiet. If night watchman heard
Speaker 1: these strange scratching sounds, the whole cell block might be
Speaker 1: searched in a panic. Scraping usually meant a weapon was
Speaker 1: being sharpened. For almost an hour, I ground the staple
Speaker 1: on the floor until it was as sharp as a
Speaker 1: sewing needle. Now, I opened the bottle of Thailand aill
Speaker 1: and began the slow process of poking a tiny hole
Speaker 1: in the center of each tablet. There were a hundred
Speaker 1: of them. I had to be as careful as a surgeon.
Speaker 1: First I poked at the surface of the Thailand, and
Speaker 1: then with a screwing motion. I made a hole all
Speaker 1: the way through. Taking the thread from my jeans, I
Speaker 1: passed it through each bead. All through the night, I
Speaker 1: sat cross legged, poking holes and thailand ails and threading
Speaker 1: them together. It was extremely tedious. My eyes blurred with exhaustion,
Speaker 1: my fingers began to get sore. I felt foolish. What
Speaker 1: in the world am I doing, I asked myself, but
Speaker 1: I kept going, determined to finish. Five and a half
Speaker 1: hour later, I held my first mama, made from trouser
Speaker 1: thread and thailer as. I was elated, but when I
Speaker 1: got up to stretch, my head throbbed. I had an
Speaker 1: awful headache. I stood silently at the bars of my cell,
Speaker 1: taking comfort and looking out a window. In the opposite wall.
Speaker 1: A beautiful morning light was speaking in. I wouldn't mind
Speaker 1: a tailing all too, I thought, to stop this pounding
Speaker 1: in my head. I looked down at my hands. Damn,
Speaker 1: I don't have any They're all on this mama. For
Speaker 1: a split second, I thought the unthinkable. My head was
Speaker 1: hurting that much. Then I smiled. I realized that after
Speaker 1: spending all this time making my tailing a mala, all
Speaker 1: I needed to do was to sit my butt back
Speaker 1: down with it and take a few moments no tailing alls,
Speaker 1: to do my spiritual practice. Next week, the social psychologist
Speaker 1: assigned to Jarvis's death penalty case thirty years ago and
Speaker 1: his groundbreaking research, reinforcing the fact the proactive prevention is
Speaker 1: far more effective than reactive punishment when it comes to
Speaker 1: reducing criminal behavior. The audiobook of Finding Freedom, How Death
Speaker 1: Row Broke and Opened My Heart by Jarvis j Masters
Speaker 1: can be found at Shambala dot com or Audible. Will
Speaker 1: link to both sites in our show notes. This episode
Speaker 1: was written and produced by Donni Fazzari and myself, Corny Cole.
Speaker 1: Our theme song sentenced is compliments of the band Stick
Speaker 1: Figure from their album Set in Stone. Stu Sternbott composed
Speaker 1: the original music. Nate Defort did the sound design. For
Speaker 1: more information on Jarvis and to find out how you
Speaker 1: can follow his case and support his cause, please visit
Speaker 1: Free Jarvis dot org. For more podcasts for my Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.