WEBVTT - Black & Buddhist 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:02.840 Dear Governor is a production of I Heart Media and 0:00:02.920 --> 0:00:06.720 three Months Media. If you are moved by Jarvis Masters 0:00:06.760 --> 0:00:09.320 and his thirty years struggle on San Quentin's Death Throw, 0:00:09.600 --> 0:00:12.760 and you'd like to support his cause, please consider signing 0:00:12.760 --> 0:00:16.840 a petition on his behalf. Visit free Jarvis dot org 0:00:17.160 --> 0:00:20.160 slash podcast to sign your name to an open letter 0:00:20.200 --> 0:00:26.120 to California Governor Gavin Newsom, Dear Governor Newsom, Dear Mr 0:00:26.280 --> 0:00:31.640 Governor Newsom. This is an open letter to Governor Gavin Newsom, 0:00:31.640 --> 0:00:45.600 Dear Governor news Public. Though physically confined by as nine 0:00:45.600 --> 0:00:48.960 by four sell for over forty years, Jarvis Masters has 0:00:49.000 --> 0:00:51.680 managed to reach far beyond the thick walls and razor 0:00:51.720 --> 0:00:56.040 wires of San Quentin. Due to his unique perspective, strong opinions, 0:00:56.040 --> 0:00:59.520 and prolific writings, he has become a sought after contributor 0:00:59.600 --> 0:01:04.000 for very a social justice and Buddhist oriented organizations. Recently, 0:01:04.120 --> 0:01:08.959 the Awake Network and Shambala Publications hosted a free online event, 0:01:09.440 --> 0:01:13.880 the Black and Buddhist Summit, that attracted over ten thousand participants. 0:01:14.520 --> 0:01:19.840 Pamela Ioya Tunde, a pastoral counselor, chaplain and co editor 0:01:20.000 --> 0:01:24.760 of Black and Buddhist What Buddhism can teach us about race, resilience, 0:01:24.760 --> 0:01:29.240 transformation and healing. Hosted the summit and invited Jarvis to participate. 0:01:30.360 --> 0:01:34.200 There are so many Buddhists authors out there. Why Jarvis? 0:01:34.200 --> 0:01:37.120 What drew to Jarvis? Yeah? You know, I think I 0:01:37.400 --> 0:01:42.440 first heard about Jarvis when I worked for short period 0:01:42.480 --> 0:01:45.759 time with the National Coalition to a policy death penalty. 0:01:46.480 --> 0:01:49.840 This was back in the late eight days or early nineties. 0:01:50.640 --> 0:01:55.920 And then encountered his writings again when I was in 0:01:55.960 --> 0:02:00.760 the Sati Center for Buddhist Studies chaplaincy program m in 0:02:00.800 --> 0:02:04.720 the early two thousand's. And then as we were thinking 0:02:04.760 --> 0:02:08.640 about what subjects we wanted to address during the summit, 0:02:09.200 --> 0:02:11.200 I said, well, you know the fact that there's so 0:02:11.280 --> 0:02:15.679 many African Americans in prison, and we know that the 0:02:15.960 --> 0:02:20.800 people learn uh to hone their skills, writing skills in prison. 0:02:21.120 --> 0:02:24.799 People often find a new way of life for religion 0:02:24.919 --> 0:02:31.280 or spirituality in prison. There must be African descended Buddhist 0:02:31.360 --> 0:02:34.600 practitioners who were writers in prison, and them boom, you know, 0:02:34.919 --> 0:02:37.440 Jarvis came to mind, and so that's how and so 0:02:37.560 --> 0:02:41.840 we reached out through you. Yeah, he he is a 0:02:42.680 --> 0:02:46.679 he's a prolific writer and thinker for sure. I remember 0:02:46.720 --> 0:02:50.760 I was in a Buddhist gathering and I was talking 0:02:50.800 --> 0:02:53.040 with someone and we're talking about, oh, you know, the 0:02:53.080 --> 0:02:55.600 Black and Buddhist Some of that was so wonderful. And 0:02:55.800 --> 0:03:03.040 this person very slowly raised up her copy of Finding 0:03:03.160 --> 0:03:08.880 Freedom and held it like this, and then slowly brought 0:03:08.919 --> 0:03:14.640 it down and just said, Wow, that was some of 0:03:14.680 --> 0:03:20.840 the most significant dharma teaching I have ever received. And 0:03:20.919 --> 0:03:26.200 this person is a dharma teacher. Yeah. I think now 0:03:26.280 --> 0:03:30.000 more than ever in my life anyway, thanks to the 0:03:30.000 --> 0:03:35.440 work of Brian Stevenson and others, that people are accepting 0:03:35.480 --> 0:03:40.000 the fact that there have been many people wrongly accused, 0:03:40.880 --> 0:03:46.400 many people spending decades behind bars for something they didn't do. 0:03:47.400 --> 0:03:50.400 And so maybe that's on the other side of society 0:03:50.440 --> 0:03:54.000 becoming more violent, we're also waking up to the injustices 0:03:54.600 --> 0:03:58.080 of our criminal justice system, and maybe there's a little 0:03:58.080 --> 0:04:04.160 more grace around that. Following is the full conversation that 0:04:04.240 --> 0:04:06.760 Jarvis and I had, which was streamed during the Black 0:04:06.760 --> 0:04:09.640 and Buddhist Summit, in which he shares his thoughts about 0:04:09.680 --> 0:04:12.280 how Buddhism plays an important role in the lives of 0:04:12.320 --> 0:04:17.120 black Americans who are or have been incarcerated. I am 0:04:17.320 --> 0:04:22.800 Jarvis Masters. I've been in San Quentin for close to 0:04:22.880 --> 0:04:27.760 forty years. A few months short of that. I became 0:04:27.760 --> 0:04:33.200 a Buddhist in nineteen one, I think her two. I've 0:04:33.279 --> 0:04:38.000 written two books, one Finding Freedom and the other is 0:04:38.040 --> 0:04:43.000 That Bird Has My Wings. I have various teachers, and 0:04:43.040 --> 0:04:46.680 all my teachers have given me the benefit of their 0:04:47.440 --> 0:04:51.359 experience in the last thirty years, and I've been using 0:04:51.360 --> 0:04:56.080 those experiences in prison as much as they fit the 0:04:56.200 --> 0:05:00.800 circumstances that we live in. How did you get introduced 0:05:00.839 --> 0:05:04.160 to Buddhism back in or ninety How did you find it? 0:05:05.800 --> 0:05:09.440 I was waiting to see if I was going to 0:05:09.520 --> 0:05:13.839 receive the death sentence for the death of a sergeant, 0:05:13.880 --> 0:05:20.520 Sergeant Burstfield, and said Quentin. That occurred in and my 0:05:20.680 --> 0:05:26.039 friend and teacher, one of my teachers, Melo D. Armor 0:05:26.160 --> 0:05:29.280 Child thought, because I was down there and the holding 0:05:29.400 --> 0:05:33.400 think that I might want to read a magazine that 0:05:33.520 --> 0:05:36.800 was familiar to her. And it was called Inquiring Mind, 0:05:37.920 --> 0:05:43.359 An Insight, Inquiring Mind. They had this little clip and 0:05:44.279 --> 0:05:47.080 it said free book. In the name of the book 0:05:47.200 --> 0:05:51.200 was Life and Relationship to Death. And I sat there 0:05:51.480 --> 0:05:54.920 and read it for almost a week. Why my why 0:05:55.040 --> 0:05:59.719 the jurys and deliberation, and I just thought, hey, you know, 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:02.919 let me try this, you know, life and relationship to death. 0:06:03.640 --> 0:06:07.640 You know, it was where I was. You know, I 0:06:07.680 --> 0:06:12.039 wasn't there because because of my trial. I was there. 0:06:12.520 --> 0:06:16.760 I realized that name because of my whole life history, 0:06:17.120 --> 0:06:20.839 and I took heart to that, and eventually I got 0:06:20.880 --> 0:06:23.000 a free copy of the book and I wrote to 0:06:23.120 --> 0:06:29.120 thank them, and a woman named Lisa Leghorn responded and 0:06:29.200 --> 0:06:33.480 we created a correspondence and at some point I realized 0:06:33.560 --> 0:06:36.960 she was a senior student of who is now my 0:06:37.120 --> 0:06:42.159 teacher took to representate and eventually he, you know, he 0:06:42.320 --> 0:06:46.279 came down to visit me a few times, and at 0:06:46.400 --> 0:06:51.040 some point I was giving the empowerment. It's a ceremony 0:06:51.920 --> 0:06:56.160 that was just basically to introduce me to Rogeriana Buddhism. 0:06:57.160 --> 0:07:00.359 And I became a student of that practice US and 0:07:00.400 --> 0:07:04.880 I was giving a practice called the Red Tar practice. 0:07:05.880 --> 0:07:10.440 And I thought that practice, as I began to sit 0:07:10.600 --> 0:07:14.160 with it, was a very clear, honest way of opening 0:07:14.200 --> 0:07:20.000 me up to see where freedom really is. What is 0:07:20.040 --> 0:07:25.160 the practice? Retire practice is a guide, a way of 0:07:25.600 --> 0:07:30.000 opening the door of confronting our suffering and suffering of 0:07:30.200 --> 0:07:34.160 all beings. And it's a prayer that allows us to 0:07:35.240 --> 0:07:39.200 you know, work on that, work on opening many many 0:07:39.280 --> 0:07:42.120 doors that has been locked. There were a locked for me, 0:07:42.520 --> 0:07:45.400 particularly because there was a lot of things I was denial. 0:07:46.200 --> 0:07:48.520 There was a lot of things that I'd impaired attention 0:07:48.560 --> 0:07:52.840 to that my life gave some purpose floor and I 0:07:53.000 --> 0:07:57.920 really really got into it. I I thought it as 0:07:57.200 --> 0:08:01.000 a perfect guy for where I was in my life. 0:08:02.040 --> 0:08:06.960 Why what what was it about Buddhism in particular that 0:08:07.160 --> 0:08:12.720 drew you in? Oh, it was the opening gate. It 0:08:12.840 --> 0:08:15.040 opened a lot of doors. It opened a lot of 0:08:15.080 --> 0:08:18.640 gates for me to sit with. It was a practice 0:08:18.760 --> 0:08:23.000 what you know, that had meditation, a lot of meditation. 0:08:23.080 --> 0:08:27.160 It was a practice that that dealt with me and 0:08:27.200 --> 0:08:29.960 the suffering that I was dealing with, you know, the 0:08:30.080 --> 0:08:33.120 human suffering that I was dealing with. Let's call and 0:08:33.240 --> 0:08:37.280 your telephone numbers will be monitored and recorded. And it 0:08:37.440 --> 0:08:41.400 taught me how to begin the process of dissolving those 0:08:41.600 --> 0:08:44.920 those things, those obstacles that has been in my life. 0:08:46.120 --> 0:08:49.920 There was that life Jarvis, like when you first meditated, 0:08:50.360 --> 0:08:53.880 So you're you're sitting there and you're waiting to hear 0:08:53.920 --> 0:08:58.760 the verdict back on the death sentence. Walk us through 0:08:59.000 --> 0:09:02.800 your oriens with meditation. Wasn't frustrating at first? Did you 0:09:02.880 --> 0:09:05.920 take to it like a fish to water? Now? I 0:09:06.040 --> 0:09:09.040 just I just learned how to sit down and and 0:09:09.280 --> 0:09:12.280 to probably the opposite. I just sit down and started 0:09:12.360 --> 0:09:15.720 thinking that was a good thing for me, because I 0:09:15.760 --> 0:09:18.000 had to learn how to sit down first. Before I 0:09:18.160 --> 0:09:21.760 learned how to meditate. I was a very angry person 0:09:22.000 --> 0:09:26.640 and I didn't particularly things. Sitting down was you know, 0:09:26.760 --> 0:09:29.360 fulfilling for me at that time. So I just had 0:09:29.400 --> 0:09:32.320 to learn how to sit down and sit down with me, 0:09:32.600 --> 0:09:35.760 you know. And that took a while. You know, there 0:09:35.840 --> 0:09:37.920 was a lot of times where I was bored with it, 0:09:37.960 --> 0:09:41.280 but I made a commitment to myself. I just sit there, 0:09:41.640 --> 0:09:45.560 and things start opening up. Gates started opening up, windows 0:09:45.600 --> 0:09:49.920 start becoming with more fresh air than I had ever 0:09:50.000 --> 0:09:53.520 felt before. And that was a beautiful time for me, 0:09:53.600 --> 0:09:58.080 It really was. And I was dealing with san Quentin, 0:09:58.240 --> 0:10:00.679 and I was dealing with death role, and I was 0:10:00.760 --> 0:10:03.800 dealing with how did I get to this point in 0:10:03.840 --> 0:10:08.200 my life? And I started realizing that we all suffered 0:10:08.240 --> 0:10:11.920 to some degree or another and that I was not alone. 0:10:13.320 --> 0:10:15.520 And one of the things my teacher, one of my 0:10:15.559 --> 0:10:18.840 teachers taught me was that you know, you're not the 0:10:18.880 --> 0:10:22.920 worst case. You know, uh, there's many people who have 0:10:23.160 --> 0:10:27.000 far more worse problems than you. And that was a 0:10:27.280 --> 0:10:30.720 that was a guiding light for me to not think 0:10:30.760 --> 0:10:34.079 of me for me, but just think of all beings 0:10:34.679 --> 0:10:37.920 and all people who suffered way more than I do. 0:10:39.200 --> 0:10:43.480 And I really felt a companionship with that. You know, 0:10:44.080 --> 0:10:46.600 was it difficult at first? I mean, did you have 0:10:46.640 --> 0:10:50.120 any resentment? Because to tell you that there are people 0:10:50.200 --> 0:10:53.199 worse off than you here you are potentially on death row? 0:10:54.200 --> 0:10:58.120 How did that sit with you? I learned Buddhism pretty 0:10:58.200 --> 0:11:02.360 much at the feet of my teacher, so I was 0:11:02.520 --> 0:11:06.600 really really guided, very I was very trained. I had 0:11:06.640 --> 0:11:11.920 the benefit of really really having a songa a community, 0:11:12.160 --> 0:11:15.480 and I had members of that community visit me often, 0:11:16.200 --> 0:11:20.640 so I never went outside what I was trained to 0:11:20.679 --> 0:11:26.360 sit with. Well, the difficult I think it was not 0:11:28.040 --> 0:11:33.400 in retrospect. Wasn't boring, of course that was yes, it 0:11:33.520 --> 0:11:37.600 was born at very boring for me. I just had 0:11:37.760 --> 0:11:42.280 the benefit of having teachers all around me my age 0:11:42.400 --> 0:11:46.160 older than me, folks who have been into Buddhism twenty 0:11:46.240 --> 0:11:50.160 years before I had. And these people really really trained 0:11:50.480 --> 0:11:54.520 trained me, taught me a lot. But more than that, 0:11:54.600 --> 0:11:58.800 they taught me how to teach myself, and that was 0:11:58.880 --> 0:12:03.080 something I never really really had the ability to learn 0:12:03.080 --> 0:12:07.840 how to teach myself. You can find all kinds of teachers, 0:12:07.880 --> 0:12:10.720 you know, and all kinds of teachers want you to 0:12:10.800 --> 0:12:15.040 think like they do, aren't practice like they do. In 0:12:15.200 --> 0:12:18.240 my community taught me how to think for myself, taught 0:12:18.280 --> 0:12:22.960 me how to become my own practitioners because they recognized 0:12:23.040 --> 0:12:25.800 that I was on sad Qui death row and for 0:12:25.960 --> 0:12:29.440 many them, they couldn't even fathom the thought of being 0:12:29.600 --> 0:12:34.720 physically on death row. For them, they thought, wow, he's 0:12:34.800 --> 0:12:39.840 really he really is suffering. He is in that sea 0:12:39.920 --> 0:12:44.080 of suffering. He is face and death, real death. And 0:12:45.720 --> 0:12:47.920 they made me realize that. But they also made me 0:12:47.960 --> 0:12:50.960 realize that that is nothing close to me in the 0:12:51.120 --> 0:12:54.240 end of who I was, you know, it was the 0:12:54.280 --> 0:12:59.080 beginning of who I became. Um, I just had the 0:12:59.240 --> 0:13:15.600 opportunity to have some serious people around me, so you 0:13:15.679 --> 0:13:18.520 learned the first step was to learn to sit with yourself. 0:13:19.200 --> 0:13:22.120 Can you describe what that looked like, I assumed you 0:13:22.240 --> 0:13:25.680 sat in your mind by four sell and just sat 0:13:25.720 --> 0:13:29.400 on the ground. Just said on the ground. I mean, 0:13:29.400 --> 0:13:31.839 I didn't want to sit on no cushions. I wanted 0:13:31.880 --> 0:13:34.400 to sit on the ground because I really wanted to 0:13:34.600 --> 0:13:38.480 feel what my body was going through, you know, I 0:13:38.559 --> 0:13:42.320 really wanted to feel that sense of suffering. I didn't 0:13:42.320 --> 0:13:45.480 want to make this place comfortable, and I was determined 0:13:45.520 --> 0:13:48.920 not to do that. I was determined not to hide behind, 0:13:50.240 --> 0:13:54.040 you know, being a Buddhist and having a Buddhist community, 0:13:54.480 --> 0:13:58.160 asked my way of getting through all the doors that 0:13:58.240 --> 0:14:03.120 I needed to. At point, did sitting with yourself evolved 0:14:03.160 --> 0:14:06.920 into a meditation practice? And what did that look like? Well, 0:14:06.960 --> 0:14:09.480 I thought, I thought. One of the reason, and this 0:14:09.559 --> 0:14:13.200 is in retrospect, because this happened, you know, thirty years ago. 0:14:13.880 --> 0:14:17.520 So um, I think I was trying to ground out 0:14:17.559 --> 0:14:24.200 the noise that became my my sense of refuge. I 0:14:24.240 --> 0:14:27.040 was really trying to ground out the noise because San 0:14:27.160 --> 0:14:30.720 Quentin is a very, very very loud place. So I 0:14:30.760 --> 0:14:34.480 was trying to ground out the noise. And a lot 0:14:34.520 --> 0:14:42.120 of things came to mind that one practitioner, another friend 0:14:42.240 --> 0:14:45.120 had said to me and I said with that, you know, 0:14:45.520 --> 0:14:48.720 just out of curiosity, you know. And then I started 0:14:48.760 --> 0:14:54.960 getting some guidance about meditation, you know, and those particular 0:14:56.240 --> 0:15:01.440 instructions that's called andrew our telephone numbers be monitored and recorded. 0:15:02.120 --> 0:15:06.160 A lot you had sixty seconds remaining. Excuse me, A 0:15:06.200 --> 0:15:09.240 lot of them did not fit saying quickly. So I 0:15:09.240 --> 0:15:12.040 have to figure out a way to make my practice 0:15:12.120 --> 0:15:16.520 fit the conditions that I was living in. And that 0:15:16.760 --> 0:15:21.480 gave me a lot of room to explore too, come 0:15:21.560 --> 0:15:26.160 with a genuine heart, but to explore how do you 0:15:26.200 --> 0:15:29.720 get along with people being a Buddhist, I mean you 0:15:29.840 --> 0:15:32.600 being a Buddhist no one else, you know, because hand 0:15:33.120 --> 0:15:35.840 there was very few Buddhists. So I had to figure 0:15:35.840 --> 0:15:38.680 out how to do that, you know, and that became 0:15:38.800 --> 0:15:41.280 sort of like a practice. You know. You can have 0:15:41.440 --> 0:15:45.120 your meditation practice, and you can have your sitting, and 0:15:45.200 --> 0:15:49.520 you can have your instruction. But c Quentin gave me 0:15:49.600 --> 0:15:53.320 a new way of thinking about Buddhism. Yeah, it gave 0:15:53.400 --> 0:15:55.680 me a new way of thinking about Buddhism. Because I 0:15:55.760 --> 0:16:01.160 was feeling pressure on one end, the inmates, them, the guards, 0:16:01.360 --> 0:16:06.000 because I had, as I said, was on the crime scene. 0:16:06.640 --> 0:16:12.040 You know, I the murder death, the sergeant burst feel 0:16:12.120 --> 0:16:16.240 happened on San Quentin and now I'm on San Quentin's 0:16:16.600 --> 0:16:20.760 And there was a lot of hatred from the guards, 0:16:21.280 --> 0:16:23.960 and there was a lot of a lot of people 0:16:24.000 --> 0:16:27.200 thinking that I was running away from being who I 0:16:27.240 --> 0:16:32.560 was by accepting the idea of using my time to meditate. 0:16:32.880 --> 0:16:36.080 So I had sort of like wall to wall enemy, 0:16:36.200 --> 0:16:39.800 so to speak. So I had to figure out what 0:16:39.920 --> 0:16:41.760 was I going to do if I was going to 0:16:41.920 --> 0:16:45.880 stay with this practice, that mean I'm not going to sugarcoat. 0:16:45.960 --> 0:16:49.480 It was very, very hard and a difficult process, but 0:16:49.680 --> 0:16:54.680 one then I thought, really really open doors for me, 0:16:55.480 --> 0:17:00.200 open many doors for me. As an example, for the 0:17:00.240 --> 0:17:03.760 first to maybe three years maybe five years that I 0:17:03.920 --> 0:17:08.520 became a practitioner, all I was learning from san Quentin 0:17:08.680 --> 0:17:11.719 is what not to do. I never felt like I 0:17:11.840 --> 0:17:15.639 was being inspired to learn what to do. What do 0:17:15.640 --> 0:17:18.840 you mean learning what not to do? Well? I get 0:17:19.040 --> 0:17:22.120 I see guys yelling disagreement at guards, and I said, wow, 0:17:22.280 --> 0:17:24.600 this is what I look when I do that. You know, 0:17:25.320 --> 0:17:27.720 I see guards, you know, in a lot of pain 0:17:27.840 --> 0:17:30.440 and suffering, and I said, wow, this guard may be 0:17:30.600 --> 0:17:35.560 going home to his son. I would see violence and 0:17:35.640 --> 0:17:40.440 I say, wow, you know, how can I participate in compassion? 0:17:41.240 --> 0:17:44.679 You know. So it was those kind of experiences that 0:17:44.760 --> 0:17:49.080 I was constantly learning, you know. And as I figured 0:17:49.080 --> 0:17:51.760 my way through these things, people start calling me a 0:17:51.800 --> 0:17:55.520 real serious practitioner, and I never took serious to that. 0:17:55.800 --> 0:17:59.760 What my whole trip was is to find the gates. 0:18:00.000 --> 0:18:02.720 That was just gonna open me up to understanding what 0:18:02.840 --> 0:18:08.879 compassion and how compassionate works inside a prison system. M 0:18:10.920 --> 0:18:14.000 And it was hard. It was hard. It was very hard, 0:18:14.160 --> 0:18:17.520 you know. I was confronted with a lot of violence. 0:18:17.760 --> 0:18:24.520 I was in the shoe unit, security housing unit, and yeah, yeah, 0:18:24.880 --> 0:18:28.399 they put long words to it to deny what it is. 0:18:29.440 --> 0:18:32.919 And a lot of people were in there for serious things, 0:18:33.040 --> 0:18:38.600 you know, murder, The saw serious stuff, you know. And 0:18:38.720 --> 0:18:41.399 one of the things that broke me through because I 0:18:41.520 --> 0:18:45.840 keep talking about opening gates and opening doors. What's the 0:18:45.880 --> 0:18:50.040 first story I wrote called scars And this is a 0:18:50.840 --> 0:18:55.119 if you're refinding freedom story about inmates. And I noticed 0:18:55.160 --> 0:18:58.320 the scars and whips on their back and I've never 0:18:58.359 --> 0:19:01.159 seen those before, but I had my own, you know, 0:19:02.720 --> 0:19:07.440 because they were popping iron lifting weights in the middle 0:19:07.480 --> 0:19:10.919 of this hot sun they just stuck out, you know. 0:19:11.080 --> 0:19:14.240 They were whips. They were not just scars. They were 0:19:14.440 --> 0:19:18.800 serious whips. And I just had to figure out, why 0:19:18.840 --> 0:19:21.159 did the hell did you get these things? You know? 0:19:22.560 --> 0:19:25.280 And they all told me. But what got me more 0:19:25.359 --> 0:19:32.240 than anything, more than the story, was the expression they 0:19:32.359 --> 0:19:37.200 gave to the story. It was like a proud thing 0:19:37.440 --> 0:19:41.160 to have these scars and whips. It was to say 0:19:41.240 --> 0:19:45.760 that I did that been there before. And I realized 0:19:45.800 --> 0:19:50.040 I had my own. I had my own. And I 0:19:50.119 --> 0:19:55.800 looked at my my hand where I remember the councilors 0:19:56.200 --> 0:19:58.520 made us compete while I was a jew a now 0:19:59.160 --> 0:20:02.040 and they will put the s agree between our two thumbs, 0:20:02.080 --> 0:20:05.800 and they waited to see who could stay there the longest. 0:20:06.280 --> 0:20:09.520 I forgot about that, you know, But then when I 0:20:09.560 --> 0:20:11.879 looked around, I started seeing that. I went to my 0:20:11.960 --> 0:20:15.000 cell and I realized that I have the same thing. 0:20:15.600 --> 0:20:18.320 Let's call and to our telephone number. They'll be monitored 0:20:18.359 --> 0:20:21.199 and recorded. And you know, when I felt like I 0:20:21.240 --> 0:20:24.480 had the same thing, I felt an opportunity to write 0:20:24.520 --> 0:20:28.200 about the same thing. And I wrote the story the scars, 0:20:29.320 --> 0:20:37.800 and somehow the inmates, the prisoners and convicts got a 0:20:37.880 --> 0:20:40.639 hold of that story. I can't remember if I shared 0:20:40.680 --> 0:20:45.439 it with them. Are they just found it somewhere? And 0:20:45.480 --> 0:20:48.640 at first I said, oh my god, what the fund 0:20:48.760 --> 0:20:52.600 did I do here? And I was surprised to realize 0:20:52.680 --> 0:20:57.720 they all accepted that story as the true story of 0:20:57.840 --> 0:21:02.800 their life history. It would told from someone who have 0:21:03.080 --> 0:21:07.600 that own history, and there's just a spirit an acceptance 0:21:07.640 --> 0:21:11.040 to it, you know, by just using certain words, and 0:21:11.359 --> 0:21:15.400 you know, instead of using abuse and neglect and all 0:21:15.440 --> 0:21:18.800 these things, there's other words for it, you know. So 0:21:18.840 --> 0:21:21.600 I understood that the language would be able to give 0:21:21.600 --> 0:21:25.119 me a whole lot of access to people. And like 0:21:25.480 --> 0:21:28.200 you know the trade or you know, you know well 0:21:28.280 --> 0:21:31.160 that will learn all the words that tells you how 0:21:31.200 --> 0:21:33.520 the well. And I had to figure out what was 0:21:33.600 --> 0:21:38.560 the voice of saying Quentin deathro And that's been a 0:21:38.600 --> 0:21:42.080 practice for me ever since. It's not just you learn 0:21:42.119 --> 0:21:44.879 it and you forget about it. It's a it's a 0:21:45.000 --> 0:21:48.240 day to day practice. You were out on the yard 0:21:48.280 --> 0:21:51.800 and you saw these guys and they all had similar 0:21:51.800 --> 0:21:56.439 scars and similar life stories. You had the language of 0:21:56.480 --> 0:22:01.560 Buddhism to deal with that history. Did you share that 0:22:01.640 --> 0:22:03.880 with the guys that were out there? Were there other 0:22:03.880 --> 0:22:06.600 guys out there that were Buddhist practitioners, and they look 0:22:06.640 --> 0:22:09.399 at you like you were strange that you have this. 0:22:10.000 --> 0:22:14.399 I had never known a Buddhist practitioner on those yards 0:22:14.720 --> 0:22:18.320 back then. I've known people who would meditate, you know, 0:22:18.400 --> 0:22:22.560 but I never knew them take the practitioner acceptance in 0:22:22.640 --> 0:22:27.840 parliament ceremonies and you know the others as a way 0:22:27.920 --> 0:22:32.359 of changing their whole life cycle. It was just me 0:22:33.560 --> 0:22:37.439 jive talking talking, you know, directly to their stars and 0:22:37.800 --> 0:22:42.240 directly to all of our egos. And there was something 0:22:42.280 --> 0:22:46.680 that I looked at and realized I found the permission 0:22:46.760 --> 0:22:51.520 to write about prison in Buddhism. It was something that 0:22:51.560 --> 0:22:56.680 I really really began to realize my purpose, My purpose 0:22:56.760 --> 0:23:01.680 for being here is to be more of an engage Buddhists, 0:23:01.960 --> 0:23:05.800 not so much on the academic side, but more so 0:23:06.760 --> 0:23:11.360 as a practitioner, as someone who's engaged in kind of 0:23:11.400 --> 0:23:15.200 find the joy and happiness within. You know, each of us, 0:23:15.320 --> 0:23:18.440 you know, and you know family does. Writing to family, 0:23:18.480 --> 0:23:21.919 writing to our nephews and our sons and kids was 0:23:22.840 --> 0:23:25.600 a real experience, and I thought a lot of us 0:23:25.680 --> 0:23:31.280 didn't realize how fortunate we were. And I need to 0:23:31.320 --> 0:23:33.959 say this also, I was one of the first people 0:23:35.280 --> 0:23:40.199 who dealt with me. I dealt with me, and the 0:23:40.280 --> 0:23:43.119 only way I could have this is in retrospect. The 0:23:43.160 --> 0:23:45.800 only way I could have done what I was doing 0:23:46.000 --> 0:23:49.240 was I had to learn how to accept it for 0:23:49.760 --> 0:23:54.080 myself too, And that was the heart of my practice. 0:23:54.200 --> 0:23:57.600 That's when I was taught trained to practice from and 0:23:58.840 --> 0:24:02.240 I had here's to sit with, you know, and I 0:24:02.280 --> 0:24:17.840 sit with those years now. You talked about your ego 0:24:18.280 --> 0:24:21.360 and when you came into prison, this is five ten 0:24:21.440 --> 0:24:26.840 years prior to Sergeant Birksfield being murdered. You admitted to 0:24:26.920 --> 0:24:32.040 being angry and bitter and frustrated based on the life 0:24:32.080 --> 0:24:37.040 that you had been handed. How did Buddhism fundamentally change 0:24:37.600 --> 0:24:43.080 you and how you dealt with your own ego? Um, 0:24:43.119 --> 0:24:47.480 I remember going to trial and let's call and to 0:24:47.520 --> 0:24:51.240 our telephone numbers will be monitored and recorded. This is 0:24:51.320 --> 0:24:53.320 just one way it could be in other ways. What 0:24:53.480 --> 0:24:56.160 stands out for me? You know, I learned how to cry, 0:24:56.800 --> 0:25:00.200 you know, I've never did. I learned how to here 0:25:00.280 --> 0:25:03.560 the tears and other people's speech in their language. So 0:25:03.640 --> 0:25:05.840 on come up to me and says, my mother just died, 0:25:06.200 --> 0:25:08.000 But it ain't no thing, you know. I had a 0:25:08.080 --> 0:25:10.679 lot of years with her, you know, No you didn't, 0:25:11.280 --> 0:25:14.640 you know, because you're living with her now. And I 0:25:14.680 --> 0:25:17.119 was able to learn how to express that and have 0:25:17.240 --> 0:25:20.320 the respect us telling that, saying that, and then I 0:25:20.320 --> 0:25:23.000 felt with you know what, I felt responsible for all 0:25:23.119 --> 0:25:26.520 this stuff. Now, what I was learning was teaching me 0:25:26.560 --> 0:25:32.280 how to become a serious practitioner without understanding that. That's 0:25:32.320 --> 0:25:36.960 where I was heading. When you started investigating Buddhism and 0:25:37.200 --> 0:25:41.040 the practice of it, were their resources outside of what 0:25:41.400 --> 0:25:44.760 melody irma child gave you. Because it's just thirty years ago. 0:25:44.960 --> 0:25:47.960 So was there a Buddhist chaplin there that could help 0:25:48.040 --> 0:25:52.600 you learn? There was no such thing as a Buddhist teacher. 0:25:52.880 --> 0:25:55.919 And saying Quentin, you know, religion and San Quentin and 0:25:56.040 --> 0:26:03.240 I think it's probably another prison too, is very territorial. Catholicism, Islam, 0:26:03.480 --> 0:26:08.919 these faiths, you know, our well established will inside the 0:26:08.960 --> 0:26:12.679 prison system. Buddhism was like, where is this going? You know, 0:26:13.280 --> 0:26:15.639 is this a real religion? We're not going to allow 0:26:15.680 --> 0:26:19.680 you to practice this in a formal setting because it's not. 0:26:20.280 --> 0:26:23.400 If they don't fit the bill of being a real religion, 0:26:23.520 --> 0:26:26.280 they didn't recognize that. They didn't acknowledge it. They didn't 0:26:26.280 --> 0:26:29.639 do any of those things. A good example it would 0:26:29.680 --> 0:26:34.680 be when I had my empowerment ceremony, when my teacher 0:26:34.920 --> 0:26:39.200 representate came to give me my power and ceremony, they 0:26:39.320 --> 0:26:43.919 kept me behind a glass window. All the rituals and 0:26:44.000 --> 0:26:46.280 all the little things that you would need to go 0:26:46.440 --> 0:26:49.800 through it in power ceremony, we're not given to us. 0:26:50.400 --> 0:26:53.399 They didn't acknowledge that. But now if I wanted to 0:26:53.440 --> 0:26:57.320 get baptized, they escort you right outside the prison and 0:26:57.440 --> 0:27:01.760 right out the adjustment center and you'll go be bathtime somewhere. 0:27:02.119 --> 0:27:04.960 But you know what, I did not mind those things. 0:27:05.080 --> 0:27:08.720 I wasn't smart enough or I didn't take my practice 0:27:08.800 --> 0:27:13.640 serious enough to see the discrimination in that. And one 0:27:13.640 --> 0:27:16.200 of the reasons why I didn't do that because refreshe 0:27:16.320 --> 0:27:19.720 didn't give me no excuse. He wouldn't allow no excuse, 0:27:20.480 --> 0:27:23.000 so I didn't. I just gave up on you know, 0:27:23.080 --> 0:27:26.919 whatever frustrations I had with that, you wasting time? You 0:27:26.960 --> 0:27:29.840 know his attitude was you wasting time? How did the 0:27:29.840 --> 0:27:34.199 guys with you on the East block take to the 0:27:34.200 --> 0:27:38.000 fact that you were you like a Buddhist elder to 0:27:38.080 --> 0:27:41.320 them or did they find did they accept you for 0:27:41.359 --> 0:27:44.520 who you were? They have this saying, and I may 0:27:44.560 --> 0:27:47.280 have interpreted the wrong way, so forgive me if I have. 0:27:48.119 --> 0:27:51.679 But I always heard that term kill the Buddha, you know, 0:27:52.560 --> 0:27:55.000