Thursday, April 26, 2018

Buddhist Prison Chaplain

"I am a Buddhist prison chaplain. My sanghas are in prison and the people I minister to are primarily Maximum Security, Level 4 prisoners, located in Northern California. I have found prison to be a prime place to practice Dharma, both for myself and for the sangha members I have had the good fortune to count as my spiritual friends -- teachers even.
Recently I have been providing spiritual advice to one particular prisoner, Eddie (his real name), whose story I want to offer here with his permission. Eddie wants his relationship to the Dharma told, so that readers understand the connection between his Dharma practice, the harm he caused, and his subsequent efforts to address his actions. Out of respect for his victim’s family, Eddie’s last name will not be revealed.
Eddie is Filipino and at sixteen years old, was an active gang member in his Los Angeles neighborhood. He apparently had a difficult home situation, as is the case with most of the men I have met who are in prison for a variety of crimes. Since I spend most of my time in Level 4 prisons, criminals I work with have usually committed violent offenses such as murder and rape. Inmates often come from families comprised of an absent father and a mother who is overwhelmed with supporting her large brood. Sometimes there are no family members involved at all. Young men are left to raise themselves. It’s an old story that we hear time and time again. When there is little supervision or guidance, young people look to neighborhood gangs for validation. They yearn to be a “somebody” — someone that is respected, connected with a community, and cared for. They want to be part of a group where they feel “safe.” Eddie was a product of that family environment and longing for connection. Unfortunately his longing for validation backfired.
I don’t know the circumstances of why Eddie murdered his victim. Eddie didn’t go into detail about his situation and I never prisoners more than they wish to share. But he did say, as a gang member, he killed a rival gang member. He was sixteen. Eddie was arrested soon after the murder, went to trial, and received a life sentence.
I also don’t know exactly when Eddie realized the full scope of what he had done. At some point while incarcerated, he shed the self that was a gang member. Perhaps that happened at his first court appearance, but probably not. No one who has committed a crime that will send them to prison for life seems to understand the enormity of what they have done until they actually walk down a prison corridor and hear for the first time the clanking of heavy steel doors as they are escorted to their cells. Eddie never told me the exact time when he “woke up” to the immense harm he caused when he did the gang’s bidding, but perhaps his awakening was a lengthy self-realization process or perhaps he woke up suddenly, as from a nightmare.
What I do know is that he absorbed deeply the enormity of his actions. With that realization, he made an agreement with himself -- he would absolve himself of this crime. He would live the life his victim would have lived. His victim was a Buddhist practitioner, so Eddie read all he could on Buddhism and tried practicing on his own. When he came to the prison where I hold Buddhist services, he eagerly joined our group, although it was two years before he asked if he could speak to me privately about his concern for his own karma and his wish for forgiveness.
Eddie is now 36 years old. He is not only a faithful Buddhist practitioner, coming regularly to our sangha, he also has a prison job. Men in prison have to either work at a job in prison (they actually ‘run’ the prison with their labor), or have to be enrolled at school. Working earns them perhaps $1 a day, but I’m not sure. It varies according to the job, with firefighters earning the most. It’s not much. I believe Eddie is a kitchen worker. Eddie gives the small amount he earns at his job to the temple his victim attended. He even wrote a letter to the temple explaining why he was offering dana, going into great detail about who he is and who his victim was. He once gave me a copy of the letter he sent along with his first donation. I pondered, “How can this be the same person who took a life? How did he, on his own, transpose a murdering gang member into this caring person who is committed to a life of integrity?” The prison environment certainly does not support this sort of self-reflection, in fact, prison can be dangerous. I remain mystified by Eddie’s transformation.
Eddie, until very recently, accepted that he would spend his life in prison. However, a new law took effect a few years ago that gave him hope. California SB 260 states that juveniles who commit crimes and are given life sentences will now be considered for parole after serving a certain number of years. Eddie, who committed his crime when he was sixteen, falls into this category.
When I met with Eddie privately, he excitedly claimed he never thought he would be released, but now there is an excellent chance he would be. “Funny,” he mused, “When I decided to dedicate my life to my victim, I wanted to live his life for him. That’s why I became a Buddhist and this practice has also been the best thing I could do for myself. I’m so much happier and I feel so free!” Despite his feeling of freedom, there remains one obstacle that causes him mental consternation -- the family of the victim will not forgive him. Eddie asked me what he could do to eliminate the endless mental rumination regarding their unwillingness to understand that he is no longer the boy who murdered their loved one. He knows they will appear at his parole hearing and will request that the board never release him. I told him on that front that he should not be concerned because his own rehabilitative actions will speak for him. I will too.
The concern for being forgiven is not unusual. Other imprisoned men and women often express the same sentiment. Many have committed to following the Buddhist Five Training Precepts as a guide for living a virtuous life. They are committed to the training of 1) not killing or harming living beings, 2) taking only what is freely given, 3) abstaining from sexual misconduct, 4) speaking truthfully, and 5) abstaining from intoxicants that lead to headlessness. We emphasize the precepts in prison as they are a valuable method for monitoring behavior that could cause harm to oneself and others. Yet the precepts do not address forgiveness which so many incarcerated people are desperate to receive.
I met with Eddie one evening a few months ago to discuss his yearning for forgiveness, and did my best to explain the Buddhist teachings on the subject. I told him at a retreat I attended that I had asked Buddhist scholar/monk Bhikkhu Analayo and my teacher Gil Fronsdal this question. They both stated unequivocally that forgiveness is a Christian doctrine. In Buddhism, there is no all-seeing deity who can forgive, and since we are all owners of our own karma, no one can forgive another of their actions. We cannot change others karma or how they respond to any situation. This is the reason for the emphasis on the present moment — it is where we have a choice in directing our own karma. As one Zen teacher responded when asked “What is Enlightenment?” he responded “An appropriate response.”
Eddie had done all he could to mitigate the harm he had caused. He could never undo his crime, but he long ago rid himself of the person that had committed the crime. The good news in Buddhism is that we are not defined by the worst thing we have ever done. As long as we acknowledge the harm caused, the emotions that perpetuated the act, substitute those emotions with skillful mind states, vow to never repeat that action and if appropriate, express remorse to our victim, we have corrected our course. Eddie had done all of this.
Eddie’s victim’s family has their own karma with which to contend. They had a horrible act perpetuated upon them. Their suffering must be immense. If they wish to see Eddie as a murderer who will never change, and believe that to honor their loved they must withhold the possibility of forgiveness, that is what they will do. But if they could see that Eddie is a man today who is incapable of committing such a violent act, perhaps this knowledge would ameliorate to a degree their own suffering. I will never know and Eddie probably will never know the impact of Eddie’s practice on the victim’s family. He now must live with this unknowing — the result of the murderous actions of a confused young man whose identity was extinguished many years ago."
~ "DIANE WILDE has studied meditation in various traditions since 1990. In 2001 she was a founding member of Sacramento Insight Meditation. She founded Buddhist Pathways Prison Project (BP3) in 2010. Since 2003, she has been a BP3 prison chaplain and aids in coordination of 75 volunteers who offer Buddhist services at numerous California prisons and jails. She is a graduate of Sati Center’s Buddhist Chaplaincy program and graduated from Spirit Rock Meditation Center’s Community Dharma Leadership Training Program. She is a board member of Sati Center for Buddhist Studies, Sacramento Dharma Center, Buddhist Pathways Prison Project and California Dept. of Corrections Volunteer Advisory Board. In 2015 she was lay-ordained as a Buddhist minister by her teacher Gil Fronsdal."
1st Photo ~ "Prisoners wait to be moved by guards at the California Institution for Men (CIM) in Chino. While most of California's prisons are bursting at the seams, the state prison in Chino could have been first and foremost on the minds of three federal judges who recently found the state prison system so overcrowded and conditions so abysmal they took the extraordinary step of ordering officials to release more than 40,000 inmates." ~ Mercury News
2nd Photo ~ DIANE WILDE

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