A touching, inspiring and humbling true story.
Due to the murder of a Sergeant, Jarvis is sentenced to death. Facing the death sentence forced Jarvis to face himself. He encountered Buddhism and started practicing meditation and the path of peace. From a man of violence, he transforms into a man of peace in an environment that is hardly supportive.
This book opens us up to the violent outer environment of the prison, and the fearful and vulnerable inner world of the prisoners. Most of them have untold stories of pain and childhood abuse.
The book hits back at me, as I start to see how un-Dharmic my life is compared to Jarvis. I may be outside the prison cell, but my mind is not free at all; and my body, like his, is actually on death penalty (penalised by virtue of the fact that I was born). Very admirable being, who knows, he may be a Bodhisattva?
Some interesting observations and insights Jarvis shared:
"Well, for the first time, I'm starting to see something - that the
anger and bitterness on the faces of these congressmen and the president of the United States is the same as on the faces of all those environmentalists and the Klansmen. The only difference is that the Klansmen wore khaki and hoods, the demonstrators were dressed for going to jail, while the congressmen and the president wore real expensive suits."
Jarvis was also very fortunate that the Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche came to visit him twice in the prisons. The second visit was to grant him the Vajrayana Empowerment. The empowerment was conducted with the help of an interpreter (translator) through the phone. It was amazing that all throughout the empowerment, Jarvis was able to hear all the instructions clearly. Yet once the empowerment was over, Jarvis suddenly became aware of all the noise that was around him (as there were also other prisoners beside him who were talking to their visitors through the phone).
Anyway, Jarvis generously shared some of the precious advice and instructions given by Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche.
"One way of understanding the deeper nature of our experience is to think of this life as a dream. Enlightenment is waking up, finding freedom from the dream of suffering. Through meditation we come to realize that everything is like an illusion....
"Just as movies are really only light on cellophane, realize that all this is really the movie of your mind. Try to understand that hte true nature of your body, speech, and mind is deathless, faultless, and pure....
"From now on, your spiritual practice will involve these three commitments:
harmlessness,
helpfulness, and
purity. Eventually, you will relize your own pure nature. As long as the dream of life seems real, you will feel heaven and hell, experience helpful and harmful people. These are simply the displays of mind's purity and mind's hatred. It's like being surrounded by mirrors - if we are dirty and ugly, that's what we will see. We have to clean ourselves for the image int he mirror to change. It's all a function of mind.
"Life is impermanent. Whoever is born will die, but we don't know when. ALl we can be sure of is the present moment. Every moment is a chance to practice these three commitments. This is how we break out of the cycle of karmic existence.
The last chapter of the book is an Afterword written by Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche himself.
Very inspiring book. Do try to grab it if you can.
May all beings be freed from cyclic existence.
