Dhamma in the State Prison
Date last updated 9:54 am May 13th, 2009
May 4, 2009
Hi,
I recently had the honor of being selected to be a member of this year’s Valley News contributing editor’s board. The Valley News is our local/regional newspaper. The position means that I, along with a group of other local people, will each be writing a number of articles for the PERSPECTIVES section of the Sunday addition. I chose to write my first article about Valley Insight’s prison sangha because I believe this group presents a strong example of the transformative power of meditation practice when coupled with a deepening understanding of the Buddha’s teachings.
I know many of you read the article in the paper; but for those of you out of the area and those locally who did not see it, we have decided to reprint it below. We are also doing this to encourage people to come to find out more about NH state prisons on May 18 though a talk by Jim Vila, director of volunteers for the state of NH prisons (see annoucement above in the newsletter).
Last Saturday, three of us went to Berlin for our monthly practice there. I wondered how the men would feel about the article. I had not shared it with them while writing. We read it aloud together. I was moved by their responses to it. The sharing gave us all a time to reflect on the value of the practice and of our monthly gatherings. I think our subsequent discussion. about our process so far bolstered our confidence and our willingness to walk a bit further on the path together.
Meanwhile, spring is continuing its relentless ebb and flow into our valley and the surrounding hills. How can we not “keep calmly knowing change…”
Peace and best wishes,
Doreen
WALKING MINDFULLY INTO A MENS' PRISON
By Doreen Schweizer
We were greeted at the Berlin state prison by rolls of stainless steel razor wire gleaming in the early April sunshine and a gruff corrections officer who hurried us out of the parking lot; but the feeling of fear didn’t fully enter into my awareness until I had walked down the long corridor and heard its three sets of locking double doors slam behind us. The moment I entered the room they call the chapel and saw eight felons waiting, I was awake to the tightness in my chest, the shortness of my breath and the slightest bit of cold sweat.
I did not ignore these unpleasant, unsettling sensations. As a longtime meditation practitioner steeped in the Buddhist tradition of mindfulness, I turned my attention toward them. With this movement of my mind, I felt a calm steadiness of heart return. I also felt my feet on the floor and knew directly the scent of prison air, with its smells of old food, bodies and caution.
I proceeded to gather the group and settle its attention. I then asked a question, and with it began what has become a mutually rewarding, often joyful, deeply human relationship between members of the Valley Insight Meditation Society and a group of Buddhist practitioners in the N.H. Northern Correctional Institute: “Who are you, and why do you want to practice meditation?”
Shortly before this visit four years ago, I had received a call from the prison chaplain asking if I would be willing to meet with a group of inmates. They had expressed an interest in talking with a Buddhist teacher, and had found my name in a national listing of teachers in the Insight Meditation (or Vipassana) tradition. Several of my fellow teachers around the country were working in prisons, and I had a sense of the power the teachings can have in that setting. I said yes to the request.
In Buddhist teachings, mindfulness refers to a preverbal state of mind, an attentiveness that arises with all experiences before our preferences or reactive habits assert themselves. Mindfulness is quite ordinary and common to us all. With cultivation and refinement, though, mindfulness becomes an extraordinary tool, one that can move our lives toward harmony, happiness and an honest concern for our well-being and that of others. Mindfulness is more than bare attention; it can help us understand immediately, in the moment, what helps and what doesn’t. Practicing mindfulness over time teaches us that our thoughts, words and actions have consequences, always leading either toward less or more suffering. This is important to all of us – and especially important to men living out large portions of their lives in prison.
Through my work in Berlin, I have learned that prisons are not pleasant places to live, no matter how clean or new they are. There is an underworld of crime and meanness among some inmates, and there is sometimes an abuse of power by the corrections officers or the administration, in spite of their best intentions that it be otherwise. There is also a total stripping of privacy and, at times, of dignity. In this setting, feelings of shame, guilt, fear, anger, worry, grief, hatred and envy can be overwhelming, and can drive destructive behavior.
I have also learned, though, that a prison can be a place of generosity, gentleness and gratitude. Inside Berlin’s walls, I have known friendship, kindness and loyalty as well as shared pain. A friend once gave me a poem he had written about how prisons dehumanize. It made me uncomfortable, because it seemed shortsighted. The men I have met show remarkable resiliency. Each is a complex, courageous human being; all have grown up in and perpetuated cultures of violence and chaos. Domestic abuse, drug trafficking, armed robbery, arson, and murder have been the result.
Mindfulness meditation has provided a way for these inmates to come to terms with the pain their acts have caused others as well as themselves. By giving them skills to calm the mind and to negotiate long-held, internalized attitudes, values and traumatic memories, the practice has allowed them to experience their terrors directly and compassionately, and to use them as part of a path toward healing, not as fuel for a confused faltering toward more violence.
Committed and highly motivated to change, the men are making good use of their time and are living meaningful lives. Their practice has been deeply inspiring to those of us who have made our way north once a month to meditate and reflect with them.
Whether we are in a prison or facing the various other limitations of a human life – illness, the death of a loved one, aging, depression, job loss, money problems, misunderstanding, insult or shame – developing the skills to truly own our circumstances, our actions and our mental habits allows wisdom and compassion to grow. Mindfulness fosters moral courage and integrity.
Mindfulness fosters joy as well. Often when we tell people of our prison group, they get the idea that it is some grim duty that we put ourselves through solely for the good of others. This is not true. There is a depth of human connection in prison, which sometimes includes lightness and laughter. Despite the wire, the walls and the smells, each time we go, I have a good time.
