Finding Freedom: How Death Row Broke and Opened My Heart

by Jarvis Masters, Pema Chodron (Foreword by), Melody Ermachild Chavis (Introduction)

Overview

There are many forms of liberation—some that exist at the mercy of circumstance and others that can never be taken away. In this stirring and timely collection of stories, essays, poems, and letters, Jarvis Jay Masters explores the meaning of true freedom on his road to inner peace through Buddhist practice. He reveals his life as a young African American man surrounded by violence, his entanglement in the criminal justice system, and—following an encounter with Tibetan Buddhist teacher Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche—an unfolding commitment to nonviolence and peacemaking. At turns joyful, heartbreaking, frightening, and soaring with profound insight, Masters’s story offers a vision of hope and the possibility of freedom in even the darkest of times.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781611809114
Publisher:	Shambhala
Publication date:	07/14/2020
Pages:	176
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.52(h) x 0.48(d)

About the Author

Jarvis Jay Masters is an inmate on death row at San Quentin prison after being convicted of conspiracy in the murder of a prison guard in 1990. The author of That Bird Has My Wings: The Autobiography of an Innocent Man on Death Row as well as numerous articles, he won a PEN Award in 1992 for his poem "Recipe for Prison Pruno." There is a large-scale campaign to advocate his innocence and work within the legal system to free him.

Table of Contents

Foreword Pema Chödrön ix

Preface xi

Introduction Melody Ermachild Chavis xiii

Sanctuary

Sanctuary 3

Rats 6

Little Black Sparrow 7

Pablo's Wish 11

The Man Who Talks to Himself 15

A Reason to Live 19

Fruitcakes 27

Thirteen Sixty-Eight 38

The Boneyard Visit 41

Funny How Time Flies 46

Mourning Exercise

Recipe for Prison Pruno 53

When I First Got Charged 55

Scars 56

Me and My Sisters 61

My Mother Died 63

Mourning Exercise 64

Dream 68

I Open My Palms to the Sky 71

Justice Marshall Resigns 72

Bryan 74

It's Become So Hard 79

O.J. 81

In My Recurrent Dream 86

Finding Freedom

Night's Bright Stars 89

For a Long Time 90

Seeking Silence 92

The Dalai Lama Hat 95

San Quentin Is Really Rockin' 'n' Rollin' 97

The Empowerment Ceremony 98

Understanding Impermanence 104

Angry Faces 105

Maxism 108

Joe Bob 110

Every Night Before I Go to Sleep 113

Tylenol Prayer Beads 114

Meditation Has Become 116

Peace Activist 117

I Was Walking 122

Fourth of July 124

Stop! A Buddhist Is Here! 132

On the Question of Time 136

Keeping Real 137

Epilogue 142

Afterword to the 2020 Edition 143

Afterword H.E. Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche 145

Editorial Reviews

06/01/2020

In this inviting collection of frank stories, essays, poems, and letters, death row inmate Masters (That Bird Has My Wings) shares his spiritual liberation while incarcerated at California’s San Quentin State Prison on murder charges that he claims are false. Masters aims to introduce readers to Buddhism and to what it means to be a black man and inmate in America today. Like the koans of a Zen master meant to “wake up” Buddhist novices, Masters’s meditations on life, death, and impermanence are simple, straightforward, and stark. For example, he speaks movingly about intervening to save a man’s life after he is attacked with a shank as a means of showing compassion toward all beings. He also explains how he was able to spare guards who refused to provide inmates utensils for eating from retaliation through organizing a peaceful protest, and writes of crafting prayer beads out of Tylenol pills to share with other inmates. With each affecting anecdote, Masters asks readers to walk the “doorsteps of dharma, the Buddhist path” alongside him. Above all, the revelation Masters asks readers to contemplate is the acceptance that “all of us live in a prison” of cyclic existence and suffering. This is a remarkable testament of personal transformation and spiritual awakening. (July)

Publishers Weekly

This is one of my favorite books, which I have often referred to in my teachings. I am delighted that it will have a wider publication now so that more people can read these wonderful heartfelt stories.”—from the foreword by Pema Chödrön
 
“It is a privilege and joy to read Jarvis Masters’s account of his spiritual struggle to find freedom at the edge of life. Everyone should read this book.”—Robert A. F. Thurman, author of Essential Tibetan Buddhism
 
“An inspiring, even exhilarating teaching on the life of a peacemaker in the midst of rage and despair, and in the shadow of the execution chamber.”—Bernie Glassman, founder of Zen Peacemakers International
 
“As he finds some measure of freedom inside a maximum security prison, Jarvis teaches me how to find freedom in my unfenced life.”—Susan Moon, coauthor of What Is Zen?

“Above all, the revelation Masters asks readers to contemplate is the acceptance that 'all of us live in a prison' of cyclic existence and suffering. This is a remarkable testament of personal transformation and spiritual awakening.”—Publishers Weekly

“This book is a must-read for all those who believe in prison reform and should be required reading for those who do not. It is a gentle reminder that all voices matter, that all stories deserve to be heard, that all life is precious, and that hope is real.”—The Tattooed Buddha 

From the Publisher