tags /buddhism /
posts tagged with the above term(s)view tagged posts from: any | journal | essays | notes | resources | collections | highlights | notebooks
finding freedom in prison
Someone recommended a book, “A Buddhist on Death Row” on reddit – I was immediately drawn to the title, but something in me was hugely skeptical. I am personally uncomfortable when religion…
Only we can save ourselves
each of his teachers had given him permission to interpret Buddhism in whatever way worked for him. He’d seen how Buddhism meets you wherever you are and lets you take what you can from it at that moment. In fact, it was unlike other faiths in that there weren’t rules, and even its most fundamental precepts were infinitely flexible. But in spite of all that, he still envisioned the Buddha as a kind of deity sitting on a mountaintop, having transcended suffering. He wanted Buddha to lift him up out of San Quentin onto that mountaintop, high above his suffering—to save him. That’s the Buddha he had to kill—the illusion that anything outside ourselves can save us. What he learned is that Buddha can’t save us. Jesus can’t. Allah can’t. Only we can save ourselves.
there’s no protection from pain and grief
Then he said, “I thought this Buddhist shit was supposed to protect you.” Pema looked at him and sighed. “Jarvis,” she said, “there’s no protection from pain and grief. It’s a fantasy to think we can be protected. You wouldn’t want to not feel grief when someone dies. What kind of person would that make you? A very coldhearted person.”
the more one accepts suffering, the less one suffers
Rinpoche led Jarvis forward in other ways. He’d given him permission to take from Buddhism what helped him and reject his own and others’ preconceptions about what a Buddhist should be. He showed Jarvis that Buddhism is replete with paradoxes and contradictions because life itself is. And he pointed him toward the central paradox of the faith: that the more one accepts suffering, the less one suffers.
How can you be in this shithole without being a Buddhist?
Jarvis grasped how well when he was on the yard one day and an inmate who’d heard about his conversion asked, “How can you be a Buddhist in this shithole?” Without thinking, Jarvis responded, “The question for me is ‘How can you be in this shithole without being a Buddhist?’ ”
the goal isn’t dangling above the messiness of life
“People think as a Buddhist you want to transcend the everyday, transcend the past, transcend the pain. But the goal isn’t dangling above the messiness of life, it’s sitting in it; you don’t want to transcend the past but be there fully. When you fully connect with your past… that’s when it begins to lose its ability to harm you—to control you. What you do is go to the events; you don’t judge them as good or bad, and you sit with them even if they scare you.” She added, “Especially if they scare you.” She offered a poignant example: “Let’s say your child is very ill. All you want to do is run away from the bad feelings. It feels as if they will kill you—that’s how afraid you are. You do anything not to feel them. But unless you feel them, they don’t go away. And here’s the thing: if you sit with those feelings, it doesn’t feel good, but it feels honest and true. When you stop running, you can be with your child who’s ill, which is where you want to be for yourself and for him.”
Buddhism was filled with paradoxes and contradictions
By then Jarvis had learned that Buddhism was filled with paradoxes and contradictions that messed with his mind. Sometimes it seemed as if those paradoxes were beyond his comprehension, but the mind is much more capacious than we think. He reveled in a fresh paradox: the death sentence that could kill him had given him life.
death as a subject people often ignore or think about frivolously
On the first page, the lama described death as a subject people often ignore or think about frivolously, as if it were no big deal. Then the author wrote, “This is a nice theory until one is dying. Then experience and theory differ.” He continued, “Then one is powerless and everything familiar is lost. One is overwhelmed by a great turbulence of fear, disorientation, and confusion. For this reason it is essential to prepare well in advance for the moment when the mind and body separate.”
She marveled at his story
She marveled at his story. Beyond the solid writing, she saw it as a remarkable testament to how far he’d come since they’d met. Then he’d had no self-awareness, never mind the ability to see others. He cared about no one and nothing but himself. Now he recognized others’ suffering, responded with compassion, and connected others’ pain with his own. Melody had a thought that made her smile. On his own and without knowing it, Jarvis had arrived at the heart of Buddhism.