Black & Buddhist

Dear Governor news Public. Though physically confined by as nine by four sell for over forty years, Jarvis Masters has managed to reach far beyond the thick walls and razor wires of San Quentin. Due to his unique perspective, strong opinions, and prolific writings, he has become a sought after contributor

for very a social justice and Buddhist oriented organizations. Recently, the Awake Network and Shambala Publications hosted a free online event, the Black and Buddhist Summit, that attracted over ten thousand participants. Pamela Ioya Tunde, a pastoral counselor, chaplain and co editor of Black and Buddhist What Buddhism can teach us about race, resilience, transformation and healing. Hosted the summit and invited Jarvis to participate. There are so many Buddhists authors out there. Why Jarvis?

What drew to Jarvis? Yeah? You know, I think I first heard about Jarvis when I worked for short period time with the National Coalition to a policy death penalty. This was back in the late eight days or early nineties. And then encountered his writings again when I was in the Sati Center for Buddhist Studies chaplaincy program m in

the early two thousand's. And then as we were thinking about what subjects we wanted to address during the summit, I said, well, you know the fact that there's so many African Americans in prison, and we know that the people learn uh to hone their skills, writing skills in prison. People often find a new way of life for religion

or spirituality in prison. There must be African descended Buddhist practitioners who were writers in prison, and them boom, you know, Jarvis came to mind, and so that's how and so we reached out through you. Yeah, he he is a he's a prolific writer and thinker for sure. I remember I was in a Buddhist gathering and I was talking with someone and we're talking about, oh, you know, the

Black and Buddhist Some of that was so wonderful. And this person very slowly raised up her copy of Finding Freedom and held it like this, and then slowly brought it down and just said, Wow, that was some of the most significant dharma teaching I have ever received. And

this person is a dharma teacher. Yeah. I think now more than ever in my life anyway, thanks to the work of Brian Stevenson and others, that people are accepting the fact that there have been many people wrongly accused, many people spending decades behind bars for something they didn't do. And so maybe that's on the other side of society becoming more violent, we're also waking up to the injustices of our criminal justice system, and maybe there's a little

more grace around that. Following is the full conversation that Jarvis and I had, which was streamed during the Black and Buddhist Summit, in which he shares his thoughts about how Buddhism plays an important role in the lives of black Americans who are or have been incarcerated. I am Jarvis Masters. I've been in San Quentin for close to forty years. A few months short of that. I became a Buddhist in nineteen one, I think her two. I've written two books, one Finding Freedom and the other is

That Bird Has My Wings. I have various teachers, and all my teachers have given me the benefit of their experience in the last thirty years, and I've been using those experiences in prison as much as they fit the circumstances that we live in. How did you get introduced to Buddhism back in or ninety How did you find it? I was waiting to see if I was going to receive the death sentence for the death of a sergeant,

Sergeant Burstfield, and said Quentin. That occurred in and my friend and teacher, one of my teachers, Melo D. Armor Child thought, because I was down there and the holding think that I might want to read a magazine that was familiar to her. And it was called Inquiring Mind, An Insight, Inquiring Mind. They had this little clip and it said free book. In the name of the book was Life and Relationship to Death. And I sat there

and read it for almost a week. Why my why the jurys and deliberation, and I just thought, hey, you know, let me try this, you know, life and relationship to death. You know, it was where I was. You know, I wasn't there because because of my trial. I was there.

I realized that name because of my whole life history, and I took heart to that, and eventually I got a free copy of the book and I wrote to thank them, and a woman named Lisa Leghorn responded and we created a correspondence and at some point I realized she was a senior student of who is now my teacher took to representate and eventually he, you know, he came down to visit me a few times, and at

some point I was giving the empowerment. It's a ceremony that was just basically to introduce me to Rogeriana Buddhism. And I became a student of that practice US and I was giving a practice called the Red Tar practice. And I thought that practice, as I began to sit with it, was a very clear, honest way of opening me up to see where freedom really is. What is the practice? Retire practice is a guide, a way of opening the door of confronting our suffering and suffering of

all beings. And it's a prayer that allows us to you know, work on that, work on opening many many doors that has been locked. There were a locked for me, particularly because there was a lot of things I was denial. There was a lot of things that I'd impaired attention to that my life gave some purpose floor and I really really got into it. I I thought it as a perfect guy for where I was in my life. Why what what was it about Buddhism in particular that

drew you in? Oh, it was the opening gate. It opened a lot of doors. It opened a lot of gates for me to sit with. It was a practice what you know, that had meditation, a lot of meditation. It was a practice that that dealt with me and the suffering that I was dealing with, you know, the human suffering that I was dealing with. Let's call and

your telephone numbers will be monitored and recorded. And it taught me how to begin the process of dissolving those those things, those obstacles that has been in my life. There was that life Jarvis, like when you first meditated, So you're you're sitting there and you're waiting to hear the verdict back on the death sentence. Walk us through your oriens with meditation. Wasn't frustrating at first? Did you take to it like a fish to water? Now? I just I just learned how to sit down and and

to probably the opposite. I just sit down and started thinking that was a good thing for me, because I had to learn how to sit down first. Before I learned how to meditate. I was a very angry person and I didn't particularly things. Sitting down was you know, fulfilling for me at that time. So I just had to learn how to sit down and sit down with me, you know. And that took a while. You know, there was a lot of times where I was bored with it, but I made a commitment to myself. I just sit there,

and things start opening up. Gates started opening up, windows start becoming with more fresh air than I had ever felt before. And that was a beautiful time for me, It really was. And I was dealing with san Quentin, and I was dealing with death role, and I was dealing with how did I get to this point in my life? And I started realizing that we all suffered to some degree or another and that I was not alone.

And one of the things my teacher, one of my teachers taught me was that you know, you're not the worst case. You know, uh, there's many people who have far more worse problems than you. And that was a that was a guiding light for me to not think of me for me, but just think of all beings and all people who suffered way more than I do. And I really felt a companionship with that. You know, was it difficult at first? I mean, did you have

any resentment? Because to tell you that there are people worse off than you here you are potentially on death row? How did that sit with you? I learned Buddhism pretty much at the feet of my teacher, so I was really really guided, very I was very trained. I had the benefit of really really having a songa a community, and I had members of that community visit me often, so I never went outside what I was trained to sit with. Well, the difficult I think it was not

in retrospect. Wasn't boring, of course that was yes, it was born at very boring for me. I just had the benefit of having teachers all around me my age older than me, folks who have been into Buddhism twenty years before I had. And these people really really trained trained me, taught me a lot. But more than that, they taught me how to teach myself, and that was something I never really really had the ability to learn

how to teach myself. You can find all kinds of teachers, you know, and all kinds of teachers want you to think like they do, aren't practice like they do. In my community taught me how to think for myself, taught me how to become my own practitioners because they recognized that I was on sad Qui death row and for many them, they couldn't even fathom the thought of being physically on death row. For them, they thought, wow, he's really he really is suffering. He is in that sea

of suffering. He is face and death, real death. And they made me realize that. But they also made me realize that that is nothing close to me in the end of who I was, you know, it was the beginning of who I became. Um, I just had the opportunity to have some serious people around me, so you learned the first step was to learn to sit with yourself. Can you describe what that looked like, I assumed you sat in your mind by four sell and just sat on the ground. Just said on the ground. I mean,

I didn't want to sit on no cushions. I wanted to sit on the ground because I really wanted to feel what my body was going through, you know, I really wanted to feel that sense of suffering. I didn't want to make this place comfortable, and I was determined not to do that. I was determined not to hide behind, you know, being a Buddhist and having a Buddhist community, asked my way of getting through all the doors that I needed to. At point, did sitting with yourself evolved

into a meditation practice? And what did that look like? Well, I thought, I thought. One of the reason, and this is in retrospect, because this happened, you know, thirty years ago. So um, I think I was trying to ground out the noise that became my my sense of refuge. I was really trying to ground out the noise because San Quentin is a very, very very loud place. So I

was trying to ground out the noise. And a lot of things came to mind that one practitioner, another friend had said to me and I said with that, you know, just out of curiosity, you know. And then I started getting some guidance about meditation, you know, and those particular instructions that's called andrew our telephone numbers be monitored and recorded. A lot you had sixty seconds remaining. Excuse me, A

lot of them did not fit saying quickly. So I have to figure out a way to make my practice fit the conditions that I was living in. And that gave me a lot of room to explore too, come with a genuine heart, but to explore how do you get along with people being a Buddhist, I mean you being a Buddhist no one else, you know, because hand there was very few Buddhists. So I had to figure out how to do that, you know, and that became

sort of like a practice. You know. You can have your meditation practice, and you can have your sitting, and you can have your instruction. But c Quentin gave me a new way of thinking about Buddhism. Yeah, it gave me a new way of thinking about Buddhism. Because I was feeling pressure on one end, the inmates, them, the guards, because I had, as I said, was on the crime scene.

You know, I the murder death, the sergeant burst feel happened on San Quentin and now I'm on San Quentin's And there was a lot of hatred from the guards, and there was a lot of a lot of people thinking that I was running away from being who I was by accepting the idea of using my time to meditate. So I had sort of like wall to wall enemy, so to speak. So I had to figure out what was I going to do if I was going to stay with this practice, that mean I'm not going to sugarcoat.

It was very, very hard and a difficult process, but one then I thought, really really open doors for me, open many doors for me. As an example, for the first to maybe three years maybe five years that I became a practitioner, all I was learning from san Quentin is what not to do. I never felt like I was being inspired to learn what to do. What do you mean learning what not to do? Well? I get I see guys yelling disagreement at guards, and I said, wow,

this is what I look when I do that. You know, I see guards, you know, in a lot of pain and suffering, and I said, wow, this guard may be going home to his son. I would see violence and I say, wow, you know, how can I participate in compassion? You know. So it was those kind of experiences that I was constantly learning, you know. And as I figured my way through these things, people start calling me a real serious practitioner, and I never took serious to that.

What my whole trip was is to find the gates. That was just gonna open me up to understanding what compassion and how compassionate works inside a prison system. M And it was hard. It was hard. It was very hard, you know. I was confronted with a lot of violence. I was in the shoe unit, security housing unit, and yeah, yeah, they put long words to it to deny what it is. And a lot of people were in there for serious things,

you know, murder, The saw serious stuff, you know. And one of the things that broke me through because I keep talking about opening gates and opening doors. What's the first story I wrote called scars And this is a if you're refinding freedom story about inmates. And I noticed the scars and whips on their back and I've never seen those before, but I had my own, you know, because they were popping iron lifting weights in the middle of this hot sun they just stuck out, you know.

They were whips. They were not just scars. They were serious whips. And I just had to figure out, why did the hell did you get these things? You know? And they all told me. But what got me more than anything, more than the story, was the expression they gave to the story. It was like a proud thing to have these scars and whips. It was to say that I did that been there before. And I realized

I had my own. I had my own. And I looked at my my hand where I remember the councilors made us compete while I was a jew a now and they will put the s agree between our two thumbs, and they waited to see who could stay there the longest. I forgot about that, you know, But then when I looked around, I started seeing that. I went to my cell and I realized that I have the same thing. Let's call and to our telephone number. They'll be monitored

and recorded. And you know, when I felt like I had the same thing, I felt an opportunity to write about the same thing. And I wrote the story the scars, and somehow the inmates, the prisoners and convicts got a hold of that story. I can't remember if I shared it with them. Are they just found it somewhere? And at first I said, oh my god, what the fund did I do here? And I was surprised to realize they all accepted that story as the true story of

their life history. It would told from someone who have that own history, and there's just a spirit an acceptance to it, you know, by just using certain words, and you know, instead of using abuse and neglect and all these things, there's other words for it, you know. So I understood that the language would be able to give me a whole lot of access to people. And like you know the trade or you know, you know well that will learn all the words that tells you how

the well. And I had to figure out what was the voice of saying Quentin deathro And that's been a practice for me ever since. It's not just you learn it and you forget about it. It's a it's a day to day practice. You were out on the yard and you saw these guys and they all had similar scars and similar life stories. You had the language of Buddhism to deal with that history. Did you share that

with the guys that were out there? Were there other guys out there that were Buddhist practitioners, and they look at you like you were strange that you have this. I had never known a Buddhist practitioner on those yards back then. I've known people who would meditate, you know, but I never knew them take the practitioner acceptance in parliament ceremonies and you know the others as a way

of changing their whole life cycle. It was just me jive talking talking, you know, directly to their stars and directly to all of our egos. And there was something that I looked at and realized I found the permission to write about prison in Buddhism. It was something that I really really began to realize my purpose, My purpose for being here is to be more of an engage Buddhists, not so much on the academic side, but more so as a practitioner, as someone who's engaged in kind of

find the joy and happiness within. You know, each of us, you know, and you know family does. Writing to family, writing to our nephews and our sons and kids was a real experience, and I thought a lot of us didn't realize how fortunate we were. And I need to say this also, I was one of the first people who dealt with me. I dealt with me, and the

only way I could have this is in retrospect. The only way I could have done what I was doing was I had to learn how to accept it for myself too, And that was the heart of my practice. That's when I was taught trained to practice from and I had here's to sit with, you know, and I sit with those years now. You talked about your ego and when you came into prison, this is five ten

years prior to Sergeant Birksfield being murdered. You admitted to being angry and bitter and frustrated based on the life that you had been handed. How did Buddhism fundamentally change you and how you dealt with your own ego? Um, I remember going to trial and let's call and to our telephone numbers will be monitored and recorded. This is just one way it could be in other ways. What stands out for me? You know, I learned how to cry, you know, I've never did. I learned how to here

the tears and other people's speech in their language. So on come up to me and says, my mother just died, But it ain't no thing, you know. I had a lot of years with her, you know, No you didn't, you know, because you're living with her now. And I was able to learn how to express that and have the respect us telling that, saying that, and then I felt with you know what, I felt responsible for all this stuff. Now, what I was learning was teaching me

how to become a serious practitioner without understanding that. That's where I was heading. When you started investigating Buddhism and the practice of it, were their resources outside of what melody irma child gave you. Because it's just thirty years ago. So was there a Buddhist chaplin there that could help you learn? There was no such thing as a Buddhist teacher. And saying Quentin, you know, religion and San Quentin and

I think it's probably another prison too, is very territorial. Catholicism, Islam, these faiths, you know, our well established will inside the prison system. Buddhism was like, where is this going? You know, is this a real religion? We're not going to allow you to practice this in a formal setting because it's not. If they don't fit the bill of being a real religion, they didn't recognize that. They didn't acknowledge it. They didn't

do any of those things. A good example it would be when I had my empowerment ceremony, when my teacher representate came to give me my power and ceremony, they kept me behind a glass window. All the rituals and all the little things that you would need to go through it in power ceremony, we're not given to us. They didn't acknowledge that. But now if I wanted to get baptized, they escort you right outside the prison and right out the adjustment center and you'll go be bathtime somewhere.

But you know what, I did not mind those things. I wasn't smart enough or I didn't take my practice serious enough to see the discrimination in that. And one of the reasons why I didn't do that because refreshe didn't give me no excuse. He wouldn't allow no excuse, so I didn't. I just gave up on you know, whatever frustrations I had with that, you wasting time? You

know his attitude was you wasting time? How did the guys with you on the East block take to the fact that you were you like a Buddhist elder to them or did they find did they accept you for who you were? They have this saying, and I may have interpreted the wrong way, so forgive me if I have. But I always heard that term kill the Buddha, you know, at some point you have to kill the Buddha, and kind of understand it. But maybe I did not understand.

But I definitely used it, you know, I definitely put my own twist to it. And what I mean by putting my twist to it was that I stopped trying to act like a Buddhist, the Buddhas that I would try to imitate, sitting down, the one that would, you know, hold his fingers together and try to meditate, the one who has some kind of deep realization, the kind of people who thought they found enlightenment. Stopped being those people. I stopped reading the books. I was left on my own.

And I think what my teacher taught me is how to be on my own in a way of bringing out a more number of people in the community together, you know. So it was me learning how to not talk like a Buddhist and be a Buddhist not having all the academic skills. Readings to your Buddhists I mean those are pitfalls. All those are which gets you in trouble.

You know, I was keeping my friendships, that's all. I was trying to keep people from going to the whole, are being um um extracted from their selves, are made or shot all those things. Is the Buddhist community grown in the last thirty years? Oh yeah, Can you tell me a little bit about it? You know, I think

the ministration has most ministrations in our nation's history. You have sixty seconds remaining accepted the idea that it helps, it helps the overall institution to have or to have someone coming diet to prison and teach people how to sit and meditate. It's been a benefit to the prison administrations, at least the ones I know to be able to

do that. So it's it's a it's an important aspect of understanding what helps prisoners and prisoners find peace, find an inner peace and are not assault guards or anything like that. Of course, big, it's a huge, It is very huge. Now do you find Buddhist communities in almost every prison? Okay, So the group that you are talking

to right now, Black Buddhist Conference. It's sponsored by Trumbala, who is the publisher of your book Finding Freedom, which has got re released, and they'd like me to talk specifically to how Buddhism plays an important role in the lives of a lot of Black Americans who have been incarcerated or who are there now, you know, and what I know my own experience is, and it's all been a set equipment and it's mostly all been on death rolls. So I don't have a lot of what this panel

might have as their own experiences. But for me, I think Buddhism and let's call and you our telephone numbers they're been monitoring any did the relationship to being black and the Buddhists are being black and a teacher is territorial. I've never ever saw a teacher of African descent teaching Buddhism in prison. It is unheard of in my own experience. But you know, I'm isolated, you know, I'm in I'm on death row, and I'm isolated. The dim units in

Santa Quentin's death role are very isolated. The panel that this is being presented to, they are both black Buddhist practitioners but also non practitioners. So people who may be identified with Islam or may be identified with Christianity, can Buddhism or practices they are in add to their home religious practices. I think, so I don't see why not. I mean, I don't know all the tenants of these various faith but I can't imagine someone saying that I

need to cultivate compassion. I need to be of some service too to quell violence wherever I am. I shouldn't have a problem understanding the nature of suffering and where that leads, you know. I can't imagine those various tenants not playing a part in all face, you know. But if you get hooked on the name, you leave a lot of people behind, no matter what faith you're in. Yeah,

the name is a hook to me, you know. And I started using that phrase when I was talking to you earlier about killing the Buddha, that the name Buddha is a hook. It creates confusion, you know, and it creates chaos and it analysis. You know. It's truth to me. It feels like when you it was these terms, you're using something against people attraction. Let's call and to our

telephone number. They'll be monitored and recorded. Marca Luis King walked with all face, And I actually no problem with that, you know, and no one seen a problem with that. Probably there all I did, but no one else, you know. But we can walk together, you know, we can sit together. You know, we can use our own particular practices to make the world better, you know, to suffering. Well, Ben,

you know that's that's perfect to me. And you know I was raised in a Baptist church when I was small, so um, I tried my best to get out of that place. Um because I was young, and I just you know, I like any kid back in back then, way back then, you know, you rather ride your bike, you know. Yeah, you know, you were to play marbles for something. You getting all the press stuff and they're putting all that grease on your face and you're sitting

sitting with all these old people and something. You see it every time you walk in his church. You see a cat. It's sitting right down the aisle. I didn't want that. That was not my bike, you know, on my my skateboard. Yeah. Yeah, So so we talked about your book Finding Freedom then rereleased this past year, and then David Chef's book, the biography The Buddhist on Death Row was released several months ago. Such a beautiful book,

and then the new anthology Black and Buddhist. So how did it feel for you to see growing interest in the experience of black Buddhists around the country. I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing. I remember a while back, short of when I was only in an angry state, and I said, you know what, if you know, I went to my teacher, I went to Lisa, one of the senior students of Reproche, and I said, you know what, why isn't there a black Buddhuses?

You know, how can all these people be reincarnated as Asian? You know that? How is that true? That will make sense to me? You know, do you mean to tell me everybody who has something that created a recycle of life as we would call it a rebirth, they all ended up being Tibettan or Chinese, or Japanese or Asian? How does that happen? What do you guys get that from? That'll make that'll drive with me and for me, I

used to just come straight out with it, you know. Yeah, And she said to me, she said, now I'll never forget it. She said. Market was the key was a Buddhist Malcolm Max was a Buddhist. This is where you find your teachers. Your teachers are not you know, always to betting. They are the community leaders in your community. There are the black teachers who teaches kids. They are there. They just don't get hooked up on the name Buddhists.

You hear Buddhists because that's their name and that's their faith. You know in Asia are somewhere else. But trust me, they're there and they're practicing and their teaching and that just that was a life change in the moment for me. You have sixty seconds remaining because I needed to hear that answer. If I had not known that answer, I would always have hiccups about what's going on with this? You know, So to go back to what you're saying,

I think it's a good thing, really do. Yeah, we know the folks at Shambala and the Summits host Ioya Sunday wanted to express their gratitude because this is awesome. It's going to be an amazing event. And uh, I wish you could be there physically, but maybe next year maybe will have you you know, the event and physically be there. What do you say that would be great?

That would be great but if I can ask them for a favor, you know, I would say to them, if it's all possible, I would love for that talent to bring as much of what they're speaking to inside San Quentin. I think that would be a very powerful statement. I mean, Sarah Coultin has two cable stations that are specifically used to address or to speak out of other places that it makes may not be allowed to go,

ye not have priv to have access. You know, if you are in isolation confinement, they have church services on that station. Uh, if you're an education and you can't get to you know, a school or school, you know the prison school house, they run school via television the cable station. And to have this African community of Buddhists and non Buddhistists appear on those stations would say a whole lot to the benefit. That is a huge step.

Let's call and your telephone number will be monitored and recorded. Well, I'll work with them. I'll do what I can do to help help facilitate that. Absolutely, absolutely, that would be great. Okay, you got it, you done, did good, and I ain't blown smoke, I ain't feel alright. Alright, Let's call and to our telephone number will be monitored and recorded. Bolly oh, he's telling me you have to go now, Okay, so

all right here, alright, alright, okay. Next week we'll hear from Jarvis's lead attorney at Kirkland and Ellis, as well as from some of you who have reached out to Jarvis directly through our hotline with questions and curiosities. Special thanks to Pamela Ayo Yatunde. Check out her latest book Black and Buddhist. What Buddhism can teach Us about race, resilience, transformation and Healing. This episode was written and produced by

Donna Fazzari and myself Cornicle. Our theme song sentenced is compliments of the band Stick Figure from their album Set in Stone. Stu Sternbach composed the original music. Nate Defort did the sound design. For more information on Jarvis and to find out how you can follow his case and support his cause, please visit free Jarvis dot org. For more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.