I am 43 years of age and been incarcerated since 2001. My family is Buddhist and I used to go to Buddhist temples as a youth, but I’m not a religious or spiritual person.
1-11-22
My name is **********. I am 43 years of age and been incarcerated since 2001. My family is Buddhist and I used to go to Buddhist temples as a youth, but I’m not a religious or spiritual person. Having a lot of turmoil and anger inside me and seeing the contradictions in religious institution, it never resinated with me. Till this day, I question the intentions of those religious institutions, especially when it comes to unquestionable faith and loyalty. For instance, the temples I went to as a youth taught that Buddha was a humble person, denouncing all materials things. However, my parents had to give so call “donations” biweekly in order for us to attend and buy their uniforms. What really confuse me was, if an institution preaches humbleness, why were these temples so flamboyant? my parents also put me and my brothers into a Baptist church—I found this odd, because we were Buddhist. I believe my parents wanted us to have some type of religious belief because we were very rambunctious. Fundalmentally, the church preached to accept God in our lives with unquestionable faith and loyalty and you’re going to heaven. That’s alway sounded narcissistic to me. I’ve always had an objective mindset, which have gotten me into a lot of trouble.
In 2016, I began to changed my life around. A few years later with an open mindset and new perspective in life, I read the Buddhist teachings. It turns out that Buddha encourages objectiveness and inquisitiveness to find the truth in the matter of things. Buddha states “that belief in Buddha was dangerous: that instead of just believing in something, people should use their minds to try to discover their own free nature (Becoming Your Own Thought, Lama Yeshe).” The difference now is that when I object and inquire, I approach it with compassion and wanting to gain insight, not anger and wanting to disprove as before. In doing so, i decided to study the actual teachings and remove the rituals, chanting, ect. that was incorporated throughout time and regions.
Not sure if I was on the right path. I expressed my views of practice with Teacher De after our meditation retreat on 10-14-22 in Ironwood State Prison D yard. To my surprise, he agreed only adding that meditation should be incorporated. I always had a problem with meditation, due to having a restless body and mind. In our meditation retreat my experience was not all joyful. During and at the end of the meditation my neck and back was aching. I was constantly fidgeting. However, there were moments when I was able to clear my mind eventhough random thoughts and images still appeared. I don’t know if that makes any sense. It was a feeling of peace and easement. Then when I go into my body checks, I became aware of my neck and back aches again.
Meditation is new to me, so I need to practice it more in order for my body to get use to sitting in one place or position for long periods of time. Eventhough my overall experience was not so relaxing. I did find small moments of peacefulness. I see the benefits in it, where I live in turberlant environment, needing to take time for myself to relax, reflect, and empty the mind. Meditation can be that for me only if I incorporate it and study more about it.
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Ironwood State Prison **-***
This letter is presented unedited and in its entirety. Names have been redacted for privacy.
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