This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. I'm so happy that this is happening. And it is a very unusual circumstance. You just heard that voice come on, and that voice will continue to come on. about every five minutes to say that this call is being recorded and monitored because Jarvis is calling in from San Quentin State Prison. And every 15 minutes, Jarvis will have to reconnect. So we'll get an announcement that says you have 60 seconds. And at that time, at the end of that, Jarvis will be disconnected and he will call back. So that's part of the structure of this Dharma talk. And during that time, it takes usually about two minutes for Jarvis to reconnect.

[01:05]

So during that time, we may sit in silence or I may add something or say something. We'll just see what's happening at that time. And I'll invite us as we wait for Jarvis to reconnect. And I just want to say I'm so happy that this is happening at Zen Center. And it's also very striking to me that... Jarvis's first talk at Zen Center, calling in from death row at San Quentin, is on the first national holiday of Juneteenth. And there's something powerful to me about this. And especially because Jarvis is calling from San Quentin, a place that is so rooted in historical and systemic racism. And there's so much suffering and constriction there. And yet... Jarvis, you are one of the most free people that I know. And I'm so glad that all of us at Zen Center and the wider community have a chance to be with you this morning and learn from your knowledge and your life experience and your wisdom.

[02:10]

And I hope that people can hear. The quality is what it is, but Kodo will let me know if there's a big problem, and this is the best we can do at this time. So Jarvis, please. Can you hear me now? I can. Can people, can Kodo, can you talk some more Jarvis? Can you hear me? Yes. He said yes. So just go ahead. Yeah. People can hear you. So we're in your hands. No, just go ahead, Jarvis. We're good. Okay, cool. All right, I just want to just allow myself to thank everybody for allowing me to talk and give some knowledge about how I became a Buddhist. I think it's important that I talked about that because everybody who comes to prison, a lot of people find religion, and sometimes it's

[03:22]

is, and sometimes it's not, but yeah, I like to talk about how I became promoted, and I think that's important. In 1985, I was charged with a murder case that I did not commit, and during that process, I was introduced to an investigator, Melody Armourchild. Melody became my investigator, but also someone who became very special to me in that she believed in me and thought that I can go through a process of both. It was like that. So I wrote a letter while I was in the courthouse in a tank waiting for a jury to come back to see that if I was sentenced to death or should I spend the rest of my life in prison. The ability at that time... when I was down here by myself, bought in a little magazine and the name of it, I think it was Wingspan or something like that.

[04:28]

And inside this magazine, there was this little ad that said, you know, here's a free book and the name of it is Life and Relationship to Death. And I thought while, you know, while I'm waiting on the jury, I can right here... sign up and ask for a copy and mail it out when I quit. And that's exactly what happened. And on the same day that I was given the death sentence, I got a letter from Lisa Leghorn, a senior student of Refugees. And she and I began a correspondence and other senior students I began to correspond with. And at some point, But she wanted to meet me. And she came to visit me. And when I looked at him, I thought he was the real deal. And I saw something in him that just made me pretty close to what he was saying to me.

[05:30]

He had 60 seconds remaining. After that, she came to visit me several more times. And then, yeah, we did not want to take an empowerment ceremony. And I said, yes. But at the same time, I was worried about what that meant. And over another two or three months, we went through the process. And he came to see me. And we went and had, we went down the tier in the visiting. And we went into this little visiting, legal visiting booth. And he began sharing and Melody and him began to give me my honor ceremony. And it was a kind of experience that I really didn't know how to respond to. So we'll wait for Jarvis to call back.

[06:33]

And in this waiting, I think I want to say a little more about... I didn't say it lightly that Jarvis is one of the most free people that I know. The situation that he lives in is also one of the most constricting situations that I know. But through his practice, Jarvis has so much aliveness and life and humor and... I probably laugh with Jarvis more than I laugh with most people in my life. And he has a way that his practice is engaged all day with other inmates, with prison correction officers who live there. There's all these ways that Jarvis is putting into practice, his practice. And it's true that I read his book,

[07:34]

called Finding Freedom. And it just touched me in some way that was so deep. I was in Mexico at the time and the ocean waves, I was right on the coast of Mexico and the waves were crashing and nature was there in such a powerful way. And I was reading Finding Freedom of Jarvis's experiences in San Quentin prison. and on death row, and the ways that he kept choosing life. And for me, that's also one of the things that's most meaningful in how I know Jarvis, is that he chooses life over and over and over again. In the midst of such trying circumstances, in so many disappointments, in so much injustice, and he chooses life, and he chooses compassion. It's ironic to me or just strange that I can share so much joy with Jarvis and that he brings joy into so many people's lives.

[08:44]

And if you haven't read both of his books and the book that David Sheff wrote about him, I highly recommend them. The challenge is for all of us about how do we live in the midst of what constricts us in our lives. And also in the midst of uncertainty. Here we are now not knowing when Jarvis is going to call back. And it's taking longer than it usually does. So how we meet the constrictions in our life and the uncertainty and what shuts us down. How does practice help sustain us to not get lost? To me, Jarvis is an amazing teacher on how to do this and how he brings practice into his life. He wrote his books when he was living in the adjustment center, the whole isolation unit in San Quentin, where he lived. I think it was, I'm not sure if it was 24 years.

[09:52]

He lived longer than I think anybody who's been in the adjustment center. And not because of his behavior, but because he was what he was convicted of, of sharpening a knife, used in the killing of a prison guard. So he was kept there. And the only thing he had to write his books with was the filler of a pen. Hello? This is Global Telling. I have a call from a jar of scrapers, an inlater, a California state prison, San Quentin, San Quentin, California. Your call and your telephone number will be monitored and recorded. To accept this call, say or dial 5 now. Thank you for using Global Tail Link. Okay, Jarvis, we're back. Okay, thank you. I don't know where I left off, but I became... The senior students of RepoShea started sending me a lot of transfers to talk at RepoShea.

[11:00]

Yeah. And I had an opportunity to look at them and read them, but I felt like I was doing that a lot more than they were able to listen to because I had the actual transcript. So I would go over them and over them and over them again. And sometimes I did it with a candy bar, you know, because I did not realize, I did not take it in a way that I thought I should have until I went out to the yard. and I stepped in front of somebody who was going to kill a man who was gay. Part of the time that I had to hold somebody down on the yard because they just told him that his mother died. But even when I spoke to guards about their own kids and not wanting their kids to come to jail, I mean, all these experiences gave me something that I understood it, you know.

[12:01]

And they allowed me to really realize how deep I should look at my practice because it was very, very difficult for me to do that. But once I learned how to read transcripts and see how my practice gets developed and proven, that's what I started doing. And the difficulties in having that practice has always been something that I thought about. But it's always made me a better Buddhist because I'm right here in so much hurt and pain, and even my hurt and pain, and it allows me to really deepen my practice. And I started writing. I started writing, and like you said, I wrote Fighting Freedom, and That Bird Has My Wings. And I realized that, you know, we were somehow trapped in our own life experiences as I became... to my practice. And Refreshi's always let me know that, you know, it's all about understanding the nature of suffering and my own suffering.

[13:07]

And over the years, that's been pretty much what I've been doing, holding my practice and keeping my practice close to me so I can be a benefit to other people. So that's the story of that, of me becoming a bonus. And do you want to say more, Jarvis, about what does your practice actually look like and how you practice? Well, you know what? I just fit. You know, when I first started practicing, I was just fit. I mean, I had it, you know, and I was fit and I was born and I found me a piece of candy and I just looked at it, you know? And there were ones that I understood and ones I didn't understand. But then when I went out to New York, and I ran into so many incidents, you know, I realized that, man, I am doing something that I'm reading about, you know?

[14:09]

And man, I'm looking at scars on a man's body and that was the trap that we had lived in. So I became more of a voice that spoke to the stories of a lot of guys on their phone. And that's how that process I really developed. As I went throughout the years of trying to understand the nature of my practice, I brought a lot of people with me, but I didn't do it in a way where it became so holy. Let me just use that one. Let's call. Andrew, a telephone number will be monitored and recorded. Ever since then, we've just been... You know, and sometimes you don't see the autism in my words, but they're there. And people pick up on that. And I also pick up on people's pain and my pain. So it's been, you know, almost 30 years.

[15:10]

Almost 30 years to the day that, you know, I met Mercer. And I didn't realize how long that's been until I was asked to give this talk. And I was thinking of what should I really, really sit with while I'm talking to you guys. And that is those stories. I mean, they all have, they all have a story, but the narrative is clear to me is that I walked in and understood the nature of my own suffering and the people around me. But not just the inmates. You know, there's a lot of guards who were, and still are angry. You know, they're very angry when they come to work. And I know for a fact, I think there's a lot, that that same guard is going home and he's going to have kids. irritate him, make him mad, we all know what's going to happen to his kids. And everybody understood that, you know. So at times, people realize that, you know, they do not want to send these guys out to hurt their kids.

[16:14]

And that's been a real good thing for me because it really challenged who our enemies are, you know. We always like to think that when we see a guard, we automatically to recognize him as our enemy. And I always believe that, you know, if your enemy, if your enemy is sitting next to you, there's something you can say to that. And what I did was, I spoke to Garth, and I wrote Garth's kids back. They used to write me, and they still do write me, and I write them back, but I just felt like my whole life had a purpose here. And I had to dedicate that purpose until I got out of prison. And that's been the story of my life, really. You know, you spoke to me about Rinpoche saying to you, just move things aside. I don't remember the exact phrase, you know, move them away. You don't have to fight and hit it.

[17:16]

Do you want to say anything about that and how you practice with that? I, you know, I coughed and I did a whole bunch of stuff that, you know, that really, you know, didn't feel right to me. And when I spoke to him, he said, you know what, just, you know, you'll never be able to beat the wall down. You'll never be able to, you know, cut through the wall, you know. So if you can't do that, all you have to do, Jarvis, is move a mile away. And when he said that, I understood exactly what he meant. me meant that you don't have to see the parts if you don't need to. That you could focus in on your practice and everything you thought was restraining you or keeping you from being the person you are, all you had to do was move all those negativities out the way. And that has been essential for me in practice.

[18:18]

I honestly think it was a life-changing experience because I knew how to do time and I knew how to feel free. And This was something that I think about every day when I get up. You know, how do I move these things out of my way so I can find myself in a better place? And it's not every day that I'm able to do that. But, you know, that's the practice. And I love that idea of trying to, you know, reset my mind every time I get up in the morning. And Rep. She showed me how to do that. And I feel really, really grateful. You've talked to me about the teacher who you wrote to, because this seems really relevant. All of us have things that we don't know how to move away or move to the side or how to get away from the experiences that we hold on to that constrict us. Do you want to tell the story about that teacher? Yeah, you know, I mean, I have a lot of stories, but those stories that really, really shake me up,

[19:27]

I tend to remember more so than the others. But I was writing to this teacher. He said to me that he was working in South Central, which is L.A., and that he was white and that he didn't know what to do because he kept seeing kids coming into his classroom with crystals, you know, and he didn't know how to approach them because in his life he thought, you know, get shot that way so he started writing me stressed out and I started writing back and forth and he kept telling me more stories about what his fear felt like and how should he meditate you know at some point I said you know what you need to just go ahead and go on a vacation you know get out of his fingers And, you know, he went through that for maybe a year, kept saying he was going to go.

[20:32]

And finally, he went to Hawaii, and I got a postcard from him. And on that postcard, he said, I'm really, really doing good. I'm so glad you encouraged me to do this. I'm out here on the beach, you know, and I'm reading this really, really good book. If you want me to get it for you, I will. And, you know, he said, he probably never read it, but he never read kind of a letter. And I realized at that moment that he took everything I was asking him not to take with him. He took the fear, he took the virus, he took everything, and he made it comfortable. And that's what got me the most. He made it comfortable. And I just, you know, my whole letter starts to change when I start writing him. And those letters spoke of, you know, you can't, you know, you can't run from this page you're going through, man.

[21:35]

You can't hide from it. Seeing no vacation in the world is going to cover up what you're feeling. And he started going to a vent center out there in an offense or somewhere. And... I don't like to understand, but he really taught me that you cannot take all the pain and suffering with you. You can't leave it with you, leave it back where you're going. And it was really, really touching that I was able to learn that. It's not the wrong way, but I was able to see it. I was able to understand. I was able to see the teach and everything else that he was telling me, but I also heard that he still owned a lot of heart, pain, and fear. And I've never confronted hearing that, but going to meditation was something that I really felt it would benefit from.

[22:36]

And it's a good story, too, because I tell that story to a lot of people here, and they definitely did it. Now, I don't know exactly what they do with it, but when a story like that tells them that getting out of prison is not going to help you if you don't help yourself now. And it was really, really something that I feel really close to that particular story. I can feel that. Yeah, I can feel that, Jarvis, just how... how close that is to your practice and close it is to what you share with other people and help people recognize it's a powerful story. You've also talked... Yeah, go ahead. Was there something else you were thinking of? Well, I was just also thinking about, you know, hatred, you know, and some of the things I felt when I...

[23:44]

long ago, maybe a year ago, I was going to go see my father. He decided to come see me after about 50 years. And when he first thought to see me, you know, it was all arranged and he never came. You know, he said he had a boy matching all the people who did it on him. But essentially he came and I didn't know what to say to him because there was a lot of violence that I remember. But As a child, men will tell. And I seen a lot in the room next door. You know, it wasn't the fire that I saw outside. But when I first heard the fire that was in the room next door, it was my mother. And that was not ever. Let's call and your telephone number will be monitored and recorded. So I went out there not knowing what I was going to say. You know, was I going to, you know, recount everything that he ever did to me and my mother? He had 60 seconds remaining. Or was I going to be the Buddhist and not say anything and just try to find compassion, you know, and what he said?

[24:54]

And I didn't know which one I was going out there with until I seen him who sat down. When I looked at him, you know what? It didn't matter who was right and who was wrong. You know, I realized that I had this opportunity right here and right now to just be with him and, you know, find out, you know, who he was and allow him who I was. And the thing about that visit was that, you know, I had all these excuses about going out there to see him. When I realized at the beginning of our visit, when he asked that he could have more time to visit me, that said to me, you know, it was all worth seeing him and being with my father. Can you hear me? Yeah, I can hear you. I can hear you. So as we wait for Jarvis to call back, I'm just wondering how it is to be with and feel whatever is touching you in what you're hearing Jarvis share.

[26:07]

Jarvis may speak more about it. And in Finding Freedom, one of the very powerful stories is called Scars. And he mentioned it. And Jarvis may say more, I don't know. But when he's told me about it... being out on the yard where people were playing basketball and their shirts were off. And he was looking and seeing all these scars on people's bodies. Hello? So Jarvis, hi, do you want to say more about the visit with your father?

[27:42]

Oh yeah, I was going to say that I was surprised in my response to him. Well, I didn't know what my response was going to be other than... I was going to go out there. And when I went out there, nothing mattered no more. You know, I did not want to see him that way. I didn't want to believe my mother had done the way. It's just that he was 87 years old and I did not have time. You know, I did not have time. We didn't have time. And I say that to a lot of people, but I had to see if I was serious about that. And I was, I was. And ever since then, you know, I look at what time means to me. And some of these things are my mind was trained to think about many, many years ago, but now they're, you know, they clean themselves out, you know, in ways that I can benefit from my practice. And, you know, it's just something that you live through and you understand in those experiences how you can relate through experiences to everyone in prison or just so.

[28:53]

You know, we have a tendency to remember many, many terrible stories about our fathers. And those stories are the stories that, you know, traps us, traps us in that life experience that we do not know how to get our way out of. So when I told this story to guys on their throne, they didn't even believe that I had a visit from my father. I mean, your father really? Did he really come up here? You know, we read your full-time freedom, and, you know, you hate your father, man. Well, man, I don't know why you want to see him like that. And, you know, I tell the guys, you know, hey, I didn't know what I was going to say out there neither, you know. But I can tell you this. You look good old, and you do not want to just spend a lot of time talking to somebody that you're not going to prove a point to. And when I decided that, it was really, really good physics. And I can't imagine not being able to see him if he had died when I said, no, I didn't want to.

[29:59]

I could not even think about that. And their feelings rocked so deep that, you know, you can share that with anyone, whether you're in person or out person. And they get it. The time that we have in this life to make those connections. give something else to somebody. That was the richness to me in Buddhism, that I was able to, you know, generate a lot of love and compassion for myself and then to extend that compassion to other people so that, you know, it comes back to me. And that's something that, you know, I really, really... think about, you know, if I had not went out there to see my father, that would have been, that would have put me away. Yeah. Let's call, Andrew, our telephone number, we'll be going to check and record it. You know, Joe. Yeah, no, go ahead.

[31:02]

No, go ahead. No, I was just going to say, I was just going to say that, you know, why do you, you know, what I'm going to say was this, a lot of, a lot of us realize, don't, a lot of people on death toll, they realize, and we all do, that we don't have a lot of time. You know, whether there's going to be an execution a day or a while, it doesn't matter. What matters is that, you know, what you're going to be thinking about while you're waiting. And there's this void that a lot of us have that we need to kind of you know, fill in. What is it that's going to make my stay on there close enough value? And a lot of us know how to do that, and a lot of us don't. But it's all, no matter where it's me or the guy down the road, it's a practice. You know, you wake up and you kind of feel like, what is it going to make me happy today?

[32:03]

Or when is it going to make me not mess with anybody, not get in the dark face, not, you know, It is just, you know, you generate a lot of good karma, and I can't imagine not having this practice being here almost 40 years. No, I've been here 40 years. Well, so, because I've been here outside the person, I realize that, you know, there's something you can do that will generate a lot of love and compassion for us. Yeah. Well, I know that that's such a deep part of your life and your practice. And you went, you said something really quickly. You said, you know, you had to generate self-compassion for yourself so compassion could go outward. And I wonder how you practice that, Jarvis.

[33:03]

How do you practice, you know, generating self-compassion? out and you know that you're wrong and you realize that deeply inside you it's very easy to go and say to someone else I apologize but if you cannot apologize to yourself if there's something that says I'm not wrong I'm right you're wrong you can never get to that point where your apologies are very very sincere So, you know, you work on yourself to be able to communicate to other people. That's something I do a lot, too, because I just know that you have to come from a real serious place when I talk to people. And a lot of times it is, and a lot of times it isn't. But when things are serious, I really, really come from another place inside the place of compassion and understanding where that person is.

[34:11]

I just feel a lot of times how you know, what the gift is that I have to have with you, like, and what he taught me, the things that he taught me, that how today I see the benefits. And it's just what it is, you know. So, you know, there's about eight more minutes before we bring this kind of talk to a close and open it up for questions and answers. So I wonder... you know, what else you've been thinking about that you would really like to have the opportunity to say and speak about? Well, you know, one of the things I like to think about is how does this concept, you know, how the teachings of Buddhism in this present work? You know, how am I experiencing those things? I feel a challenge. I feel a deeper challenge because I feel more responsible. I have a greater responsibility.

[35:14]

And in Buddhism, the more you think in your practice, the more you see other things that hold you to be responsible. And the more I see myself coming out of prison, the more I feel responsible to what I know, to what I feel. And that's a good thing for me because it allows me to just sink into myself, you know, and just try to pull out the dust of me and see what the worst of me looked like as well. So, you know, when I talk to guards today, I see, you know, I see something real about them that I haven't seen. Well, I see it, but I see more and more of it, that we are both locked up. You know, we're both inside this person. And what I do when he's not allowed, what he does when he's at home, really depends on what we, you know, who we are, you know, as human beings.

[36:22]

And one of the things I do, more than anything else, is that I do not want anyone, any guard to leave here because I said something that's going to allow him to beat up, beat his kids up, you know. And I try to extend that to their regard. There's so many things that they go through, you know, and mental health, you know, there's a lot of people who dedicate themselves to helping people who have suffering from mental health. And I never want to get those folks mad either because, you know, their speech is important to be understood. So, I mean, This call and your telephone number will be monitored and recorded. So I share that with you guys. You know, person has his own language. And, you know, when I talk to Pamela a lot, she always, you know, let me know that things are a lot worse than what I'm experiencing here.

[37:30]

And that I should dedicate my practice to that. And it's so real to do that. It feels real to be able to sit down and just think about what you can do for someone. Or think about what you can do for yourself, too. And that was something I didn't know how to do. You know, you come into Buddhism and all you want to do is help somebody. And you go out there and you want to say this and you want to say that, but you forget about helping yourself. And Lee, that's what I was talking about. If you don't help yourself, you're not going to be able to help anyone else. You know, they're supposed to go hand in hand, but a lot of times they are not sitting with you. You know, you are living in your own being. And you've dedicated your life to something. And play that out, you know, generates a lot of compassion towards the other person. I like to pick someone I don't like and try to, you know, that's what my part is.

[38:31]

I love doing that. I love to pick someone I don't like. but they don't like me because they're my real teachers here. You know, they're the ones that kept my resolve in my practice. They're the ones who's going to get me upset. They're the ones who's going to see my success, you know, see my accomplishments. So that's what I'm doing. Yeah, that's my whole trip here. Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, you've said a lot, Jarvis, and in a... in a few moments, you know, there'll be a closing chant and then a opening to people being able to ask their questions. Um, my, my guess is you're going to be disconnected from us in just a few minutes. And, um, you know, you just, you said, you know, you love to work on people that you don't like and, um, do your practice. And I, so I wondered, you know, I like, I like working on myself. Right. Uh huh.

[39:32]

my own trip. I like working on myself. I would, you know, walk up to somebody I know don't like me, you know, and I would see who I am when I speak to that person. You know, and it's actually funny. It's a fun thing to do because trust and fear and, you know, take me what I'm trying to, take me what I... You've got to irritate me. Show me what's going to make me very, very mad. Say something that's not going to make me talk to you forever. I work on myself that way. I'm just laughing because most of us don't say that's really fun, but I love that you do. It is. You know, I always want to, you know, be something, you know, whether it's Christianity, Islam, or whatever.

[40:37]

And, you know, I have that feeling at first, too, you know. I have that feeling to get that candy bar. And I realize it's not just the candy bar. That candy bar has a whole lot of other stuff going on, you know. Well, how do you get that candy bar out of your head, you know. And even if you do get it out of your head, something else is coming into your head. So I sit there and I've worked on myself that way. Yeah. It's wonderful, Jarvis. And I'm so glad that this is happening. And I just wonder if there's any closing thought you have before you're disconnected and before we do the closing chant. And I don't know who they are. It's just the fact that I'm stumbling all over the place. You have 60 seconds remaining.

[41:39]

I've talked to this woman, too, in my ear. I want to thank you guys for allowing me to speak out of my voice, speak out of my mind. I'm here to answer those questions. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered at no cost and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[42:20]

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