The journal of LaBobby J. Ramsey
1 January 2007
The New Year of 2007 came with the taunting inner voice of establishing a new beginning as several resolutions, challenges, and feats for new goals surface to the forefront of my mind.
Unlike many of my New Years, this one was approached with the preparation of resolutions towed by the chains of my spiritual resolve. This was my incentive for entitling the journal "The Year of Lam-rim," because when translated from Tibetan to English it roughly denotes "(the) graduated path to enlightenment." For several years, my spiritual beliefs has evolved itself around the Mahayana Tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. Applying the teachings of Shakyamuni Buddha to my life is the path to enlightenment. Because the nature of a journal can serve to harness one's self-awareness, the connotation to the core of analytical meditation in Buddhism, including with the undertaken devotion associated with the resolutions to embrace the teachings of Shakyamuni Buddha, entitling the journal The Year of Lam-rim was ideal.
When I woke up at the boisterous sounds of inmates screaming, banging on lockers, and kicking on doors, it crossed my mind that perhaps another conflict of interest between inmates and guards had been the case. Either that or San Diego scored against Arizona. As I was able to make out a few words echoing off the glass-wall, the New Year count down in prison superseded the ignorant, previous assumptions as one minute transformed an entire night into a whole new year. In Segregation (seg) where I've been housed for over five (5) years, the noise was something akin to a congregation underway with every inmate greeting each other cheerfully as if it were a festival to celebrate an icon. Believe it or not, Holiday seasons seem to be the only time animosity in prison can easily be side stepped without a conscious effort, at least for a while. All the fellow inmates around me were joyous, ever exchanging greetings over the uproar echoing throughout the Tiers (182) with the extention of a "Happy New Years Everybody!" For some like myself, it was just another day of living that shouldn't be observed in a higher esteem than any other day I'm alive, living well robust. So don't hold the wrong impression in your head that I'm not excited to be alive. I am. In fact everyday I'm able to awake is a day offering me the opportunity to recall how grateful I am to still be alive after twenty-eight (28 years. After all the dire situations I've been through in retrospect, death should have swallowed me up long ago. Not that it ever won't, either. Not that I did anything ritualistic to escape it back then nor more than I can perform a ritual to postpone it or ward it off now, but because I see life as an opportunity to develop my conscious mind to transcend to the next advance life, for that reason am I grateful.
My daily schedule is an invaluable part to my spiritual practices, so it wasn't long before I went back to sleep, especially after ascertaining for myself the initial bedlam was no more than the ruins of an inept celebration. Actually, for several years now, I have been maintaining this sleeping schedule. Breakfast is normally served around three o'clock A.M. style. That's most likely when I'll get out of bed to perform the morning rituals: brush my teeth and hair, wash my face, and clean and rearrange my cell for the day. I only eat once every 24 hours before, around, or at noon. The 24 hours begin 45 minutes after the last bite has been swallowed. There are some miscellaneous exceptions to the resolution because lunch is often served around 11 A.M., but on several occasions, meals are served at 10 A.M. The time can fluctuate, and because policy enforcers don't always adhere to my spiritual practices, it is with my better judgment to eat when the vegetarian meal is handed to me and to avoid harboring the food and or trays, thus welcoming the opportunity for disciplinary reports to be written on me. A cause like that can create a condition that will be lead to the effect of being placed on food loaf for (7) seven days, so if I can avoid a case, I will. My breakfast and dinner consist of drinking tea or juice, or coffee mixed with diluted milk. By this abstemious way of fasting, it makes it feasible for me to practice meditation late in the evening without my mind-body equilibrium being disturbed by the chemical reaction occurring through my body from food processing. if possible I'll try to see to it that both breakfast and dinner meals are handed to fellow inmates who are indignant with a potent craving for consumption. I used to harbor the breakfast meal to eat at 11 A.M. but it is a complex undertaking that can be avoided. Besides, I care more to see an inmate benefit from it than to see it being slopped for a lower strand of sentient beings. My once a day consumption is enough for me. Aside from Buddhist practices, abstemiousness is more preferable as that my mental equilibrium is often agitated to eat more than what's required to keep me alive.
By the fifth hour of New Years Day, I aptly ascended upon my bunk like the ancient statues of Buddha, crossing my legs in the half-lotus position to meditate on the appreciation of life.
Meditation in the morning is more preferable because usually at this time, especially after breakfast, every other inmate is asleep or either trying desperately to go back to sleep that an effort to talk is an overwhelming endeavor to their feeble mind. Most are listening to their radio for the news, sport news, and music. When the guards come around for showers and recreational refusals that is most likely the time words will be exchanged until the wave of the eventide has reached its latest, which is when I'll take advantage of it to assume meditation practices again. In between time, throughout the entire day in whatever I'm doing, I aim to maintain the highest degree of conscious awareness of both my internal and external world through analytical meditation, so don't entertain the wrong impression that meditation only consists of sitting on a cushion in a lotus position for single-point concentration.
After I came back to my cell from the shower, feeling chilly at the winter breeze, I hurried to apply my hygiene so that I could get dressed to be warmer. The heaters around here either don't work, so it seems, or they don't care enough to turn it on, and at night when the temperature drops, it feels as though you're sleeping in a tent high in the Rocky Mountains. A Secretary Service Inmate (S.S.I.) that cleans the wings had recently retorted one night that it was hot on J-wing. That sort of makes you wonder, but every inmate knows that those guys over on J-wing are a bunch of spoiled inmates in whom the Administrative treats better than the rest of segregation offenders. While every other Seg. wing (G, H, I, K, L) goes to commissary every two weeks, those guys on J-wing goes every week. Two weeks ago, the whole entire wing (J) became upset, got together and flooded the run (tier floor) with toilet water because the commissary staff didn't come soon enough to run them to commissary. The water made it out of the wing out to the rotunda to other wings to which included K-wing. Fortunately the water scarcely made it to my door, and the S.S.I.'s were very upset to have to stop their petty hustling to mop and squeegee the water off the floor. There was no rectitude about flooding except to get their way, so add insult to injury, they still were able to make commissary the same day. And so, it does not even surprise me that J-wing has heat ventilating over on their wing. Everything is cold over here; the food is cold; the heater produces cold air; the shower water is often too cold. Here recently, the shower at the front of the Tier has been warm. Next to my cell is a cell that has been converted into a shower stall. We call it Twelve Cell Shower. Every morning I hear inmates mumble how cold the water is. A verbal confrontation often ensues once the inmate brings it to the guard's attention. Most guards aren't concerned. They only care about finishing the showers off just so they will have time to sit on their lazy asses. There's even the impression in y mind that some of the guards convene to alter the hot water to force inmates to take cold showers prior to regulating the temperature. Once guards inform inmates there's no hot water, the majority will refuse to go, thus making the guard's job a bit easier, because if the water had been warm enough to even shower under, every inmate out of the (40+) forty-plus on the wing would shower, which will take the guards longer to complete. In the summer, the tactic is switched up. For example, guards are responsible for cell search everyday the inmate exits his cell for showers or recreation. Inmates who have contraband to hide won't leave their cell at all, especially if the guard will leave your cell looking like a category five hurricane came/went through it. This cell search is increased during the summer in order to decrease the number of inmates willing to shower; during the winter, the cell searches are decreased while the guards regulate the hot water temperature to cold in order to have fewer inmates to shower. Not all guards are sinister in nature. Some will actually regulate the hot water temperature for you without ever going inside your cell to search it.
Anyway, it is close to lunch time and I have to do some studying. I also have to write on the topic of "Mind Games" too but I'm not sure if I am. Already I am a bit agitated with this journal, but it has always been that we will detest that which is good for us and embrace that which is bad for us. So, until another cause brings me to the effect of writing in this journal, may all beings be peaceful. May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings awaken to the light of their true nature. May all beings be free. Peace!
3 January 2007
I am scheduled today for a disciplinary court hearing from a case I received on Christmas Eve. Yesterday, I had went to court to argue my side that policy requires staff to have direct knowledge of an incident to write a disciplinary report on or against an offender in that the charging officers weren't present to have direct knowledge at all. With this being true, the disciplinary captain decided to postpone it in order to bring in the witness to see what she has to say. So today we will see. There's o problem sharing what happened, but because it has to do with establishing a relationship with a female employee, I won't elaborate much about it. If I'm not able to share unadulterated truth, my beating around the bush about it as if to talk over someone's head will seem obtrusive, because there's a possibility what I write here can easily be scanned by mailroom personnel, and even though they know me well, I don't want to force anyone of them into a position to bring unwanted attention to my journal writing that can lead someone else in more trouble. An inmate once told me that "if you're not sure of anything at all, stay put." That's the advice I apply here. Peace.
5 January 2007
there's not much going on in my world today. At least nothing worth noting. It is in fact late in the evening. Our wing has been served dinner only minutes ago while my hot water was warming up for coffee. I made it my business to see to it that an inmate was handed the tray. It is close to six which means shifts are about to change. There is still a half a row of inmates left to be showered. Most likely the number will decrease by shift change; it is no longer too cold to shower and second shift is coming on and they definitely will do cell searches. Speaking about cell searches. There's a rumor going around that a necessity-shake-down will be sometime tomorrow. We have a new Warden overseeing the unit, so as part of his signature statement he's deciding that Seg-offenders aren't allowed no more than one (1) pair of boxer shorts in contrast to the three (3) pairs we already have. When we go to the shower, we are given an option to exchange the dirty boxers for clean ones then, but there won't be the (3) three pair of boxers with the necessity routine where S.S.I. laundry workers come to pick up on dirty laundry to be washed on one day and have them back to us the next. Taking the boxers away is an old routine for a new Warden. Coffield has a motto that never fails to cease to hold true to its prediction: "Give it two or three months and thangs will be back the same. Nothing has an everlasting effect on Coffield." I've been here every day since Feb. 28, 2003 and I've learnt to never underestimate the impossible. We'll see how that pans out.
I also received two letters tonight: a letter from my sister-in-law and a letter from a Dharma friend. Ashley, my sister-in-law, wrote to send photos of my little brother and my nephew who was recently born on the fifteenth day of December, 2006. He's mixed with black, mexican, and white, being that his mother is mexican and white and my brother is, of course, black. Gosh, the baby is very adorable. I love kids. I wish I could share the pictures to go along with the journal section just to be able to show you what the little fellow looks like. O'Kay, on most of his picture he's layed back to casual in sky blue winter attire and matching hoody with a baby blue bear next to him. He has this smile on his face that lets me know he's enjoying the attention. On another picture he has a pacifier in his mouth that inflates his cheeks which makes him appear even more adorable. Another picture has him with a curio glance on his face as if to say, "O'Kay, I'm not too certain what the hell is going on but hell it seems pretty cool going on," (laughing). I have lots of nieces and nephews I care about. I love the kids. They're so precious. No, I am fatherless. I have no kids at all. I have mixed feelings about that, right.
Anyway, Terry is my Dharma friend. Actually, he's a T.D.C.J. Volunteer (Buddhist) Chaplain launching out an endeavor to organize religious programs for Texas prisoners who are devoted to Buddhist. As of to date, there's scarcely any volunteer Buddhist chaplains on the units to accommodate the growth and development of Buddhist inmates. Terry is trying to develop a system program that does, because he too understands how important it is for incarcerated Buddhists to have direct contact with a spiritual guide. Buddhism itself is "esoteric and mystical in nature." Tibetan Buddhism prohibits any devoted monk from ever broadcasting their experiences with secular friends or those who aren't genuinely interested in Buddhism through their own devotion. Therefore, when and if necessary, a Buddhist monk will take refuge in the Sangha or the spiritual community. Not everyone is able to communicate with their own inner Lama (Tibetan: a spiritual teacher). In the event it is not feasible, a Lama or Guru is needed to be present. (I use my own inner wisdom to inspect the qualities of a teacher). The Mahayana Buddhism of Tibet is a total different system from any other, so because it can pan out to be inimical for monks (or anybody really in any religion) to broadcast their mystical experience with a detailed explanation, Tibetan Buddhism won't allow it. For one, it will dissipate the positive energy and insight you have accumulated. To understand this through your own experience, try recalling to your mind a time where you felt you needed to "get it off my chest." If you think carefully about it, you'll notice you felt like the weight of the world were upon your shoulders until after you talked to someone about it. That's because the (positive or) negative energy building up in your psych had been dissipated the moment you talked to someone about it. Even if it makes you feel better, you have to be careful to whom you talk to, because if you aren't careful, it can come back to haunt you. Talk about it with someone of like minded. That way positive energy can interact, digesting (the experience) into wisdom and influence more positive energy that will bring about good results into your life. If the energy is negative, talk only to someone with a sound mind, so that the negative energy will be digested into wisdom to enhance the circumstances for you in the near future. That will be wiser. Otherwise, you'll only influence more negative circumstances in your life by confiding into a like-minded individual. You have to be careful about this in terms to who you talk to. Your insight can go deeper with your experience. See, Buddhism is not a limited subject matter at all. We don't hold Buddhism to be a religion in the usual sense of the word. We consider Buddhism to be more akin to a philosophy, psychology, or science. What brought me to Buddhism is my own experience, each one serving as a trail that lead me on the path of enlightenment. Peace.
6 January 2007
Well, we are officially on lock-down status. Not that it matters to any inmate housed in segregation, where you're confined to your cell for (23) twenty-three hours a day. It is not clear as to why the unit has went on lock-down. Maybe general population inmates are threatening to riot... yeah right. We're probably on lock down for a Major Shake-Down, an event where the guards terrorize the inmates' property and living area throughout the whole entire unit. Did I say anything about Hurricane Katrina?! Peace.
7 January 2007
It has been confirmed that we are in fact on an official unit lock-down status for (30) thirty days. A guard working the wing the other day said that the Warden ordered that there be minimum movement due to A-and-B Medium custody wings. There appears to be a conflict or tension in the air between the inmates housed there. I don't worry myself with the whys and wherefores. We are also eating sack lunches. I just set them aside until the appropriate time comes for me to eat. By that time, there's something like six peanut butter sandwiches to consume for my lunch. Usually, during the inception of a lock-down condition, my sacks have like three (3) sandwiches, and that's only because officers from the kitchen are making them while the kitchen inmates remain on lock-down for a spell. When kitchen inmates are allowed to leave their living quarters to come help assist the officers in preparing the sack lunches, my sacks then come with only two sandwiches. That's how inmates are in the kitchen. That's my word, they operate on an administrative level as if they were/are kitchen supervisors themselves when officers leave them alone to work. For example, if our coolaid or tea is sweet, or coffee good, hot, and strong it is actually because the officers in the kitchen don't have inmates to rely on at the moment to handle it for them, so the officers are more conscious of their effort to follow the code of ethics. When inmates fix the coffee, juice, tea, or coolaid it is often watered-down or diluted. Inmates in the kitchen actually try to harbor most of the products in order to sell it as their means to hustling. It is a pity to stick your own fellow inmate out or give your fellow inmate the shorter end of the stick, in order to appease yourself, especially since you're already (are) in a down-trodden environment. In regards to peanut butter: the less that is being used, the more it is being sold. I used to work as a grill cook in the kitchen, flipping pancakes, french toast, and frying eggs back in the late 90's, so I know the prevalent mentality that comes with certain positions, even though I don't involve my hustle with that sort of activity. Well, hell, let's better put it this way. If there was an opportunity to do so without stealing it stick out my fellow inmates, there wasn't a chance I'd participate in it. There were instances where I was in position to make-and-sell protein-drinks for inmates into weight-lifting, like I was at the time. Because the shake was designed to put on weight while being able to eat a healthy meal only once a day, the inmates interested in weight-lifting loved it so much I managed to transform the production into a black-market, when in all actuality, it was a highly personal used product for myself. Once the fellows coming in through the line were able to notice an increase in size (5'9" 178 lbs., to 180-190 lbs solid), they inquired as to what my diet was like; and at the time I was drinking only (3) three pints, my work out would consist of a thousand push-ups, five hundred curls, and three-to-two hundred crunches on upper-body days... If I wasn't on the grill, I was making sack lunches for the YOP (Young offender Program) inmates who were on lock-down for two months for a racial riot. Only their section had been on lock-down instead of the entire unit so I had to make sacks right after the grill ordeal ended with a six (6) time loser trying to encourage me with an iron rod to maintain a clean cooking grill. I was only 18 years old, going on 19. Once when I was making the peanut butter sandwiches, fixing them the way i love to eat them with peanut butter galore, the Warden along with his Captain came through the kitchen unexpectedly. At the moment, or actually right when the two had walked in the area I was at, I had just finished a healthy peanut butter sandwich and was chasing the last swallow down with some ice-cold milk. Even though I was completely through with making the entire section's sack lunches all by myself, my eyes widened at the moment the warden stepped into my view. As I continued to drink the milk, realizing it is prohibited for anyone to eat in the cooking-kitchen area, the Warden and Captain spoke to me as the Warden reached for a sack lunch already inside the huge plastic bag where the rest of the sack lunches accumulated. He took out a peanut butter sandwich, took a bite into it while grabbing a milk out of the crates ready to be hauled off to the section, and walk inside the Kitchen Captain's office. The building Captain followed, grabbing a salad stick on his way. No sooner had the two disappeared into the office, the Kitchen Sergeant came out of her office and began raving about my using so much peanut butter for the sandwiches. Just as she was running her mouth off to me, the warden, with the two Captains, came out of the office. The Warden was still eating when he made an inquiry as to who made "these peanut butter sandwiches." Peanut butter was actually dripping from the sandwiches onto his hands before dripping to the floor. His antics was with every effort to prevent the peanut butter from creating a mess on his suit. There was a reluctant response on my part to answer up on behalf of making the sack lunches but before I could actually take responsibility for myself, the Kitchen Sgt (or sergeant) who wore her bifocals on the bridge of her nose was pointing at me as if to say "I told him so." To both our surprise, the warden told her in a complimentary tone how I did a good job with the sack lunches. In fact, he told her that for as long as the section was on lock-down he wanted me to be responsible for making all the sack lunches, because I was doing a good job with it anyway. The deal was the previous inmate assigned to make the sack-lunches was scarcely applying peanut butter on the bread, so the youth offenders banned together to file complaints with the Warden against the kitchen for insufficient sack-lunches. To have me to continue to make the sack-lunches would resolve the problem, especially if all the sandwiches were like the one he was eating with ice-cold milk. I had fun with it because I played this little game with myself by placing more than the usual amount of sandwiches inside one lunch-sack. No one receiving the sacks would assume it was accomplished intentionally and neither would I have a clue as to who would receive them. This way, I felt i was blessing someone or doing someone a favor. I am usually happy with myself when I'm able to benefit others... Anyway, I'm not even condemning these kitchen workers here for attempts to hustle for themselves, but the least they could do is be more considerate of others by taking care of the general population first and foremost and afterward if something is left to hustle with pursue it. Most of the guys don't hustle for their basic needs -- hygiene and cosmetic items to begin with. They hustle to filter their lungs and or pollute their minds, like a dope fiend parent that neglects her and her children's basic needs in order to appease her uncontrolled habits, her cravings. The transformation thoughts that come with Buddhism don't allow me to criticize people or even dogmatically put anyone down, but what I speak is truth. because I understand the basic nature of their problem I don't condemn them, although sometimes to speak on something can seem critical within itself. It's more of an incentive for me to shift my views toward cultivating compassion for them because I myself was once under the influence of my own ignorant mentality. My practices have taught me it is with this same mind of ignorance and aggression that causes us all to harm and hurt each other instinctively, unconsciously. Peace.
9 January 2007
Yesterday I was able to watch the cats around here play. Cats have always had an unusual attraction to Coffield terrains. It is where they are born, it is where they live, it is where they sleep, and it has even been where they hunt and or are the prey being hunted. A generation of cats come and go, often like something akin to human reproduction being a ministration for human existence. Here on K-wing, I've had the opportunity to see these cats grow up their family. If not hunted after for a price, they walk freely around the unit in search for food. Most of these cats have managed to forage doves or pigeons or mince birds for food. You can watch them in action from the cell, how at one minute they skillfully feign to be a statue from being a lion in action, especially while they fight with one of the others. Around here, inmates have come more acquaintance with these cats in so much they have taken a liking to the cats enough to call them names that attribute their appearances. names like "Whitesox" or "Tom Cat" or "Jerry" and "Mother Gray Cat" and "Slow Mo" and so forth. Inmates usually housed the cats, you know, harbor them in their cells in order to have them as pets. And they make good for secular friends to some inmates. You'd probably wonder how they are able to catch the cats. Here's the deal, the tactic most used in capturing these animals. Prior to the cats' so-called breeding-season, sort of to speak, inmates feed the cats tuna fish galore at the flank or base of their door where metal trays are slid when we're finished eating. By feeding the cats -- primarily the mother cats -- tuna fish or meat substance on a regular basis, the inmate(s) win the cat's trust, wherein the cat will return for possible forage they believe will be a guaranteed meal. This makes the cat dependent. A routine of this method creates a condition that manipulates the mother's concern for her young, including the idea of abating the nuisance of rustling up food, so when her kittens are born, she has no qualms about relying on the inmate enough to bring her young by the nape to the inmate cells inside the building in order that the inmate will care for the young better. From there the inmate will either choose to house it for a pet or sell the kitten for a price ranging from $15 to $20 a kitten, depending on the level of desperation. There has been an instance where an inmate murdered a kitten because it defecated on his bunk. Usually with me sounding like a PETA-Patrol, I try to encourage my inmates to evade any thought of harming the cats when they have them as pets because every day inmates complain about how their caretaker mistreats them but here they are mistreating the animals. I love all animals. They are sentient beings of a lesser strain, but I don't have to interfere with their life in order to have affection. Anyway, yesterday Whitesox and Slow Mo appeared to have a conflict that resulted into a melee akin to two lions going at it. Both male cats are lean, with Whitesox being a bit more robust looking. They both can pass for miniature tigers, especially Whitesox who has a tiger-stripe fur coat. Only his paws are white. Slow Mo is close except with a lighter coat with his Whitesox to come somewhere to his elbows to blend with the rest of his fur. When these two commence fighting, my mind went back to the morning I was asleep on the first hour of New Years when inmates were boisterous in welcoming the New Year. Except this time all I was able to make out of the initial bedlam came in an instigating tone in a bar-fight... "Whitesox... get on his ass... tear his ass up!" over and over again, over the tier. All the inmates love Whitesox, primarily because he depicts a more stout masculinity in the way he moves from one point to the next. He never seems to be in a rush to get to where he's headed, and when he is in a hurry, it can leave one observing him with the impression his previous life was that of a Lion in the Jungle. I actually had the opportunity to see him in action. The two cats stood on their hind legs, just going at it. The obviousness of the outcome was that Whitesox flung him to the ground and, akin to a pitbull orchestration, he locked down on him. He held the cat there for a while before releasing him. Then the second round ensued. Again, Whitesox came out on top; the cat underneath was lying still. Everyone assumed Whitesox had killed Slow Mo because Whitesox was spitting out two chunks of balls of fur from his mouth and Slow mo was only lying motionless... not even to appear to be exhausted or out of breath like WHitesox. The other cats could be seen watching this fight as if they were bystanders to a drive by shooting; Slow Mo gently placed a paw on Whitesox's nose in connotation to a temporal truce if Whitesox was willing to accept one. Well shortly after the cat's gesture Whitesox walked away and went about his business as if nothing happened. Actually, he walked around the recreational (outside) yard, stopping here and there at a post to lift a wiggle tail to which to release an aroma that would mark his territory. Soon afterward he walked out of sight. Slow Mo on the other hand waited for his cue before raising to his feet and walking off. The most funny thing about it is that when the action was over with and silence pervaded the atmosphere, an inmate said over the tier that "Whatever Slow Mo done for Whitesox to get on his ass like that... I don't know, but I guarantee you he won't let Whitesox see him do it again!" That happens to tickle everybody's mind, including my own. I still laugh thinking about it. Peace.
15 January 2007
In 2003, back when I had initially decided to expunge all black foods, such as meats, fish, eggs, onions, garlic, and radishes from my diet, my endeavor was beset by external impediments in the depths of the Food Service Department to comply with the religious meal requirement when providing meals. During those days, I was merely eating all three vegetarian meals with no regard to vows to only eat once every twenty-four hours, because the method of fasting isn't required unless one has pledged his or her allegiance to the percepts, especially upon realizing he or she has a chemistry for the experience. Not all methods coincide with the psychological make-up of every single individual, Lord Buddha said to his disciples, "Don't do something only because other people say it's great, or because you read it in a book, or because teachers promise you various benefits; do it only if, after you try it in your own experience, you see that it enriches your life." So at the moment of expunging black foods from my diet much as I possibly could to the best of my knowledge, my abstinence of food was an extreme fast that could last 7, 12, to 15 days. My body was well acquainted with the many ways to fast for short periods of time. However, my elephant mind was launching out most of the protest against the austerity attempts to be subdued, and later on, while the vows were not yet considered, my experimental knowledge-wisdom enabled me to apply methods to discipline my mind enough that toppling the habits of eating three meals a day naturally ensued. Actually, observing myself in the midst of the experience itself taught me that had it not been for the uncontrolled mind craving for food, we would not likely care to harbor the concern to eat at all. In fact, those who have surpassed the mental cravings (for food) will only eat mindfully with sense of understanding the body subsists on nutrients to service the animation. There's an intimate relationship with or between the body and mind, that if the body is not healthy, the mind pans out to be useless. So, one eats only to maintain physical health, not for the sake of mental cravings. Because Buddhists seek enlightenment or the realization of the truth, therefore implementing methods whereby they are able to put into their own practical attempts in training their minds, fasting then can become an important task to take to that point. Although fasting is truly the undertaken for the Lama's experience, we Buddhist don't advocate that people should fast. That's left for the individual to decide on. Moreover, austerity or an ascetic path doesn't make one a Buddhist no more than it makes one "more morally pure or virtuous." Anyway, the struggles with my meat-free meals was very ridiculous. If it weren't one changing-element with it, there was another, almost as if there were some unseen force counteracting the actions I was taking to maintain my diet. I would file a grievance after grievance to have my religious diet rectified. A positive element to my plight was that the kitchen eventually onset to acknowledge my complaints, except that at breakfast when eggs were served, where they would either refuse to serve me with the appropriate meal or refuse to feed me altogether. I would file a grievance again, all to no avail. Then instead of giving me an adequate nutritious breakfast, they'd mock my attempts by serving me with a modicum of food that wasn't enough to feed or nourish the youngest newborn's attempt to consume solid foods. In the middle of 2004, they would onset to serve me with a decent breakfast meal. Once inmates noticed my breakfast meals were "healthy with no eggs on it," the inmates onset to make out breakfast request for an absolute vegetarian breakfast. Just as one would think, the kitchen reasserted their nugatory feeding methods as a direct response to the inmates abusing the procedure. I wrote an I.O.C. (inter office communication) to the kitchen's supervisor, requesting for her ministration in rectifying this problem. My I.O.C. went unnoticed but there were resolution attempts that fluctuated with errors, none of which ever discouraged my endeavor to avoid the consumption of black foods. Then there was the macabre events of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, an event that devastated the whole entire regions. Because the traffic was flooded with vehicles and roads were being blocked off, the food supplies going out to the units would be delayed with no predictable rectification so as a result, the prison system headquarters in Huntsville issued an I.O.C. via email to bend the rules a little to conserve food. This email instructed the kitchen supervisor to put a temporal cessation to all diets, including religious diets. The only exception were the renal diets. Kitchen officers and inmates enthused with the instruction in so much they all eagerly brought me regular meals in which I aptly refused to accept through the feeding slot. I told them my mind wasn't that weak to accept a tray with black foods on it. I would refuse all meals if it wasn't in accordance to the religious meal requirements. ignorant to the I.O.C. from Huntsville, I sent the Kitchen Supervisor an I.O.C. explaining the situation that kitchen officers are refusing to comply with my religious meals requirement. Also, I sent the Warden, the Food Service Director in Huntsville, and the Kitchen Supervisors I.O.C.'s, letters, and I-60's (Inmate Request to Official) to inform them of the problem I'm having receiving a vegetarian meal. Two weeks later, the Kitchen Supervisor sent me the copy of the email/I.O.C. that issued the instructions under the emergency feeding order. Of course, I empathized with everyone concerning the entire situation. I also felt certain officers and inmates were being oppressive, sort of like abusing the instruction in order to taunt me about my religious diet. If one can understand how tolerance is the equivalence to concurrence, then one can understand how I consoled myself through seeing these people as mere images of ignorance that needs to be dissolved in wisdom. You neither fight against nor surrender to an ignoramus, you tolerate them. This is the middle way we Buddhists take into avoiding all extremes. Finally when I perused through the email-I.O.C., I came across a paragraph that would eventually impel the kitchen workers back into the routine of serving me the vegetarian meals I am required to have, because otherwise I would not eat at all. Because it was by the authority of the email Kitchen Supervisors stood on, I would use the same authority in reflecting the email in their face to support my endeavors. The Original Author wrote...."In order to feed the offenders as well as you can while conserving food, the decision has been made to disregard Diet For Health, meat-free (vegetarians) and pork-free diets -- the only exception to this is renal diets...." In the same email in another paragraph the same author wrote .... "You may have to serve vegetable plates to conserve meat." That's all I needed to pursue a complaint with an I.O.C. to the Warden and the Kitchen Supervisor, making this crucial point stick out at them like a sore thumb with emphasis that all vegetarians on the unit can help conserve meat, that it is entirely a show-case of arrogance, aggression, and ignorance to feed vegetarians regular meals if indeed there was a quest to conserve meat. Not for certain that my cries, pleas, and complaints would reach the minds that care to intervene, I resigned to eat only every other morning when pan cakes (without eggs) were being served at breakfast. It wasn't long afterward before my lunch and dinner meals were appropriate for the consumption; breakfast was still the same, and even though this was but a small victory, the exhaustion I felt made me feel like I had been defeated. After the emergency feeding order was lifted and every thing resumed normal feeding procedures, I had reasserted my struggle to combat the inappropriate vegetarian meals at breakfast. Seeing that I had no other route to take, how I felt alone in this struggle for religious freedom, I onset to launch out a hunger strike against the Food Service Department until they would acknowledge my religious meal requirement, especially since I was standing on policy backed by the state law and constitutional rights. There was over a dozen tactics officers used to dissuade me from this strike, including promises of sexual favors if I just ate one meal Had they realized how disciplined my mind-body was, perhaps the guards would not have insinuated this to be a sure-fire tactic. On the eighth day without food, without the appropriate medical attention, and without attention being brought to my plight, I began to file my complaints with the medical supervisors and the unit administration. The following day, the Segregation Captain pulled me out to inquire about the cause of my foolishness and a means to end it, as that it now caught his attention. I explained the entire situation to him with rectifications; he vowed to rectify the problem surrounding the religious meal requirements, because what I was requesting had been reasonable and on the level. Fasting for a cause was realistic. Although he expressed a concern for me to eat, the attitude he divulged showed no attempt to persuade me to eat or not to eat. He just continued to inquire about the strike, the belated reaction, and medical attention and so forth if I was to maintain the strike. Once I was able to discern he was serious about really rectifying the problem, whether being manipulative in paving the way for me to feel comfortable enough to eat, I told him I'd eat. He seemed pleased with this communication; he ordered a Sgt. to bring me a vegetarian lunch, instructed the supervisor (Sgt.) to witness the intake of the first bite, and strictly ordered the Sgt. to keep me in the legal-cage until I ate the meal completely. The Capt. walked off as the instruction he gave ensued. The following morning when eggs were being served, I requested for my vegetarian meal and observed how it was no problem with the officers and S.S.I.'s going to the kitchen and returning back with the vegetarian breakfast. I was content with this, but it messed up how I had to go through what I did to get a problem rectified by my caretakers. Again, once inmates noticed this with the reassertion of vegetarian breakfast, they realized it was their cue to hop on the ban-wagon [sic]. The kitchen divulges a tendency to resume the old nugatory feeding tactics in terms to vegetarian breakfast in their attempts to discourage inmates who were abusive, but I had to aptly remind them that I'm a vegetarian by all means and will commit my protest to a hunger-strike if the kitchen fails, refuses, or otherwise forgets to serve me my vegetarian meals. Because of this, most officers and S.S.I.'s are well acquainted with me enough where remembering I'm a vegetarian is habitual as remembering their own names. My reason for bringing this to mind is because today is Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday. He's a civil rights leader that stood for justice, peace, and racial equality. Although his messages weren't too far off from that of Buddhist thought, my experience of struggling for what I believe in, even if death was an impending fate due to the cause, had given me more incentive to appreciate all prominent civil rights leaders no matter their race, gender, nationality, or creed, because they've protested ensure blacks have the rights that are scarcely in extant. When I encounter the experience where inmates here have extravagantly exhausted all resources to which I personally fought to sustain for the benefit of all true-vegetarians, the impression I'm outfaced with is that the inmates, who have no idea what I went through, are very disgraceful and ungrateful and don't appreciate the path others have paved for them to walk through without the necessary burdens. Now that this experience has been dissolved into wisdom, clearing the smoke from my view, I'm able to begin to imagine how all the civil-rights leaders felt and are feeling when we as a people fail to take the civil rights torch and run the marathon in demonstrating justice, peace, and racial equality for all sentient beings. Thousands have died in the hardest part of the civil rights era, just as thousands more are well on their way, but it's a disgrace to the civil rights race when the very people their fighting for try to uproot the foundation to which it stands. Peace.
19 January 2007
The day before yesterday, the shake-down squad made their way to K-wing, even though their slow-pace was critical for the inmates. The second shift finished 4, 3, and 2 Tiers by midnight. I assumed they were going to either lie to the next shift that 1-Tier (or row) had already been "hit," as that has been the case before in the past, or let the next shift deal with us. Well, after stopping at 2-row in the middle of the night, second shift came back at 5:30 A.M. to pull us out into the legal-cages where we waited until shift changed. We were fortunate to be able to have our clothes with us else we'd freeze. First shift went in the wing off the muscle, thoroughly searched the cells, and by 7:30 A.M. to 8:00 A.M. we were back in our cells. My cell wasn't as bad as I imagine it to be. In fact, I was impressed with the aftermath. There wasn't too much of a mess for me to clean-and-straighten up. I have every item I'm suppose to have except the comfort of a mattress. To be honest about it, I don't need it. I don't sleep on it at all. It's not all that comfy for me, so what I do especially in the winter is sleep on the blanket fixated atop of my bunk. Ha! no wonder it's like sleeping outside in a dog house! (Laughs). Nah, not actually. It's better for me, for my body, and besides with the wool-blanket between us, it can help to generate body eat as much as the mattress can. I've been sleeping this way for over a decade here in prison, so I'm accustomed to it. By the summer, I'll have one, because by then the blankets will be taken up for washing and to be reused for the next winter season. Peace.
23 January 2007
When I initially set out to write this journal with the entitlement to read "The Year of Lam-rim," it wasn't an attempt to educate an audience on Buddhism. My incentive was solely to illustrate how I live my life as an incarcerated Buddhist. There are certain issues that are legit for me to talk about, while others are prohibited, either for the sake of religious vows or to prevent a critical exhibition of a particular subject (i.e. and officer).
On that note, there are some corrections to make as to avoid confusion. By accident I wrote that "Lam-rim" was Tibetan for "the gradual path of enlightenment." This is incorrect, an err stupidity on my part. "Lam-rim" is translated to "graduated path to enlightenment." This realization of the error dawned on me amidst mindful-meditation. A lot of times this sort of error has happened to me to my embarrassment. What I write here is written extemporaneously without regards for any editorial management, or skill. It's funny because even though I'm aware of how to spell a certain word, misspelling the word seems to reign.
Before my experiences gradually led me on the path to Buddhism, I used to combat my depression with the use of psychological medication. Because I have always been conscious of myself to a point of detecting any slight change in my body, speech, and mind, there was something odd about my mind and speech. Initially it was with my mind how I onset to forget what I was about to say in the middle of a conversation. I found myself embarrassed, constantly asking individuals at the moment, "What are we talking about?" These experiences, however recurrent they were at the time, were unusual experiences for me prior to taking medication for depression. I didn't like the experiences. They were embarrassing. I begin to gradually lose my ability to spell simple words like problem, inches, itches, discover, feeble, negative, positive, decision, and so forth. At odd times, I'd confuse words with each other: seeing "attention," I somehow manage to hallucinate "attachment" into the word. This became more deteriorating with time as if my mind failed to rely on its memory for its ability to spell words. Then out of the blue I onset to develop a speech deficiency that replaced my eloquence of speech with an ailment of pausing, stammering or stuttering in between words, and before I could get the sentence complete with a period, saliva pervaded my mouth as white foam extended to the periphery of my lips. The whole ordeal was embarrassing, even when it occurred in the privacy of my own room. Ascertaining for myself that the medication was solely responsible, I resigned never to take medication again, or any other drugs at all, period. Even though this experience is like learning to read and write and spell and pronounce words all over again, the damage that is left behind still peeks out at me every time a subtle mistake, such as forgetting to place a comma where it is necessary or failing to remember to place a word in the sentence occurs. The meds may have been ideal to combat depression, but it was only compounding the emotional disorder when it onset to create a continuum of problems in the endeavor to treat depression. I don't want help that causes me brain damage. That is no excuse to mitigate the error I mentioned earlier with the inappropriate translation of Lam-rim, but what I am saying about my experience with the medication is true. People have assumed my banning the use of medication was due to Buddhism. That's not quite true. It was a competent decision made of my own volition based on the perturbing side-effects. In fact, when I embrace Buddhism, after having meticulously discovered several years ago I chemistry with Lord Shakyamuni Buddha, the internal arts taught me to become my own psychologist. I understand myself as a whole lots more than I've ever had or even dreamed of or even cared to imagine. While my depression has vanished without a single trace, there are still subtle mental habits I'm well on my way to breaking. Overall, what motivates my mind to practice Buddhism is the opportunity I have in helping others to overcome their internal problems as well. Seeing them liberated is my reward.
Also earlier in the journal I said that tolerance is the equivalence of conquerance, emphasizing that anything aside from that would be fighting or surrendering. For someone with a narrow scope it will seem to be a contradiction in that I mentioned struggling with the authority to rectify my meals. Let me clarify this with an integral view point. My most admired Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche said, "When one understands that one's enemies are held under a powerful influence of their own ignorance and aggression, that they are trapped by their habits, it is easier to forgive them for their irritating behavior and actions. Similarly, if someone from the insane asylum insults you, there is no point in getting angry." Instead we tolerate them with and or through this understanding and so forth. Though that is true, that we hurt each other out of ignorance, it isn't an implication that one should shun taking action toward rectifying the social problem in his ore her endeavor to tolerate other sentient beings.
We are officially off of lock-down status, so that means no more sack lunches for a while. I have done nothing much except calisthenics, meditations, studying, and trying to be more conscious of my body, speech, and mind. Peace.
17 February 2007
This week has been a hectic one in the internal sense. I've been struggling with habitual misconception. Letting go isn't easy, but observing my mind under these circumstances is very much a learning experience that makes mindfulness meditation worthwhile.
I eventually ended up breaking my vows more times than I like to recollect. I am not proud of myself. Still, though, I have resolved in advance to maintain my perceptions which are very beneficial to me in my endeavor for mind-training practices. I'm likening this psychological course we Buddhist called the Lamrim. When I graduate, however long it will take, I'll become a lamrimpa, a professional in science or psychology and philosophy.
Oh, yeah, speaking on the graduated path to enlightenment. A while back I had wrote Gary at the Journal project to make correction on the translation of the lamrim. Well, a letter came in earlier this moth agreeing to make corrections on the error. That's grand.
I'm no longer on the same wing I was on at the inception of the year. I was moved to H-wing a day before Valentine's Day. The cell was very filthy, so after my neighbor in the cell next to me introduced himself, he offered me some (cleaning) disinfectant I used to wash the floors, toilet fixture, bunk, lockers, bars, and walls prior to expunging the loose morbid material that was left behind. In the corner was a piece of string being paraded by robust dust-bunnies that seem to hail the string in the air like tribesmen would a giant King Cobra. I was able to relax my mind a bit more after the entire cell was cleaned.
Out of the entire four and a half years I've been here on this unit, this is the first time I've been housed on H-wing. This wing is predominantly Whites, with the overall exception of a few Hispanics. There are actually only three Blacks out of the whole entire wing. Most of the White inmates here belong or used to belong to some racially radical supremacy group. The Gang intelligent Administration housed them on separate wings for their protection once they have renounced their affiliation. Some are genuine about it; others, from what I hear, are a bunch of fakes that just want to take advantage of the benefits offered to offenders that want to take the Texas GRAD (Gang Renunciation and Disassociation) Program that will eventually help offenders make their way back out to population, because otherwise, segregation confinement is where they will likely stay until discharging their sentence. Then if once they come back they'll be segregated off the muscle and sent back to the same old unit with the same old gang members. Mind you me, the GRAD program is only for Mexican and White gangs. Black gang members such as Crips and Bloods and so forth, don't qualify for the program. H, I, J are all wings for ex-gang members to which all are either Hispanic or White inmates. So this environment is unique, very challenging in that I am Buddhist. We vie to abide in equanimity, seeing all beings as the same, it is hard to develop compassion for certain people who have come to hate you for your race, all on the basis of your skin complexion. That can pan out to be very crucial on the graduated path to enlightenment being that compassion, the empathy that's based on the understanding that we all are suffering despite the endeavor to search for happiness, is the very heart of the path. Peace.
24 February 2007
Again my whole entire week has been hectic.
On the 20th, I was moved again back to k-wing, except this time I'm a bit closer to the front of the tier in 3-cell. This cell, like half the cells I've had to move into, was very filthy. Sometimes it is hard not to entertain the critical thought on how the individual kept his space clean while living here himself. This wing is predominantly Black, with the exception of only a few Hispanics. It's funny because out of all Coffield's segregational population, Mexicans and Whites make up for 80% of the population, while Blacks and other Nationalities make up for 20%. There aren't any white inmates over here -- not like there were prior to my moving to H-wing. No matter where I'm moved, I'll be okay. I don't always like moving from cell to cell, to wing to wing, for no reason other than to appease an individual inmate who feigns an inability to live next to an inmate he's been living next to before the initial bedlam. This is the way the Unit in Administration Segregation is, but it's funny though that many inmates still manage to avenge an inmate somehow, somewhere down the line.
The cats have been up to their old usual sexual promiscuities again. Bob Tail, a mother cat that lost half her tail in her youth, recently gave birth to her kittens. I haven't seen them yet. Oftentimes I try to feed her so that she can take the food back to her young. Usually the older, more rogue male cats come with vengeance to hog her and the mother gray cat for food. Recently they've come to my cell front for a meal, and because I have nothing they will enjoy eating and have to leave with nothing, the sight of it encourages compassion within me, extending outward to them like an invisible hand full of food I wish I had to offer them. Neither of the Mother cats are the fighting type, especially with White Sox or Slow Mo, because the melee between the two can go on for several long minutes without a take for breath, here lately there has not been any fighting; the Mother Gray cat has been more submissive to the gang-rape than the usual case. She's very old, and plus she looks very worn out beyond fatigue. If the male cats aren't trying to have sex with her, she's seen alone by herself in her endless endeavor to look for food. The other day they took turns trying to have sex with her, a major ordeal that lasts for almost an hour straight before she was exhausted, all outside my window in front of my cell. That's also unusual because the male cats often fight over who will have sex or not, to which after chasing the female cats down, the male cats exhibiting more masculinity conquers. It's like the male cats all fight to see who outs who, and the one who conquers is left to chase after the female cat in order to have sex with her. That's nothing like human nature in the actual sense, but to an extent, on a more psychological level, we masculinity bearers have an underlying tendency to compete for the love of our lovely ladies' love.
Before the end of the week came to nigh, I so happen to have ended up with a fever. I was coughing, sneezing, and snorting and so on until there seemed to be no trace of hope left for a better, healthier life. It last for only a couple of days, and even though it is a bit exaggerated, it seems those days were the longest and almost the most terrible days of my life. I've been with fevers before and this one is no exception to abnormalities. It really left me exhausted. I didn't feel like writing, talking, ore even meditation -- just lounging around my space. I still have a bit of a cough but overall my sinus cavities aren't irritable like they were, so I'm much better. I still may have to take some cold medicine. There are other means to cure a sickness, none of which my mind was equipped for. There was a time when I was able to challenge the fevers without administering medicine. That's better. However, this time, while under the influence of internal agitation, my mind divulged a weak effort to even hold concentration. Actually, according to Buddhist psychology, a lack of strong concentration can come from particular eating habits and too much sexual activity. This also depends on the individual. With both being a factor in my case, in my endeavor to hold true to the percepts, the effect it brings weakens the very mind that maintains the power of concentration. On a more deeper level, it was my own moral downfalls that created a cause for my being to be ill in the first place when it met up with certain conditions where no obstacle stood. Here's an example, you can be devoted to your spiritual practices and come in contact with a person with a cold, and even though the cold is contagious, if there's a balance between the two, then there is no way you will get sick. However, if you deviate from your practices, engaging in eating habits with the sick person, it is very ostensible you will be with a similar, related cold. In the former example, there was an obstacle, wherein in the latter, without the energy to compose in from your spiritual practice, there's no obstacles, so when the casual contact was made, consequences ensued immediately, in reasonable time. Because there will be a lack of concentration, it makes the effort to meditate a bit challenging. It's like approaching death with no faith in the afterlife. All this isn't to say those who are devoted to some spiritual practice won't be sick; but that they will and are better prepared to deal with it before-hand. There's a cause and condition to sickness (and everything else), therefore those with penetrative wisdom have insight into the cause and condition enough to implement or create preventive measures. This is true to my own experience as that I've checked using analytical, knowledge wisdom.
Books from Prisoner Express came this week to my surprise. I hadn't expected them at all. Actually, I forgot that I made request for such books. They all are on the level, so reading them with enjoyment should ensue. When I am back on my schedule, I will incorporate them into my reading schedule. "Journey of a Dream Animal" and "Who Dies?" are amongst the first out of five books on dharma (spiritual) philosophy. Although I will turn down no spiritual readings, I always prefer practical books that (teach or) enhance my ability to integrate my mind with the teachings, to actualize them or make them a part of my experience, because it is through your own experience that you gain a better understanding. Lama Yeshe calls this "experiential knowledge-wisdom," the climax of any learning venture, or otherwise you only intellectualize the teachings like some foreign philosophy with no experimental knowledge-wisdom behind it, to enable you to philosophically teach others what you learned. Almost over 30 years ago in Brisbane, Australia, Lama Yeshe told his students something that holds true to this very day. He said that "the only purpose for the existence of what we call religion is for us to understand the nature of our own psyche, our own mind, our own feelings. Whatever names we give to our spiritual path, the most important thing is we get to know our own experiences, our own feelings. Therefore, the lamas' experience of Buddhism is that instead of emphasizing belief, it places prime importance on personal experimentation, putting Dharma methods into action and assessing the effect they have on our minds: do the methods help? Have our minds changed or are they just as uncontrolled as they ever were? This is Buddhism, and this method of checking the mind is called meditation. " Peace.
11 March 2007
Today was nearly an interesting day as it gets in the Administrative Segregation. The whole entire day just happened to pan out to be okay until dinner. An officer had awakened me to see if I was going to eat, and, because of my vows, I declined and had the meal handed over to my neighbor, who has been receiving them ever since I've been assigned to this housing location. The rest of the plates weren't here yet at all, and to be honest about it, not even my usual vegetarian meals were here. The female officer working, the same guard that woke me up, had an extra regular tray left over from prior feeding and used that to substitute the vegetarian meal I always gave to my neighbor. It was about the time shift would change at 5:45 A.M. that the kitchen workers had brought the trays from the kitchen, to the wing, inside the inmates food-slot. The black female officer that had supposedly stayed on her post until the entire wing was fed, from the 4th Tier where they usual start, to the last Tier on 1-row where they hadn't even started. All other rows had been fed. The trays had been there on the bench for nearly fifteen minutes before anyone said or even cared to voice their complaints over the Tier. The trays were in fact being cold left out the thermostat in the open where even the robust cats could come around, knock the crates over to the floor, and take off with a piece of meat, as that they were serving bologna. Yes, the cats were strong enough to carry out such a task, and the inmates on 1-row knew this here; some even made the comment that they hoped White Sox, the biggest out of the three robust cats, would come around to knock the food off the bench just so that the officer would have no other choice except to proffer them a warm meal. Finally the shift would change and the inmates started their boisterous noise about the food left unattended. This is about the time the cats -- the Bob Tail mother cat, known as Short Tail now, the gray male cat now called Skinny Paul, and finally White Sox, all came through an orifice of the window. Skinny Paul received his name from an inmate named Paul Wade, also named Skinny Paul. He's the most skinniest inmate on the whole entire unit almost... so skinny that he can slip out of the handcuffs, and fit his head through the food-slot. He's also a good friend of mine too, that I try (to no avail) to keep him out of trouble. He's also going home in June, so he has no regard for following rules. Back to the cats. Short-Tail maybe in heat with Skinny Paul trailing behind her, sniffing underneath her tail, and trying to mount on her back at every chance she isn't looking, in most cases she fights him off before he slides back for awhile before trying her again. From her most recent reaction, she's taken a more profound interest in White Sox, or perhaps she's just fond of him. Short Tail is so friendly and sweet that she has no regard for harm when it comes to walking up to inmates' cell fronts for food. She won't stray to far, though, but fortunately it is only my neighbor and I that feed her, especially now that I've been moved back in my ol' cell -- the same cell I've been in when I came here over 4 years ago. She just comes to the door and "meow" to make her presence known. My neighbor is the one that usually feeds her the most, so she is more apt to approach his cell before mine unless there's some food out for her. Skinny Paul the cat eats whatever. He's the most disrespectful cat out of all of them and I don't like him that much. He sprays my door with some sort of liquid musk as a means to mark his territory before he leaves. Since then I've disliked him. I think there's a gland in the male cat's anus akin to that of a skunk or pole cat that allows them to do this. Once I watched White Sox trot around the recreational yard spraying his scent on every post there was around the cages. I assumed it was a masculinity issue because prior to that he had a bout with another male cat that was more persistent in his endeavor to have or mate with the female cats. After White Sox pounded on him for it, he took his time at each pole, raising his tail with his anus erect, and when the liquid sprinkled out, his tail wiggled like a Side Winder snake. After winning the bout, this was his triumph in trotting all the way around the recreation yard. It isn't usual that White Sox would spray a site that happens to be someone's domain. He's very selective of whom he takes food from. About three weeks ago, somewhere around the time I just moved to this cell, I had set out food for White Sox. Instead of him eating it, he walks to the bottom of my cell door where the food was at in my hand and sniffs. Then he pauses to recollect my scent, and as if to say "wrong smell," he sprints off out the window. On the other hand, when dealing with my neighbor, he had no reluctance. I mean no absolute reluctance at all. On most mornings around 4:30 A.M. when I'm up preparing for my meditations, I see him come through the orifices, creeping like a panther returning to his domain. Two nights he slid under my neighbor's door and I didn't see him come out until the break of dawn. This time, while the other cats -- Short Tail was actually trying to keep Skinny Paul at bay -- where at the cell front, White Sox goes in under the door. To me, in my mind, the way he accomplished it helped me to assume he was showing-off in front of the other cats in general, Short Tail in particular. Then about a minute would pass before he'd come to just lounge on the concrete floor He just laid there, very composed, relaxed and full of himself as he observed Skinny Paul being raved at. When they finally brought back hot meals for the rest of the inmates, where the food slots were left open until the trays were passed out, White Sox rises to his feet and with one single hop, he swooshes in through my neighbor's food slot. Most other cats aren't that bold, but this isn't his first time either. A minute passed with the food slot open and White Sox comes out in the same like manner that he entered. This cat is amazing. I admire the way he carries himself. Sometimes I can't hold except to see him, his actual actions, the totality of his being as being the reincarnation of an inmate who had been assigned to the unit over two decades ago before transmigrating to the next life. Peace.
17 March 2007
This week went by very fast, primarily because I kept my practices subdued, like Lama Yeshe suggested. Earlier in the week, while my food-slot was left open, the cat White Sox came inside my cell for the first time. No doubt he was very hungry. As he roamed around the bunk a bit shy and timid, he found nothing except disappointment. These visits always catch me off guard. Well, after seeing I could not proffer him the meal he came for he swiftly hopped up on the slot where he descended to the window.
Also, there was this conversation I had with an inmate that somehow involved Buddhism. Depending on the circumstances I'm dealt, talks about Buddhism aren't taken lightly into a mainstream conversation, and I usually am very upset when someone talks some nonsense about Buddhism when they have no knowledge at all about it: accusing me of stealing Lord Buddha's teachings.
Relatively speaking, what I know from Buddhism can greatly be credited to the late Lama Yeshe, Venerable Kathleen McDonald known as the Buddhist Sangye Khadro, and Venerable Robina Courtin, including Joy Wise who cared to send the practical books for devoted Buddhists. Don't think it is an inconsistent statement for me to say, as I've mentioned before that when I began practicing Buddhism it was a direct reflection of who I am, what I was seeking for all alone as that it uncovered the meaning to esoteric experiences I've had throughout my life and rendered me a detailed explanation in most cases that filled the gap where no other religion had. In other words, I found myself in Buddhism Ð there wasn't nothing I read on the text of Buddhism that initially influenced me to practice. It is a religion that fits my psychological make-up. We don't consider Buddhism to be a religion at all in the usual sense of the word, as that Lord Buddha's teaching are more akin to philosophy, psychology, or science. In fact, when we're studying Buddhism, our studies are more concentrated around the nature of our minds, tying to deepen our comprehension of our own psychological make-up, the mental attitudes, concepts, perceptions, consciousness, the essence of your own nature and so forth. On the contrary to what most people think, Buddhism is not a very small limited subject. Although Lord Buddha's teachings are based on his own personal experience there wasn't much emphasis he cared to place on belief in him or his teachings. He presented himself in a manner that instead of trying to convince people with words, he just as a scientist would in proving the cause and condition that brought the effects of maggot on raw meat, taught methods whereby you can put into your own experience. Then, from our own experience, belief will come naturally
Yet, it isn't the culture, devotion, or tradition that makes you a Buddhist. It is the acceptance of the Absolute Seals that the Lord Buddha discovered under the Bodhi Tree in Bodhgaya, India. The Four Absolute Seals are as follows:
All compounded phenomena, including every person, place, or thing, situation, circumstances, and condition and so forth, are impermanent, transitory, temporal, ever changing, never lasting.
All emotions are pain, in that every emotion is interdependent and or dependent on external phenomena, having no inherent or permanent existence, and it offers no pure everlasting happiness that is free from suffering and the causes of suffering that arises once the external object in which the happiness was based on no longer exists. Because of the existence of all emotions are interdependent and all interdependent phenomena are constantly changing, it inflicts our mind with endless agitation on the many subtle levels: the nature of the human mind is dissatisfaction; no matter what we have, we'll always want more. Until our emotional state is appeased with what we want, to that extent we suffer; once we obtain emotional happiness, we suffer to maintain it, and because of this chain reaction we never experience happiness or even enjoy what we strive for after for happiness and all we do is compound the suffering. All emotional states depend on our interpretation on external phenomena, the basis of our suffering, so all those emotions, even the ones we classify as pleasant are painful. Check up on this in your own mind Ð not by my words. See if it is true for you. My experience has been that Nirvana, Bliss, or Beatification, a psychological state of mind, isn't phased by whatever occurs in the external world.
All things have no inherent existence in that they are illusory and empty, and only existing interdependently.
Nirvana, enlightenment, or the realization of all truth is beyond concept, not subjected to the spheres of time, space, and power.
A misunderstanding is that these seals were only discovered by Lord Buddha Ð not invented by him, so the Buddha's teachings are designed to ministrate us to focus on all or one of these seals, so when a Lama or a conversant Buddhist like myself speaks on the aspects of these seals through or in my own philosophicial[sic] terms, which assume we have adopted the teachings or philosophy of Lord Buddha. Like Robina Courtin said that "there's nothing we know that we haven't learned from others..." but no matter what you read and how much you read of it and for as many hours (or years) you care to read it for, you can't truly even begin to speak on the essence of the Lord Buddha's teachings if you don't move deeper from the intellectual level to the (absolute) consciousness level. Otherwise, the teachings remain a foreign philosophy that has nothing to do with your experience. For example, you can't explain to me what (or how?) milk tastes like. Once I asked an inmate and he said, "this morning, my milk tastes cold." He only described how it feels, not what it tastes like. This answer can only come through experience, wherein your comprehension of what it tastes like is deepened each time you drink milk while contemplating its taste. This is akin to the essence of Lord Buddha's teachings on both relative and absolute levels. Until you use methods to integrate your mind with the teachings, to make them part of your own experience, you are only speaking out of ignorance, even though you have an intellectual understanding of what you say.
For example, according to modern cell theory, Robert Hooke, a late 1600's English scientist was credited as the first to discover cells through a microscope he used to magnify a thin piece of cork which came from the bark of a certain oak tree. Through this microscope, Robert Hooke spotted box-like holes in the cork with each hole surrounded or separated by a wall-like structure. Robert Hooke then referred to the box-like holes as "cells" because they reminded him of cells in which "Monks" lived. Now you and I can speak philosophicially[sic] for years on the million different cell structures (blood, skin, etc.) on an intellectual level based on someone else's discovery (as that truth isn't invented), but without experience those discoveries remain on an intellectual level, as a theory to you instead of a scientific fact, and because there are so many religions and philosophies out there in the world, one of the hallmarks in Buddhism is to discover the truth for yourself through experiential knowledge-wisdom, the primary concern of a Buddhist. My overall point can be extended to all teachings, to all philosophies, and to all religions, but once you have the scientific facts brought on through your own experience, the teachings are no longer a foreign philosophy to you. They no longer belong to Lord Jesus, Lord Buddha, and so forth. If you hold the teachings in this manner, then the teachings belong to you! Peace!
24 March 2007
On the 20th I was moved again. This time it was back on the other side over to P1 on E-wing where the majority of inmates here are Hispanic gang-members. A few white gang members. Although I've been here on P1, being housed on E-wing is my first time ever in the five year history I've been here. A and B wings are general-population that are able to leave their cells for out-of-cell activities, such as dayrooms to watch t.v., outside recreation, work and so forth. C, D, E, and F wing are all segregation wings. I've been housed on all these wings in previous years, and as I've mentioned before, E-wing, like H-wing, is my first time being housed here. It's strange because last year I was begging to be housed over here when certain circumstances were in my favor, being more of a convenience for me than to be here, but now those days are no more the same favorable circumstance and I'm over here. I wasn't the only one to move. A few others -- from 2 cell through 11 cell had to pack-up and moved too, because those cells were needed to house level 2 seg. inmates who were an over-flow from L-wing, where the so-called worst of the worst level 2's and 3's are usually housed. I'm not expected to be here on this wing very long either, probably somewhere close to two months, or even less, and I'll be moved wherever else they move me.
According to Buddhist Psychology, much of any secluded or isolated area or place is dependent on what the mind makes of it, so I'm using the conducive environment to delve deeper in my own practices. Only about four other inmates from K-wing were moved with me on this wing, as the rest went elsewhere, so it's not too much for me to go into a recluse without interruptions with people always calling my name for some sort of ministration. Also, there are about four more inmates that I've known for several years back here but being they have somewhat a gross concept about my being laid back, having them to always call my name is very unusual, not unless their questions are important. I don't mind conversing but people have to understand my mind when it comes to trivial conversation. Half the time I don't even care to talk much anyway. I'd just care to be left alone to do what's necessary to develop a better understanding on --or-of my mind. My environment is very conducive for spiritual cultivation. It is only wise that I take advantage of that while it is a convenience for me. To me this is a Buddhist Retreat for a meditation course. In fact, the Lam-rim is an intensive meditation course, a retreat that should be done alone. Right now, more than otherwise, this segregation confinement is an ideal retreat: "Peace and quiet." My very own cell can be decorated with pictures that can make it appear to be a very beautiful environment. I have water supply, and I don't have to worry about food or commissary, because like on a real Buddhist retreat, somebody else cooks for me, brings my food to me, and I enjoy myself eating the vegetarian meal. All I have to do is just meditate and like lama Yeshe has conceded, then success comes easily. Overall, I'm in a cell alone, like a Buddhist Monk in Tibet, where I can put energy in my practice with subdued persistence.
A while back I was on the K-wing outside the rec yard where an inmate and I delved into a mainstream conversation about psychology, as that we Buddhist consider Buddhism to be sophisticated psychology. The Black inmate in question, in whom I've known for over a decade, cared enough to ask me what is my ultimate goal.
My answer was: spiritual realization.
Spiritual realization is what motivates me to persevere in this college course of the graduated path to enlightenment. Because I know what can hinder my potential to attain spiritual realization or create conditions that will deprive me of whatever insight I have gained, most of my moral downfalls are digested into motivation, encouraging me to continue to maintain the eight percepts. If not, I'll only be robbing myself or cheating myself of the opportunity I have to attain my goal. Also, any practical religion deserves a fair, loyal devotion. My experience is that breaking the percepts hinders my spiritual realization and deprives me of the insight I work so hard for on my own to gain; so, once you being to realize something as a problem, you'll automatically want to implement a solution.
I am one to always want to be helpful to people I will eventually encounter in my life, especially giving them help on a psychological level. This ultimate goal is the only true way I can help others to liberate themselves, instead of leaving them to meander for a psychological clue that will eventually create a continuum of psychological problems. The main problem with the majority of psychologists -- if it's not a lack of introspective knowledge-wisdom, is that they lack insight into the patient's psychological make-up, and instead of offering the patient a real solution to their problem, a solution that befits their psychological make-up, they try offering superficial advice or end up forcing too much air into the balloon. In other words, they try forcing their morality in the form of advice on the individual in whose psychological make-up it doesn't fit, and it either leaves the patient to react in such a dangerous way toward others or it will close off the very communication necessary to help the patient overcome the initial problem. This is my experience, not some information I learned or read from a Buddhist book based on Psychology. Some methods or advice like handing the patient a gun to kill others or kill others and himself, or just kill himself; other methods can heal the minds of certain individuals in whom it is designed for, and so on. The methods are already there -- a psychologist's job is to help them to discover them, and it can not be thoroughly accomplished by merely studying your text book on psychology or examining the minds of every patient that you encounter, but by being your own psychologist to study, examine, investigate your own mind. Then you will be able to help them with very much success. As Lama Yeshe once said, "To gain a deep understanding, you have to understand your mind. First learn to read your own mind, then you'll be able to read the minds of others." This has nothing to do with religion. It's not a religious thing -- it's a mind thing, and as long as you have a mind, it's your thing.
The empathy that I have for people to help them liberate their minds is digested into wisdom and then it emerges and manifests itself as my willpower, my pure motivation.
Like I tell inmates here, in all that you do check up on your motivation, your generative incentive. Be sure your motivation is pure. If your motivation is pure, then the attainment of your goals won't be maimed by discouragement. pure motivation is internal motivation; it's not at all based on external phenomena, not like we care to think. There are some that have argued me to this point... that is until I was able to show them the gross differences between internal and external and the detrimental effects that comes from external motivations most guys here, even some guards, when they see me, see how I keep my work-out subdued and how my body is appealing with muscle tone, (they) instantly become motivated to work out. Some have even expressed their desires for me to be their work-out partner, to work-out with them. They're motivation is based on their internal (goal) vision extending out to the totality of my presence, the combination factor. Without even knowing it, they are only caught up in the illusion of how I look n contrast to how they care to appear. So, I explain to them that they need pure or internal motivation. They fail to understand or realize that self-motivation isn't based only on external phenomena, so it won't stand. As soon as the conditional circumstances change, their motivation is ruined! So, I ask them, "What's your purpose for working out?" They reply, "So I can stay healthy and healthy looking like you." Then I reply, "Your health concerns should be your motivation -- not me! You don't need me around to work out. Work out alone on your own -- be selfmotivated, because if your motivation is based on only external phenomena, such as me, the combination factors, then when I'm no longer here with you, where you're likely to lose your inspiration you have to continue on, you'll quit, you'll give up." That's because their motivation leaves with me in whom it was based all along. Same principle applies to everything requiring some sort of accomplishment. This isn't to bring into mind the idea that external motivation is wrong or inappropriate. Learn to use both skillfully. You should know the differences between the two and their true nature. Then when external motivation wanes away, in which it eventually will, your internal motivation will automatically kick in like a back-up generator. This is my experience. This is what Buddhism teaches you to realize about yourself, your inner potential.
Here's an example. Two years ago I was fortunate enough to find a Buddhist pen pal to converse with on a religious and secular level. At the moment this was the ultimate thing because I never made personal or direct contact with any outside Buddhist until afterward. It was like almost having a best friend for a millionaire, so you can imagine how having a Buddhist correspond with really motivated, inspired, and influenced my life. It wasn't even six months when she suddenly stopped writing for an entire year. Still, I persevered. A year waned by and she up and wrote me again (at the ass end of 2006) in a apologetic way and how she had a conversion to Christianity.
To begin with, our pen-friendship is unconditional based on internal motives and values, so no matter what, like I told her, we are always friends.
As far as the effect her conversion had on me or my beliefs, I continued my practices as a Buddhist and embraced her even more as my Christian friend. My motivation to be a Buddhist isn't based on her, even though she has been a relative inspiration. Had my motivation been dependent on her, I'd either have given up my practices as a Buddhist and become a Christian, or out of ignorance, disrespect her, stop writing her and so forth for her conversion to Christianity. Ignorance is what makes people act and react that way, in harming and hurting other sentient beings.
The cultivating mind that comes with practicing Buddhism doesn't allow me to knock someone else's religious belief, styles, or way of life in culture. In fact, our minds have transcended such notions. We have a different system than from most devotional religions. Yes, Buddhism accepts the existence of other worldly religions, as that we realize how essential it is to have them for the sake of many individuals' psychological make-up, which plays a major role in liberating them. We don't push people to be this way or that, to do this or that; pushing people in very unwise. On a subtle level, the reaction that normally follows at the last moment of suffocation before losing consciousness is what occurs in the minds of those that are pressured or pushed, especially beyond their limits: can you imagine the kid who gets bullied and then shoots up his school? A brief explanation can be that a part of his brain that has a basic functioning akin to a panic switch is alerted when we are intimidated. If these causes and disheartening conditions convene together where no obstacles can intervene, the psychological (re)action will be very dangerous for people.
Anyway, in Buddhism we have a meditational deity practice, where a mediator visualizes the meditational deity for various reasons. If a meditator isn't a Buddhist or perhaps finds it complex to visualize one of the specific Buddhas, he or she is encouraged to visualize Lord Jesus or Goddess Virgin Mary, and so forth, during the meditational deity practices. The entire practice is for spiritual cultivation which no sentient beings or religion have a monopoly on, so it is not important.
In my opinion, and perhaps this is too way out than what most Buddhists will concede, because Buddhism accepts the existence of al worldly religion without exception, there's a deeply held conviction that Buddhism is the missing element that's necessary in all religions. Peace.
25 March 2007
On the 20th I was moved again. This time it was back on the other side over to P1 on E-wing where the majority of inmates here are Hispanic gang-members. A few white gang members. Although I've been here on P1, being housed on E-wing is my first time ever in the five year history I've been here. A and B wings are general-population that are able to leave their cells for out-of-cell activities, such as dayrooms to watch t.v., outside recreation, work and so forth. C, D, E, and F wing are all segregation wings. I've been housed on all these wings in previous years, and as I've mentioned before, E-wing, like H-wing, is my first time being housed here. It's strange because last year I was begging to be housed over here when certain circumstances were in my favor, being more of a convenience for me than to be here, but now those days are no more the same favorable circumstance and I'm over here. I wasn't the only one to move. A few others -- from 2 cell through 11 cell had to pack-up and moved too, because those cells were needed to house level 2 seg. inmates who were an over-flow from L-wing, where the so-called worst of the worst level 2's and 3's are usually housed. I'm not expected to be here on this wing very long either, probably somewhere close to two months, or even less, and I'll be moved wherever else they move me.
According to Buddhist Psychology, much of any secluded or isolated area or place is dependent on what the mind makes of it, so I'm using the conducive environment to delve deeper in my own practices. Only about four other inmates from K-wing were moved with me on this wing, as the rest went elsewhere, so it's not too much for me to go into a recluse without interruptions with people always calling my name for some sort of ministration. Also, there are about four more inmates that I've known for several years back here but being they have somewhat a gross concept about my being laid back, having them to always call my name is very unusual, not unless their questions are important. I don't mind conversing but people have to understand my mind when it comes to trivial conversation. Half the time I don't even care to talk much anyway. I'd just care to be left alone to do what's necessary to develop a better understanding on --or-of my mind. My environment is very conducive for spiritual cultivation. It is only wise that I take advantage of that while it is a convenience for me. To me this is a Buddhist Retreat for a meditation course. In fact, the Lam-rim is an intensive meditation course, a retreat that should be done alone. Right now, more than otherwise, this segregation confinement is an ideal retreat: "Peace and quiet." My very own cell can be decorated with pictures that can make it appear to be a very beautiful environment. I have water supply, and I don't have to worry about food or commissary, because like on a real Buddhist retreat, somebody else cooks for me, brings my food to me, and I enjoy myself eating the vegetarian meal. All I have to do is just meditate and like lama Yes he has conceded, then success comes easily. Overall, I'm in a cell alone, like a Buddhist Monk in Tibet, where I can put energy in my practice with subdued persistence.
A while back I was on the K-wing outside the rec yard where an inmate and I delved into a mainstream conversation about psychology, as that we Buddhist consider Buddhism to be sophisticated psychology. The Black inmate in question, in whom I've known for over a decade, cared enough to ask me what is my ultimate goal.
My answer was: spiritual realization.
Spiritual realization is what motivates me to persevere in this college course of the graduated path to enlightenment. Because I know what can hinder my potential to attain spiritual realization or create conditions that will deprive me of whatever insight I have gained, most of my moral downfalls are digested into motivation, encouraging me to continue to maintain the eight percepts. If not, I'll only be robbing myself or cheating myself of the opportunity I have to attain my goal. Also, any practical religion deserves a fair, loyal devotion. My experience is that breaking the percepts hinders my spiritual realization and deprives me of the insight I work so hard for on my own to gain; so, once you being to realize something as a problem, you'll automatically want to implement a solution.
I am one to always want to be helpful to people I will eventually encounter in my life, especially giving them help on a psychological level. This ultimate goal is the only true way I can help others to liberate themselves, instead of leaving them to meander for a psychological clue that will eventually create a continuum of psychological problems. The main problem with the majority of psychologists -- if it's not a lack of introspective knowledge-wisdom, is that they lack insight into the patient's psychological make-up, and instead of offering the patient a real solution to their problem, a solution that befits their psychological make-up, they try offering superficial advice or end up forcing too much air into the balloon. In other words, they try forcing their morality in the form of advice on the individual in whose psychological make-up it doesn't fit, and it either leaves the patient to react in such a dangerous way toward others or it will close off the very communication necessary to help the patient overcome the initial problem. This is my experience, not some information I learned or read from a Buddhist book based on Psychology. Some methods or advice like handing the patient a gun to kill others or kill others and himself, or just kill himself; other methods can heal the minds of certain individuals in whom it is designed for, and so on. The methods are already there -- a psychologist's job is to help them to discover them, and it can not be thoroughly accomplished by merely studying your text book on psychology or examining the minds of every patient that you encounter, but by being your own psychologist to study, examine, investigate your own mind. Then you will be able to help them with very much success. As Lama Yeshe once said, "To gain a deep understanding, you have to understand your mind. First learn to read your own mind, then you'll be able to read the minds of others." This has nothing to do with religion. It's not a religious thing -- it's a mind thing, and as long as you have a mind, it's your thing.
The empathy that I have for people to help them liberate their minds is digested into wisdom and then it emerges and manifests itself as my willpower, my pure motivation.
Like I tell inmates here, in all that you do check up on your motivation, your generative incentive. Be sure your motivation is pure. If your motivation is pure, then the attainment of your goals won't be maimed by discouragement. pure motivation is internal motivation; it's not at all based on external phenomena, not like we care to think. There are some that have argued me to this point... that is until I was able to show them the gross differences between internal and external and the detrimental effects that comes from external motivations most guys here, even some guards, when they see me, see how I keep my work-out subdued and how my body is appealing with muscle tone, (they) instantly become motivated to work out. Some have even expressed their desires for me to be their work-out partner, to work-out with them. They're motivation is based on their internal (goal) vision extending out to the totality of my presence, the combination factor. Without even knowing it, they are only caught up in the illusion of how I look n contrast to how they care to appear. So, I explain to them that they need pure or internal motivation. They fail to understand or realize that self-motivation isn't based only on external phenomena, so it won't stand. As soon as the conditional circumstances change, their motivation is ruined! So, I ask them, "What's your purpose for working out?" They reply, "So I can stay healthy and healthy looking like you." Then I reply, "Your health concerns should be your motivation -- not me! You don't need me around to work out. Work out alone on your own -- be selfmotivated, because if your motivation is based on only external phenomena, such as me, the combination factors, then when I'm no longer here with you, where you're likely to lose your inspiration you have to continue on, you'll quit, you'll give up." That's because their motivation leaves with me in whom it was based all along. Same principle applies to everything requiring some sort of accomplishment. This isn't to bring into mind the idea that external motivation is wrong or inappropriate. Learn to use both skillfully. You should know the differences between the two and their true nature. Then when external motivation wanes away, in which it eventually will, your internal motivation will automatically kick in like a back-up generator. This is my experience. This is what Buddhism teaches you to realize about yourself, your inner potential.
Here's an example. Two years ago I was fortunate enough to find a Buddhist pen pal to converse with on a religious and secular level. At the moment this was the ultimate thing because I never made personal or direct contact with any outside Buddhist until afterward. It was like almost having a best friend for a millionaire, so you can imagine how having a Buddhist correspond with really motivated, inspired, and influenced my life. It wasn't even six months when she suddenly stopped writing for an entire year. Still, I persevered. A year waned by and she up and wrote me again (at the ass end of 2006) in a apologetic way and how she had a conversion to Christianity.
To begin with, our pen-friendship is unconditional based on internal motives and values, so no matter what, like I told her, we are always friends.
As far as the effect her conversion had on me or my beliefs, I continued my practices as a Buddhist and embraced her even more as my Christian friend. My motivation to be a Buddhist isn't based on her, even though she has been a relative inspiration. Had my motivation been dependent on her, I'd either have given up my practices as a Buddhist and become a Christian, or out of ignorance, disrespect her, stop writing her and so forth for her conversion to Christianity. Ignorance is what makes people act and react that way, in harming and hurting other sentient beings.
The cultivating mind that comes with practicing Buddhism doesn't allow me to knock someone else's religious belief, styles, or way of life in culture. In fact, our minds have transcended such notions. We have a different system than from most devotional religions. Yes, Buddhism accepts the existence of other worldly religions, as that we realize how essential it is to have them for the sake of many individuals' psychological make-up, which plays a major role in liberating them. We don't push people to be this way or that, to do this or that; pushing people in very unwise. On a subtle level, the reaction that normally follows at the last moment of suffocation before losing consciousness is what occurs in the minds of those that are pressured or pushed, especially beyond their limits: can you imagine the kid who gets bullied and then shoots up his school? A brief explanation can be that a part of his brain that has a basic functioning akin to a panic switch is alerted when we are intimidated. If these causes and disheartening conditions convene together where no obstacles can intervene, the psychological (re)action will be very dangerous for people.
Anyway, in Buddhism we have a meditational deity practice, where a mediator visualizes the meditational deity for various reasons. If a meditator isn't a Buddhist or perhaps finds it complex to visualize one of the specific Buddhas, he or she is encouraged to visualize Lord Jesus or Goddess Virgin Mary, and so forth, during the meditational deity practices. The entire practice is for spiritual cultivation which no sentient beings or religion have a monopoly on, so it is not important.
In my opinion, and perhaps this is too way out than what most Buddhists will concede, because Buddhism accepts the existence of al worldly religion without exception, there's a deeply held conviction that Buddhism is the missing element that's necessary in all religions. Peace.
31 March 2007
This week I received more photos from Ashley, my sister in law. She only mailed pictures with no letter enclosed, as a response to my request for bi-monthly photos to which not only included my nephew but the city lay-out too. As you well know, (Nueces) Corpus Christi is the place of my birth. It just so happens that in the broken home I was brought up in the city where I'm born from wasn't the city I was raised in.
The photos were very picturesque, I should say, especially of the city view. Lots of water is surrounding the area. Sort of engenders a horrific image in my mind for victims in the event of a category 5 Hurricane. There are several famous sites I've only seen either on t.v. or newspaper that are now a closed caption in my photo collection, such as the American Bank Center, Selena Auditorium, the Harbor Bridge, the South Texas Museum of fine arts, the Omni Bayfront Hotel, the Arena, and the new Federal Court Buildings in downtown, overlooking the Nueces Bay Area. Then there's the Ol Lady Lexington (U.S.S. aircraft carrier) ship coming into view, as that the photo caption was taken from the Parking Lot of Selena Auditorium. According to an old newspaper article, the ship is very well known to be haunted by spirits, and in the photo caption there's a bit of clouds that subtly appear to be dropping from their horizon into a mist of fog that hangs over the ship in melancholia. I'd hate to see this place when a storm is moving in -- I could defecate on myself without knowing it for hours. No, I'm joking! Okay, now the rest of the photos are caption of Downtown and Corpus Christi Bay taken from Cole Park. They are progressive shots (5) that pans from the Bay to Downtown. Oh, see, I lied. There are two more captions of the T-Heads in front of Downtown on the Ocean Drive Ave and Shoreline Dr. on the sea wall. The picture was taken out of the windshield window and the other is taken up-close out the passenger side window.
To be honest, I am not all that acquainted with the city of my birth like it may seem, as that I've only been there once after my actual birth. When Ashley sent the pictures, she didn't include the view-contents on the back of the picture to let me know what was what and where and for what reason, so I was lost. I had no idea I had trophy pictures of famous places. For example, I had never seen in any newspaper or t.v. the Selena Auditorium, so I was thinking it was Sam Khanes[sic] meat factory. I was so wrong. To my luck a Hispanic guy above me on Tier-2 happened to be from there and I had him to write the information on the back of the photos for me so I'll know. That's how I found out. I am very much grateful for his service in this endeavor to contence[sic] the photos. I am especially thankful for Ashley for having me in mind during those days, but I didn't have a clue that she would go out of her way to handle my request. So I'm thankful for that. I'm enjoying the pictures.
Well, I had actually received those pictures on the 28th of March. On the 29th, something dawned on me that made me actually break down and cry in so much that I felt like a toddler. On most of the photos, of my nephew, I had always been noticing that a node akin to that of an appendage or tumor was prominently dangling from the sides of both his hands near or on the side of his pinky finger. When I initially saw this back in the earlier days of January, I mistook it to be a blotted image from the camera's malfunction. Then there seems to be this blotted image on just about every photo where his hands were exposed to view... and when I received these pictures it occurred to me that this wasn't the result of a malfunctioning camera! In all the pictures where his hands are visible from different angles, there's this node or this fleshy meaty appendage on both sides of his pinky fingers. At first sight, in recent pictures, it sort of resembles an undeveloped finger. I guess what took me by surprise is this concept of beauty, in every picture my nephew is in. You know, in one's own mind beauty is synonymous to perfection or at least that is the way out minds mis-take it. For several months since his birth I was caught up in this notion of beauty, of perfection, seeing how my little tiny nephew is so very adorable on a conditional level, such as good-skin, good-hair, and very good looks with a good captivating smile. In my mind, there wasn't any sign of blotches in the totality of his characteristics. In Buddhist Psychology, there's no means to see these beautiful qualities as something inherent of its own existence, because if one is caught up in the dualistic terms of bad and good qualities in an individual, our ordinary perception or concepts won't transcend to the right view of seeing the absolute nature in the individual. So when you are caught up in the relative nature of an individual, observing the qualities we adore as self-existent in its own nature, we're undertaken with a rude awakening when we experience a flaw in the person character. We're shocked. We're surprised. Like-wise, instead of practicing the right view, I was caught up in my own notion, my own preconceived idea about how my nephew should be, how he should look, and so forth. When he didn't meet my criteria of what I thought was beauty and perfection, then my world came crashing down on me from all sides. This is something we all experience on a relative level every day of the week. We get caught up in the notion of how things should be, expecting things to be as wee feel they should, and when there's a change that occurs that doesn't befit our preconceived idea, we find ourselves hurt, mad, or very upset over it. Think about this yourself...
This is not to say my views about my nephew changed. No, it's not like that. My nephew is very beautiful, very much perfect in the way causes and conditions created him. He's still my beloved nephew in whom I love very much. That's another thing: we have a preconceived idea about what love is and how it should be. And in that case, most people can't believe I love my nephew without ever being around or with him personally. There's no defense on my end but I experience love with my nephew in the same way Christians experience love with Lord Jesus in whom they've never been around or even known no more or less than I know my own nephew who is here today for a temporal duration. The love I have for my nephew is unconditional, the love that has transcended all forms of any conditions. A condition doesn't have to exist in any order for me to experience love concerning him. Conditional love is the love that says, "I love you because of this, or that, or that this, and because you do that because you do this." That's conditional love. As Kyabje Zopa Rinpoche says in Robina's terms that "the love we feel now (for our friends etc.) is indeed love, but it's unstable because of being based on attachment." Lets argue with my ego's view. If I loved my nephew unconditionally (the right view), then why'd I react the way I did upon discovering the medical condition? The reason is as I said before. I was caught up in my own habitual way of thinking how things should be, according to me, and when it doesn't, then the effect can be very much crucial. My ego's points of views are highly concentrated around what I like and what I dislike, an what I like I am attached to, and what I find unpleasant I develop aversion and dislike to. This is the way we are. We are constantly imposing our own morality upon the next man in our endeavor to show our views are better. We degrade each other in the process, when in fact all are create equal. Seeing others as yourself is one of the best ways to develop equanimity, freeing us from attachment and anger that holds some close and others distant. Let me not deviate, my point is this. No matter who you say you love and how much you say you love them, if it's not unconditional love, then it will wane away in no time once the conditions in which the love is founded on changes. (The person you love deserves to be loved beyond conditions, unconditionally, not relatively) Check your own mind. Ask yourself why you love these certain people, and check to see if these reasons are logical. Check to see how you feel if the person didn't look, react, or respond according to how you think he should (or imagining that very person loving you for their own selfish reason like you are with him to see how it feels.). If you find yourself cringing at the images you see in your head, then you have conditional love. That's okay, but try to develop a love beyond that individual's qualities you are attracted to because they are subject to change (they aren't the individual) and if you can do this (try to develop love beyond conditions, concepts, and preconceived ideas and habitual attitudes, you'll understand me more when I say regardless of my own habitual way of seeing (my selfish views) things, my nephew can be mentally retarded, physically handicapped beyond his present conditions, and so forth, and I will still lo
7 April 2007
Ah, hail, it is three o'clock in the afternoon, and guess what Ð it is snowing here in Tennessee Colony Texas. The weather is very, very strange. I swear it, I think that the government is using high technology to manipulate the weather as part of their experiments. Really. I think it is possible on either end. According to Buddhism, there are certain capabilities that include the ability to control the weather, the elements, with their mind. I have no range of knowledge that can render a successful explanation as to how. What I mean by "knowledge" is what you discover to be true for you through your own experience, as that there are different stages and degrees of knowledge. Yet, had it not been for other experiences in my life I'd probably have found it very hard to believe. About two years ago when I was housed on K-3 row during the summer, there were a bunch of clouds in the sky that I decided to attempt to disperse with my mind. What prompted me to do this was because Amber, the friend that converted (from Buddhism) to a Christian, wrote to tell me about Elvis' experience with dispersing clouds and showing his fiends it could be done. He'd make his friends get out of the car where he'd parked on the side of the street to experiment. Some called him crazy but a man just doesn't conjure up his experience. Anyway, those clouds were very heavy and thick in nature really seemed accommodating to my interest. The first clouds were pretty huge and fluffy and I tried choosing the ones I felt would not eventually end up dispersing on their own when I made the attempt. So, in that case, after I found the cloud I wanted, decided where to mark the split, because it would be where I'd concentrate on in dispersing the cloud. That should be the key, to rule out any possible coincidence, after all, it was I myself serving as my own audience. When I found a cloud, I applied my concentration at a fix point, realizing how the clouds were moving along the sky like a herd of sheep in a flock. The point where I concentrated seem all too impossible to begin to separate on its own volition. Yet, as I had begun to disperse the cloud in my mind's eye, seeing it split at the set mark, the actual cloud had begun to separate right where I made the focal point of concentration at. The excitement I felt was gradually suppressed as I continued to reinforce my concentration. The cloud continued to separate more and more until it completely made one wholesome cloud into two. When I abridged my concentration to fix or adjust my eye a bit better, the clouds that had been dispersed began to gradually "draw" back together as if to join the sheep with the rest of the flock. What I saw was the portion of the cloud my concentration was set on at the inception, seemed to have slowed down in order to let the later cloud catch up to it. Actually this wasn't enough for my mind: "coincidence," I told myself. "The clouds were going to do that anyway so I'll just try it again." I found myself another cloud to experiment with. This cloud wasn't all that much bigger, probably the same size had it not been for a dent in its form. It moved along in the same direction; the other cloud I used earlier was all in one piece moving along the way across the sky. Okay, I found me a mark in the clouds where I'd separate the cloud at. The mark I found was even better. To my visual sight (with my eye-glasses on) this cloud had no visual dispersing that one could actually anticipate to pull off a hoax. Mind you me, I am not one to play mind games with myself or others. This was an attempt made out of boredom, an attempt that so happened to rule in my favor, or should I say, success. Anyway, like a hawk or owl that stalks his prey, with my mind fixed on the determination to disperse the clouds, I concentrated on my mark. While the clouds moved along, the front portion of the cloud moved along, the front portion of the cloud "seemed" to progress faster as the tail end of the cloud "seemed" to pull back or slow itself down to accommodate the separation at the very mark I concentrated on. This was brilliant! Yet my effort to maintain concentration was curtailed by over-excitement, including the fact that I was using the passive part of my mind to intellectualize too much of/on the process. The clouds remain separable as they floated across the sky, even despite the effort i reinforced with my concentration. Then I gave up all together, suddenly realizing how much I must have spent just gazing at the sky. Deluded doubt prompted my next attempt to no avail. That sort of weighed heavy on me, frustrating my mind at the most and on top of that I felt exhausted with a headache coming on. I never tried it again. The hell with it, I can recall thinking.
Well, anyway, so much for the snow Ð it didn't last except for only an hour, leaving the subtle traces of its presence behind. It is still extremely cold, too cold if you ask me, and I don't always like being cold when there's work to be taken care of throughout the day. Texas has had a long strange history of erratic weather. once there was the sun shining in its splendor when within the blink of an eye, rain commenced down from the sky all of a sudden. According to lama Yeshes, we can control the weather, the elements. He said, " When we were in the refugee camp in West Bengal, there was always so much rain in the summer. The commissioner of our camp heard that we could do such things, so he asked us to stop the rain. I think he thought, 'What do these people do? Just sit here and meditate? Now at least they can do something!' We did the special meditation, and the rain stopped. And when they needed rain t come, they would ask us to help, and it would rain. He was very happy .... every village has a weatherman who can stop the rain." So who can't say with credibility that there isn't some strange phenomenon going on with Texas weather.
Earlier this week I was expecting a religious visit with Terry Conrade, a TDCJ Volunteer Buddhist Chaplain on the 3rd of April. I had been expecting, waiting, and consequently anticipating this visit. Unfortunately, this visit never came through for whatever reason. I wasn't at all let down with heavy vibrations of disappointment Ð I had been open to the possibility of the visit not coming through for whatever reason. I'm not much for the speculating on why. I don't care to look at it that way. As Lama Yeshe says and I quote to my liken, "Some energy coming from here clashing with some other energy from there never upsets the wise because they expect things like that to happen; it's in their nature." That's my experience. It would have been amazing to have actually met a free-world Buddhist in person, you know, to have someone to reciprocate with on a level of relatives and absolutes. The closest as I ever came was through my pen-friend Amber who is now a Christian. Even beforehand, it seemed to have not made much difference because Amber seems more like what I describe as a mainstream Buddhist who had found herself practicing Buddhism out of a love affair with the tradition and culture. It happens to be true for some, leaving their practice to be superficial. Oh wait, I lied. I said that the closest I came was with Amber. That's not true. I had forgotten the female guard that works here. Had I talked about how I cam to learn she was a Buddhist?!? I don't know if it is the same method whereby monks such as His Holiness, the Dalai lama, is able to recognize someone as the reincarnation of a previous sentient being, but at the first time I saw her, it was almost as if I had a gauging need to ask her "Are you a Buddhist?" If one was to judge her according to her appearance, you'd go on thinking she's a white and Mexican mix or either. I virtually, and I still virtually, know nothing about her. There was just this impression I had that she's a Buddhist. When my initial opportunity came for me to question her about it, I failed to do so, only because I felt very stupid about it myself. Actually I was afraid of her reaction and I was afraid of being wrong. One day when she had worked the wing, I held up a magazine to her face with the back cover showing her a beautiful statue of Avalokiteshvara, the Buddha of compassion, in the four-arm aspect, before I boldly asked her was she a Buddhist, and did she know anything about this magazine. She confirmed everything, including that she was Thai. Her parents are Buddhist, but she herself sort of lost opportunity to practice. We don't talk at all much, except to speak to each other and that's it, being that she's a guard and her husband works with her. So, that is the closest I've come to ever conversing with a Buddhist in this life-time. Perhaps, if I become a hidden Yogi in this life time, when the right cause and condition ministrate me in forsaking this body for eternity, I'll transmigrate to a body where my rebirth will be amongst Tibetan Buddhists.
On K-wing you had the cats, right. Over here, you have the birds, so I actually had the opportunity to feed them corn chips which they seem to enjoy. Amazing how some of them are so brazen, less frightened to approach only inches from my hand to retrieve the food. It was awesome. I felt the birds may have found favor with me. There was this one episode where the mother bird pecked food for her baby. I mean she would actually place the food in the baby bird's mouth. The baby bird's endless reaction was like that of a human baby filled with so much oh-so excitement and began to kick and squirm and squeal. The baby bird's wing moved uncontrollably with joy chirping his/her heart out as if to "Thank you, Mom, can you give me some more." Yeah, it was awesome. I don't mind feeding the birds in except that I have to frightening thought that the cats will come along and catch them off-guard. I don't want to be responsible for their death, so I try to minimize the feeding habits. In Buddhism, we practice generosity, giving to those who need it, so giving the animal something to eat is an act of generosity. Plus, if these animals aren't your pets, then the practice of generosity becomes pure and perfected because there's no way the animals can return the favor Ð not even with a simple appreciation. This practice also is part of the purification meditational practices when one has broken one of the eight percepts he or she vowed to keep. So, as you know, I have been generous a lot lately. Peace.