A Death Row Inmate's Quest for Freedom

Finding Freedom: How Death Row Broke And Opened My Heart by Jarvis Jay Masters (1/5)

Author

Shirisha Nagendran
November 01, 2024

The story of Angulimala is a fascinating tale from the Buddhist Scriptures. It is the story of how Buddha almost became his 1000th victim.

Angulimala was a brigand with a fearsome reputation. He would be, in our modern society, a serial killer.

Angulimala lived in a forest where he would kill the people who passed through the forest. He would kill the victim, cut off a finger and add it to the garland of fingers he wore around his neck. Thus, he attained the epithet - Angulimala, a necklace of fingers.

Angulimala had slain 999 victims, and he was desperately seeking his 1000th victim. The people of Kosala were terrified of Angulimala. This comes to the notice of Buddha.

Buddha perceives through his psychic powers that Angulimala is looking for this 1000th victim and walks to the forest where Angulimala roamed.

Angulimala notices Buddha and is thrilled that he can add a monk to his garland as his 1000th victim.

Angulimala takes his dagger to kill the Buddha and runs after him. Buddha walks on calmly, and Angulimala comes chasing him. But Angulimala cannot catch up despite running as fast as he can chasing the Buddha, who is walking calmly.

Angulimala is perplexed and calls to the Buddha to stop, “Stop, contemplative! Stop!”

Angulimala asked, puzzled,

“While walking, contemplative,
you say, ‘I have stopped.’
But when I have stopped
you say I haven’t.
I ask you the meaning of this:
How have you stopped?
How haven’t I?”

The Buddha replied,

“I have stopped, Angulimala,
once & for all,
having cast off violence
toward all living beings.
You, though,
are unrestrained toward beings.
That’s how I’ve stopped
and you haven’t.”

The Angulimala Sutta

Angulimala has a flash of realisation and drops his weapon, abandoning the path of violence. He asks to be ordained by the Buddha as a monk and to join the Sangha.

When I read Jarvis Jay Masters’ book Finding Freedom: How Death Row Broke And Opened My Heart, I was reminded of the story of Angulimala.

Finding Freedom is a memoir by San Quentin, a death row inmate, Jarvis Jay Masters. Pema Chodron, the Buddhist teacher, frequently references this book in her teachings, and I first picked it up in 2021. This book is super short, at least as far as traditional books go—140 pages. It took me three and a half hours over three days to finish reading it.

This is Jarvis’ story of redemption and finding his true refuge, like Angulimala did in the teachings of Buddha.

Painting of Jarvis Jay Masters in his Prison Cell at San Quentin Picture Credit: Free Jarvis Website

Jarvis had a hard childhood and experienced violence, neglect, fear and trauma at the tender age of five. He watched his father almost beat his mother to death and was taken away from his mother, entering the foster care system.

The lack of nurturing, safety and the environment around him made him turn to a life of violence. He committed armed robbery and ended up in San Quentin when he was 19. He is now 64 (as of 2024) and still remains in San Quentin.

Four years into his incarceration, Jarvis was found guilty of conspiracy to murder a prison guard, to which he maintains his innocence. In the prime of his life, at the age of twenty-five, Jarvis was sentenced to 21 years in solitary confinement, the longest any prisoner in San Quentin. These are challenging and unimaginable circumstances, and to find oneself in 21 years of solitary confinement.

Solitary confinement is the physical isolation of a prisoner for 22-24 hours a day in a cell. Nelson Mandela, the anti-apartheid activist and the first President of South Africa was put in solitary confinement on several occasions during his long imprisonment of 27 years. Mandela spent six years in solitary confinement, calling it “the most forbidding aspect of prison life”.

Jarvis spent 21 years in solitary confinement.

This book is about Jarvis’s journey to finding his freedom—freedom not from the San Quentin prison but inner freedom. His freedom is on the path of awakening, away from suffering, towards compassion and openness.

The book is written as a series of short vignettes that give us insight into various aspects of Jarvis’ life and experiences in prison.

The small moments of joy and togetherness he and his friends experience, the anguish of watching fellow prisoners killing themselves, finding compassion for the prison guards who treated them like animals, acceptance of the environment and the challenging childhood he had, love for his mother who neglected him and was not able to protect him, his suffering of being locked up in prison, his terror of facing his death by execution and many more.

Jarvis divides the book into three parts.

  1. Sanctuary

  2. Mourning Exercise

  3. Finding Freedom

The first chapter of the book includes a brief note on Jarvis’s experience when he first entered San Quentin.

Jarvis is shocked at the roach-infested place in his prison cell. One of the first things he does is accept his situation that this is his home now, and he proceeds to find that home in the prison.

He flushes out the toilet and cleans the cell vigorously, until he removed the filth and cleaned it to a military standard.

“To find home in San Quentin I had to summon an unbelievable will to survive. My first step was to flush the toilet. To my surprise I found all I needed to clean my cell in the fish-kit - a towel, face cloth, and a box of state detergent.

It seemed that time was now on my side. I started cleaning vigorously. I began with one wall, then went on to the next, scrubbing them from top to bottom as hard as I could to remove the markings and filth. I didn’t stop until I had washed them down to the floor and they were spotless. If I had to sleep in here, this was the least I could do. The cell bars, sink and, toilet, and floor got the same treatment. I was especially worried about the toilet. I had heard that prisoners were compelled to wash their faces I their toilets whenever tear gas was shot into the units to break up mass disruptions and the water was turned off. I imagined leaning into this toilet, and I cleaned it to the highest military standards.

I spent hours, sometimes on my hands and knees, washing down every inch of my cell - even the ceiling. When I had finished, I was convinced that I could eat a piece of candy that had dropped onto the floor. The roaches had all drowned or been killed. I blocked off all their hiding places by plugging up the holes and cracks in the walls with wet toilet paper.”

This chapter poignantly and effectively illustrates the essence of handling an impossible and undesirable situation.

  1. To be able to clearly see the reality.

  2. Accepting the reality the way it is.

  3. To work with the reality and change what we can.

The book was inspiring. Reading Jarvis’ story gave me hope and reminded me of the resilience and the power I have within me. Like Jarvis, I can find my inner freedom. There are blessings in every situation, and it is up to me where I focus my attention on and what I choose to make of what I have been handed by life.

I hope you will pick this book up as we explore Finding Freedom in depth over the next four weeks.

And we finish this edition with a tiny story.

The Zen Cup

A former student gave a Zen master a beautiful crystal cup.

He loved the cup. Every single day, he would drink out of the cup, show it to his visitors, and tell them of the kindness of his former student who had gifted it to him.

But every morning, he held the cup in his hand and reminded himself, "This cup is already broken."

One day, a visitor accidentally knocked the cup from its shelf. It fell to the ground and shattered into a thousand pieces. The other visitors gasped, but the Zen master remained calm.

Looking at the mess, he smiled, said, "Ah, yes, let’s begin," picked up a broom, and started sweeping.

💌 Siri