Prison, Part 2: Attachment to Preferences

 

I recently received another remarkable letter from a man I call “Jonathan” who has been corresponding with me from prison for about four months now. He is 48 years old, and has thus far served nine years in prison.  He has fourteen more years to serve before release.  His circumstances are extreme compared to what most of us have to deal with, but I think there is much we can learn from how he has chosen to use Buddhist teaching to deal with adversity.

For me, this is the most remarkable sentence in Jonathan’s letter:  “I am not often bored.”  How is this possible?  In reading the letter carefully, I discovered that Jonathan was making use of a central Buddhist teaching that helped answer this question and that has great power to alter our own lives for the better:  Don’t be attached to personal preferences. 

Having preferences, if they are wisely chosen, can be life enhancing, but if we cannot let go of them when circumstances change, we will suffer.  Before prison, Jonathan loved both swimming and teaching people to swim.  He particularly liked “transforming someone's fear of the water into confidence and joy.” In prison, continuing with these pursuits was not possible.  But because he was able to let go and open to other possibilities, he can now work with people in a meditation group he organized to teach other prisoners to meditate and transform their fears, anger, or resentment into peace and joy. And, as we will see later, he is also helping to transform whatever fears his young son may have about taking the next steps in his life. Though not the same as what he had before, it is very meaningful work for him.

Jonathan says that “One of the worst things about prison for me is the loss of being out in nature.”  Once again, his practice was to let go of preference and open to other possibilities: “I started to focus on what was actually available to me and applied my creativity to those endeavors.”  So he grew a windowsill garden of tomatoes, peppers, cloves, strawberries, and onions.  He also searched for colored leaves and arranged them on his cell wall using toothpaste to stick them in place.  When he was moved to another cell, the person that took his cell left them up and so the gift was passed on to someone else.

The greatest joy of Jonathan’s life before prison was being a dad to his son.  In prison, he could not be with his son the way he wanted to be—another exercise in letting go of preference—but he found other ways of being a dad that were satisfying to him as well as to his son.

“The thing I loved to do the best before prison was being a dad. I was a really good dad. Kenneth and I did everything together.  We liked to build train tracks with a wooden train set, or go for long walks in the woods--him in a kid backpack, me pointing out the different kinds of trees. And nearly every Saturday we had a dance party.   Kenneth was two and a half when I came to prison, and being his dad was something I wouldn't give up on. I'm happy to say that nine years later we have a strong relationship. He is happy and thriving.”          

None of his former ways of relating to his son were possible in prison, so it was necessary to let them go and say “Yes” to the new reality.  And there were many ways available to Jonathan to be Kenneth’s dad.

“To stay close to him I would draw Ken pictures and make projects for him to do with his Grandma (my Mom). I like to make him story books. His nick name is Koo, so I call his books "Koo Books.” When he started coming for regular visits I made him little Koo Books, small two inch by three inch books that I could sneak into visiting sessions. He would come running up to me and reach into my shirt pocket and gleefully pull out his book. When Covid hit and visits were canceled I started to mail his books home and then read them to him over the phone.

The themes of the story's grew organically based on what Ken was interested in. He would suggest an idea and I would do my best to write a story about it. His favorite (and mine, too) was a story about a chicken farmer (for eggs, not eating) and his pet fox. He wanted Fox to go to school. So Fox did. First people school—a disaster—then Fox school. He wanted a story about super heroes, so the Farmer, Fox and a chicken became super heroes. Farm-Force! I infringed on many a super hero to create them and last month I sent him book number 36. I've made it my own personal mission to create super hero stories that don't include "good guys" or "bad guys" because we all have the seeds of good within us.  It feels good to make him a book. They take about four or five weeks to make. It makes me feel closer to him when I'm working on one, and if he's missing me he has them to read.”

Jonathan also found other ways to meet his need for nurturing and connection--he made friends with a fly!  He named it Buzzbee and fed it jam from his hand.  When its wings became too beatup to fly, he made it a "rope course" on the plants so it could walk up and down. “Buzzbee was a free range fly--I couldn't bear to keep it in a cage.  He was with me for 3 months. I can't kill flies now, not after Buzzbee.”   In making friends with a “lowly” fly, Jonathan deepened his understanding of practicing reverence for all life and compassion for all creatures.

Additionally, Jonathan has a prison job as custodian for the Psychology Department offices and hallways.  Any job, if done mindfully with care and attention to detail, can be meaningful work.  “Many days the most important thing I do is clean a toilet in the Psychology Department because everyone deserves a clean place to use the toilet. It's a way for me to express caring in a place that struggles to care. I'm glad I have a reason to get up in the morning and have somewhere to go.”

All this is possible when we remember not to be attached to our preferences, stay aware of our present blessings, and practice being grateful for what we have.  Nonattachment to preferences is part of this more fundamental Buddhist teaching:  our freedom and happiness lie in how we chose to respond to our circumstances in life, not in the actual circumstances themselves. When this becomes more than just words to us, we can be fulfilled and at peace no matter what our personal circumstances happen to be.  

 

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