¡Hola!
Everybody...
Ever notice how your perception of the passage of time changes? There are
times, for example, when “time flies,” usually when we’re busy doing something.
We look up and eight hours flashed by! Other times, when we “feel bored”
(feeling bored should be considered a cardinal sin, btw), time drags on
forever. The minutes feel like hours. Then there are times, mostly when we’re
involved in doing something creative, that time seems to “disappear.” You’re so
involved in what you’re doing, so in tune with the moment and your creative
energy, that time ceases to be and you’re caught in a flow state where you’re
fully conscious, fully present, yet fully at one with everything.
That state, that
experience of flow, is the key. It’s your access to healing and everything
else.
* * *
Life 101: Applied Philosophy
What good is book learning? Or rather, what good or practical purpose is
there in an academic discipline such as psychology or philosophy? It’s all
bullshit, right?
Of course not.
The irony is that even those who claim not to like philosophy, psychology,
or reading in general -- what some call “book learning -- make assumptions and
form opinions and worldviews that guide their actions. The difference being is
that those who fully explore knowledge live life in a conscious manner. Those
who pursue knowledge are aware of the past and its application to the present.
Those who deny knowledge live as pawns.
And my response to those who question the practicality of philosophy is
that it is useless if it isn’t being applied. And it is here
where philosophy can help us live in a meaningful manner.
So what good is philosophy?
Well, let’s take the philosophy of nonviolence. Many great men and women
over the centuries have expounded on the importance of nonviolence. You
wouldn’t believe it by the way they advocate war, but even fundamentalist Christians
have to admit that at the very foundation of Jesus’ teaching is the notion of
nonviolence.
How does this teaching look when applied? More importantly, can it be applied
to contemporary life? Is being nonviolent in a violent world even possible? Can
ordinary people practice nonviolence as a way of life? I submit that if a
teaching isn’t relevant, if it can no longer be applied to life, then it is no
longer worthy. If a philosophy has no practical value, then it is obsolete (bullshit)
and should be discarded.
I was incarcerated for a while at the maximum security prison known as
Sing Sing. My security clearance was deemed minimum, but because I
scored high on intelligence tests, I was sent to Sing Sing because they needed
someone smart with a minimum security clearance to work with the civilian
personnel in administration.
Great.
I cannot think of a more humiliating, more internally and externally violent
experience than prison. The prison environment is structured in a way that it exacerbates
everything and foments violence. If you were fucked up to begin with, prison will make you worse. Physical and
psychological violence was a reality and everyday possibility in Sing Sing.
People often ask me, “How did you survive prison,” and I laugh because I know
what they’re really asking is how I avoided being raped. After all, I'm not a physically
imposing figure: I stand at 5'7" and at the time of my incarceration, I
weighed maybe 130lbs.
The fact is I survived prison the way I survived anything else in my
life: by using my intelligence. It was at Sing Sing where I learned to be a
free man. I broke out of my inner mental prison at Sing Sing. That’s why I have
hard time when people assume that I advocate and attempt to live nonviolently
because I am naïve, that I don’t understand, that it was easy for me, but that their
lives and problems are unique, somehow.
Bullshit. If I could do it (be free) in prison, you can do it out here.
My cell was my sanctuary and it is there where I first began a regular
meditation practice. My first “meditation retreat” was in solitary confinement,
where the oatmeal I was served had maggots in it. Sing Sing was also where I
took the basic Buddhist precepts, one of which was non-harming. Yeah, if you
know me you might be saying about now: Leave
it to Eddie to take a vow of peace in one of the most violent places. What
can I say? I’m dense.
One day, I got into an argument with a fellow inmate over a game of
dominoes. It was a silly argument, but as I stated before, everything in prison
is magnified, intensified. We were separated before it escalated, but his last
words to me were that it wasn’t over and that we were going to fix this in the
yard.
This was really hard because in prison, appearances are extremely
important. I didn’t want to fight because I abhor violence, always have. I also
wanted to live differently. I wanted to apply these new principles --
principles I felt were necessary for true freedom -- in my life. But I was
faced with the reality that being prison meant that I did not have the luxury
of giving the impression of “being soft” because then I would become prey to
everyone else. The reality of being
in prison meant that I had to man-up and fight this motherfucker because if I refused
then I would become everybody's bitch. At least this was the common
thought process when I was incarcerated.
As the day progressed, everything seemed to get quiet and no one would
talk to me. There was a buzz in the air, everyone knew we were going to square
off as soon as we were let out for recreation in the prison yard. The tension
was palpable. One acquaintance came by my and slipped me a shank (a homemade
knife), telling me to watch out for the other guy because he had one too.
Geez!
Here I was, in a maximum security prison, about to go hand-to-hand with
an individual who was serving a 25-life sentence for a murder. Great Eddie, you sure know how to fuck shit
up, I thought to myself. People, don’t ever tell me that I don’t
understand, that my life isn’t or wasn’t as hard or difficult as yours.
What to do? What would a Buddhist, or a Jesus, or anybody else do? On
the one hand, I had to fight, there was no way of backing out and still manage
to survive prison. On the other hand, if I hurt this man in a knife fight, I
could be convicted of new crime and end up in prison for a long time. Or, he
could cut my face and I would be scarred for life. I was actually more fearful
of losing my looks than anything else, truth be told. I mean, I may not be the
prettiest man, but I had grown accustomed to my face and I liked it the way it
was. More importantly, I wanted to live life in a principled way. I wanted to stand for something. Engaging in
violence meant betraying what I believed, or wanted desperately to believe.
Without knowing what else to do, I sat down in meditation -- practicing
the age-old technique of vipassana or
insight meditation. The
technique of vipassana uses mindfulness to note our mental and physical
experience from moment-to-moment, with an unbiased attitude. According to
Buddhism, by practicing mindfulness meditation we can see and eventually remove
the causes of suffering, which are within ourselves.
As I sat in this way, I noticed the shifting tides within me. I saw how
anger morphed to fear and fear morphed self-righteous indignation and watched
the whole thing cycle through again. I realized that the fear within me was
irrational. I realized that the danger I was about to face was real, but if I
faced it by allowing the fear to control me, I was not truly free. I would
react from a fear-based perspective and I had been doing that all my life.
Finally, the time came to leave for the yard. I looked at the shank and I
decided right then to leave it. I made a commitment to live by the principle of
nonviolence (even if it killed me). At that moment I didn’t know how I would do
it, or if I would even survive. the only certainty I had was that I was going
to do it. I remembered hearing somewhere that freedom is facing death and
still committing to live.
I walked out in the yard and my former friend, who was now my “enemy”
was across the yard, playing handball against the far wall. One of his friends
tapped him on the shoulder and pointed my way and he put on his shirt and
started walking along the wall toward me. He had a hand in his pocket.
Everyone was watching.
I took a deep breath and walked along the wall toward him. My mind was
racing and now I felt like a stupid jerk for leaving the shank because two
things were obvious: 1) he definitely had a shank and, 2) I had no plan. I just
kept walking. He was maybe 100 yards away from me and I could see the
determination in his eyes. But I also saw something else. I saw another human
being who was probably just as scared and conflicted as I was. We had been
friends. We had broke bread together and kept each other company, playing
dominoes and playing the dozens with one another. And yet here we were, ready
to maim or even kill each other. Well, I wasn’t going to do it.
What happened was that when we finally came face-to-face, I refused to
fight him. Just like that…
I’m saying, fuck it, I ain’t fighting you, this is stupid. Why are we
doing this? And he’s looking around because everyone is looking, hoping for
some recreation, and we’re standing there like two fools. He tells me to fight,
that he will fight regardless. He says I made him lose face and now I had to
pay for it. I tell him to fuck himself that I’ not going to fight. And I begin
talking to him, asking him why we’re doing this. I ask him if it’s cool to be
entertainment for these other motherfuckers who don’t have anything else to do.
I offer my apology and I ask if he could find it within himself, as a man, for
us to resolve this differently.
Truth be told, I really don’t remember everything I said that day, all I
know is that we didn’t fight. I refused to fight. I know I told him if he
really wanted to stab me to go ahead and for a moment, I thought he was.
But he didn’t.
He cursed and I told him to fuck himself, whatever was going to happen
that moment, the one thing I knew was that I wasn’t fighting him. I think he
was actually really taken by surprise by my refusal. I think he expected
anything else but that from me. He just shook his head in disbelief and walked
away. I stood there and looked around and checked out the reactions. Some
laughed, others didn’t know what to make of of it. Shit, I didn’t know what to
make of it.
Later, a group of mutual friends invited us both to the dominoes table
and eventually we became good friends. I even taught him to meditate, but he
said that shit was crazy. The day I left prison for the last time, that man was
my friend. Many years later, I returned to Sing Sing to tell my story of life
on the outside to the men I left behind, many of who will never see the light
of a free day.
When I stood up there in Sing Sing to tell my story as a free man, many
of the men I did time with, hardened men -- men who had harmed and been harmed
-- cried openly. My friend came up to me after and told me these words, “Today
we live freedom through you, Eddie. We used to laugh at you because you liked to
say you escaped from prison when you were here. But you have gone out there and
shown us that freedom is something in here,” he said as he pointed to his
heart. “You represent all of us here who may never be free and that’s your
responsibility because you have been given another chance.”
Freedom is a state of mind.
Today, his words are just as powerful and they serve to remind me that
freedom begins here in this very moment. Philosophy is not merely mental
masturbation for college kids debating in class, it has practical value. It’s
what separates us from being animals ruled by mere instincts.
My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization
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