From "Practice within the Cell"
An interview with Fleet Maull
I was in a county jail for the first seven months. It was a hell-realm experience...very
crowded, noisy, tense conditions. I was going through a dark night of the
soul. I was wracked with fear, remorse, guilt, and shame, and devastated
by what I had done to my family, my community, and myself. I could hardly
sleep. My mind raced with escape fantasies. It would race back and forth
over what I could have done differently to escape this fate.
There were five cells in a concrete and steel tank with no windows. The only
opening was a food slot in the steel entry door of the cell block. Suffocating
heat. Two men to a tiny cell. All doors were locked at the same time mechanically.
Prisoners kept radios and televisions on day and night. There was yelling
from one cell to another; there were frequent fights and serious injuries.
It was very intense.
I started practicing meditation for many hours a day almost immediately.
I chose to sleep on the upper bunk, where there was enough headroom to sit
up straight on a folded blanket. One evening, many months into my sentence,
I realized that my mind was not moving. I was calm and my mind was steady.
Regardless of the noise and anger around me, my mind was not pulled by it.
I had had these kinds of experiences before, but in a quiet Buddhist retreat
center. To find it in the midst of those circumstances was liberating. I
knew that I could somehow handle this and use it as a path.
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