Fleet Maull: Mindfulness In Prison (Part 2)

Tricycle’s web editor Wendy Joan Biddlecombe Agsar speaks with Acharya Fleet Maull about his work, and why he’s moving beyond prisons to train the next generation of mindfulness teachers. In the second part of this Tricycle Talks episode, you'll go behind the scenes at a recent retreat with Fleet Maull and hear from four people going through the training about why they practice mindfulness and how it helps the populations they serve.

Transcript

Hi Tricycle listeners.

This is Wendy Joan Biddlecome,

Tricycle's web editor.

In late September I spent nearly a week at the Engaged Mindfulness Institute in Deerfield,

Massachusetts,

On retreat with a new class going through a year-long program of those training to become mindfulness facilitators.

In the second part of this month's podcast,

We'll go behind the scenes and hear from Fleet during his evening talks at the retreat.

I'll also speak with mindfulness teachers in training about what brought them to the practice and some of the benefits they have already seen in themselves and for those who already teach their communities.

I'm going to say just a little bit about Engaged Mindfulness Institute and a little bit about myself and then I'll be speaking mostly about retreat practice itself and then we'll take a few questions,

Have a little bit of a dialogue.

So the Engaged Mindfulness Institute is a division of an overarching nonprofit organization called Prison Dharma Network,

Which I founded while I was in prison.

I founded it in 1989,

About four years into a 14-year sentence in prison that I served on drug charges.

But that was a big wake-up call for me.

So that was my monastery time for 14 years.

I led a very,

Very disciplined kind of monastic but service-oriented life in prison of study,

Practice and service.

I figured out I was a Buddhist when I was a sophomore in high school,

But at the same time I started doing LSD,

Which is kind of,

It went on from there and it's tangled web.

But at any rate,

So I've been doing that for a long time and really during my time in prison was just really focused on training.

I mean,

I slept about four hours a night and practiced three hours a day and studied three hours a day and had a regular job teaching school and very active in AA and NA,

Dealing with my substance abuse issues and leading meditation groups twice a week in the chapel and then starting the first hospice in a prison anywhere with some colleagues there and friends there and then developing Prison Dharma Network and then also starting National Prison Hospice Association to get hospice out into the world in prisons.

And there's now about 80 hospice programs in state and federal prisons in this country as a result of the work we started there,

You know.

And so I tried.

And I got out in 1999.

Well,

My name is Rashid Hughes and I'm currently beginning the second half of the Engaged Mindfulness Institute's teacher training program.

I just completed the first year and the first year was very inspiring and educational for me.

And I currently teach basic mindfulness meditation instruction.

I also incorporate some mindful movement and a few energy medicine exercises and trauma tapping technique modalities for the residents in the housing units.

And so far it's been very,

Very rewarding because I've connected with people who I would have never connected with on a very heart-to-heart level and human level.

And it's encouraged me in ways that I never would have imagined.

Rashid speaks about a moment where he saw mindfulness and other healing practices lead to a transformation in one man who is dealing with difficult emotions.

We had just finished a tapping,

A trauma tapping,

And a lot of people use the technique because it first of all,

It makes you feel really alive and it's very visceral and it makes you feel very just connected and awake.

But this gentleman said that when he did the tapping,

He remembered that he was extremely angry with someone from his past.

And he was kind of hesitant about expressing that because he wanted to share that the practice made him feel great,

But actually the practice brought up a little distress and disturbance for him.

But in that moment,

I felt really overjoyed because the practice actually worked.

It didn't necessarily bring him peace immediately in the moment,

But it did allow him to breathe.

To process some unconscious or hidden distress that was still living with inside of his system.

And once I was able to share that with him,

That the practice is not just to make you feel good,

But it's also to help you to process things that you were unable to process when the experience happened,

He saw how the practice was working for him.

So that was a very powerful learning lesson for me as well because it showed how the mindfulness practices and trauma practices or whatever the modality might be,

They don't always produce a pleasant response or reaction within the person that's using them,

But it doesn't mean that the practice isn't benefiting them.

So that was very important for me.

Good evening.

Once again,

Congratulations on completing another full day of retreat practice,

Your third full day,

Your second full day in silence.

I'd like to take a moment for a little self-reflection here.

So if you could set your things down and just take a good posture for a moment,

Finding that posture that for you feels naturally uplifted and dignified,

Stable and relaxed.

Taking a moment to drop into the body,

Find our way into relationship with the body and the breath and feeling our good hearts,

Our good human hearts,

Strong back,

Soft front.

My name is Janice Lewis.

I have partnered with an organization who works with those who live in under-resourced areas.

And so I offer mindfulness,

Meditation,

Labyrinths,

Peace circles and Mandela's.

Janice told me how mindfulness affects her life and how she got involved with helping underprivileged people in Chicago,

Where she lives.

My church,

They partner with a charity,

The charity is called Chicago Lights.

One of the ministers knew I was a meditator and knew that it made a difference in my life.

And so she asked me if I would consider offering meditation to those who are clients and students of Chicago Lights.

One of the main ways Janice helps Chicago Lights is through something called Peace Club.

Peace Club was started three years ago at Chicago Lights.

And so the young people at Chicago Lights come into Peace Club nine weeks at a time and we do a unit.

But the core is really mindfulness meditation.

One story that is very vivid on my mind is a young boy about nine years old who came into the meditation room.

And he said the moment he comes into the meditation room,

He knows he's loved as he is and that it's confidential.

He can share anything.

And so he picked up the talking stick and just what they do.

And he said,

Janice,

Do you want to know about my day?

And I said,

Yes,

Always.

And he said,

Someone may be mad,

Really,

Really mad.

And he said,

Do you want to know what I did?

And I said,

Yes.

He said,

I stopped and I breathed and I breathed and I breathed.

That's why I continue doing this.

Janice has been practicing for around 20 years and over the years has experienced a noticeable change in the level of community and awareness of mindfulness.

When I was asked to do this,

I've had people along my journey who has just said,

I'll help,

I'll help,

I'll help.

There are people that just said,

Hey,

I'll come along the journey.

And believe me,

I don't have the answers.

I'm just willing to walk it.

20 years ago,

I would have felt overwhelmed.

But because I've been a meditator for that long and mindfulness for seven or eight years,

I really have learned that life is a journey and just taking one step is enough.

What I shared last night to be at the heart of our path is deepening our own practice,

Deepening our own context as human beings by sitting in the fire of the charnel ground of our own life,

Our own challenges,

Our own circumstances,

Our own present circumstances,

Our cultural history,

Our cultural legacy,

Our family legacy,

Everything we face.

And that coming to the practice is when we stop running,

Stop running away from ourselves,

From our past,

From our pain,

From our suffering.

And with equal measures of self-compassion,

Gentleness,

Non-aggression,

Friendliness toward our own being and courage and bravery,

The balance of those two things,

Self-compassion and bravery with equal measures of those,

We sit in that fire and we face ourselves.

The absolute foundation and core of what we have to offer others and our ability to do so is our own personal practice.

That's it.

And it's not the practice we did five years ago,

Even if we did,

You know,

A year long retreat five years ago in a cave up in Tibet.

That was five years ago.

Did we sit today?

Did we sit yesterday?

Have we done retreat this year?

It's that commitment to practice that is the foundation for our capacity to offer the practice to others.

My name is Michael Christie.

I am a chaplain at two facilities in Connecticut,

A jail and a prison.

And so I've been doing some mindfulness work with the inmates there.

And I want to introduce it to not only the inmates,

I really want to establish a program for both the staff and the inmate because I think both parties need,

Mindfulness will be a blessing and a help to both sides because everybody is so stressed out working in that environment.

Michael has already started teaching mindfulness to inmates at a jail and a prison in Connecticut,

Where he serves as a Protestant chaplain.

So my typical class is about,

We ran out of space,

Is about 50 guys that come.

And in the jail,

That rotates because the men,

Jails are designed to only keep you there until you've been sentenced.

And so that is always kind of refreshing itself,

Maybe every three,

Every six months,

You know,

These new guys.

I teach a contemplative prayer.

And I also kind of teach some basic being present,

Knowing,

Feeling your body and being here and being in and out with the guys.

Oftentimes before I pray or before I do a class,

I'll have them do that kind of centering.

I don't tell them that's what it is.

I just do it and it is kind of going along.

And I have been more intentional.

That was at a jail.

I've been more intentional than a prison.

Say I'm teaching you some basic meditation techniques because it will be helpful for you in your prayer life,

In your spiritual journey,

Just in your life in general,

Help you to manage stress here at a very stressful place,

Help you to manage your,

For lack of a better word,

Your emotions,

Kind of learn how to be with your emotions and not have it take you away somewhere.

Michael explains how meditation helped one inmate deal with the struggles and especially the noise of living in prison.

He was there because of substance abuse and had a pretty horrible childhood.

His mother was on substance abuse.

His stepfather who kind of raised him died from substance abuse and was clearly trying to find his way and find his own spiritual journey but was having a difficult time in his housing unit.

Difficult time praying,

Difficult time just dealing with the noise and all of the conversations that were going on.

And so I just really taught him to pay attention to your breath,

Just breathe,

Count your breath,

Right?

And really that was it.

And the next time I saw him,

He did say it made a tremendous difference to just help him calm down and not get sucked into all the voices he was hearing in the space he was.

We do offer something.

We offer some information about how to do the practice.

If it's a person that's new,

They need to hear something about the practice and the guidelines,

The method and some,

You know.

So we do offer that but the primary role is holding a safe space in which the student can encounter the practice and then the practice becomes their teacher.

We're facilitating a situation in which the student can encounter the practice,

Embrace the practice and have the practice become their primary teacher.

That takes a lot of humility because we've worked really hard to become teachers and you know we'd like to be a little bit up on the pedestal a little bit,

Get a little cred for what we're doing you know,

Give it away you know.

But that's what empowering people is all about.

One of the biggest shadow things that we all deal with is wanting to be liked in this role.

We may be sitting there,

The first class you know at the YMCA or in a prison or at the homeless shelter and we're sitting there guiding the first medit- we've introduced ourselves and talked about what the class is about and thought we've done a you know good job of introducing it.

Now we're leading the first meditation or something and somebody stands up and walks out and we just we die inside.

They don't like me.

I miss them.

You know.

And of course it's human and natural to be liked.

Shadow stuff is only problematic when we don't acknowledge it,

We're not aware of it and we start acting from that stuff in ways that are not helpful and not skillful.

Instead of sharing the practice and holding space for others we start trying to get everybody to like us.

That's not helpful.

We're not trying to get everybody to not like us you know.

But we're not particularly trying to create a fan club either.