Wanting Little: An Excerpt from Jailbirds in Flight

 

By Nicole Dadone

I wake up before dawn, a warm, cozy, sheltered feeling, lying in my makeshift tent.

Sheets wrap around my bunk, creating a shelter for my thin hard piece of foam on my metal bed with a makeshift pillow of sweat pants, (pillows are contraband,) and block out the always-on lights. My dreams seem richer here somehow, as if I saturate them more easily in this tiny space than my room at home. 

My morning routine consists of waking early, before dawn, grabbing enough toilet paper both to wipe and then dry my hands after I wash them. I walk past the night crew, the women who stay up all night, either in bed or in chairs, watching TV or crocheting, and then sleep all day. If we bump into each other at the sink at 4 am, we have a light banter—they tease me that I’m the grandma and they are the college night owls. 

Back at my bunk, I grab my hot and cold mug I prepared before going to sleep last night—a scoop and a half of instant coffee, two scoops of the powdered creamer (that in fact has no milk product in it), and a packet of sugar substitute—and fill it at the hot water spigot. I joke that it tastes so much like candy that I almost can’t wait to wake up to drink it.

Prison is hard core. 

I live in Religion Row, the first row of the 10 rows of bunks. Three of us were meditating yesterday on one end while three people at the other end were holding Bible study. Row two is the Dominican Street Party row. It is the loudest row in the dorm. I’ve learned to sleep through the party, in my sheet tented metal bunk bed. 

Coffee in hand, I take a seat by the slatted window to do my practices. I can see the city lights through the slats and when dawn hits, I see the golden light of the sun coming through as I meditate and write. An inventory, my admissions. My first admission is that I like my bed here infinitely better than my comfortable bed at home, with my flannel sheets and my linen duvet cover. 

I have the realization that when I lived on the outside, I would bribe myself with a new dress or product to cut through the discomfort of being in the world. As if adding rather than subtracting would help. Turns out, my Kiwi Vo5 prison shampoo makes my hair shinier than Oribe. Vitamin E and preparation H (yes, this is used as face cream in prison) moisturize better than the products I got at Nordstrom. I like that I have a uniform. If it’s cold I can add in a thermal (under not over the brown tshirt so that it shows and they know I am wearing my uniform).

I’m a nun. I’m a nun. I’m a nun. That is the essence of this person and when I deviate from that I’m miserable.

Shopping is miserable, face lotions are miserable, too much space is miserable. Everything inflated beyond the more simple makes me dense and dull and keeps me from the contact I want with the world, with the environment. Every time I am reduced to nothing I am happiest. 

You’d think it would be easy here. But it is not. The feeling of prison is so stark in comparison to the outside world that it’s easy to want to fill it. Women are always sneaking embellishments. There’s a hoarding of food or clothing, as if trying to recreate the outside world. And when they leave to go home or their next destination, they offer—their shirt that is somehow a little cuter, their prayer rug, their slightly altered pants that are more flattering. It’s easy to collect “more.” 

And I’m co-dependent. And I’m new here, just in a month. I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings by turning down an offer, but I do not want more than what I have. 

It takes great discipline to say no. Every time. I have to remain seated in what I actually desire and use no metric outside of myself, oh her shirt is cuter (I’m in prison! Who cares) or her bed is cushier.  

I used to think I’d failed at being human because I craved this simplicity. I used to think I should want things more elaborate and designed. 

I see here so clearly how the ego must surrender to the karmic river. The ego cannot steer the river. The western world thinks steering makes you good and honorable, but to do so requires living under delusion and using a great deal of force in life. Energy goes toward doubling down rather than admitting it doesn’t work. And it doesn’t work, at least not for long. 

Miss Wu, a business woman in a prior life who in here is known for making sushi out of tilapia and green bean mush from mainline (the prison cafeteria), rice mixed with jalapeno juice from commissary, and a surprising ingredient of velveeta cheese, that somehow tastes heavenly, tells me one night, while we chat sitting on my bed, that this place is a great blessing. She always loved to study but she was so busy working that she only had an hour a night.

Here, locked up for 10 months, she’s read the entire bible as well as books on where Christianity and Tibetan Buddhism meet. The gift of this place is that it can be one of going to the next place, where it’s possible to have the experience of realization. The world doesn’t see it as such. 

I overheard a bible study session some guest came in to lead the other day. It reminded me of conversion therapy that was done in the 80s with homosexuals. Filled with shame and blame. As if that was the way for any change to happen. Mostly that keeps this place a strange layover till people go back out just to come back in. 

I’ve received some big gifts in my life—direct transmission of practices from great masters, deep yoga practices. I was given everything I need and then some.

As I sit here now, I see how I relinquished my gifts. I did not do with them what they were given to me for. Out there, against the backdrop of the world I thought the dharma, my practices, weren’t enough; that I was defective because I did not want more. I remember a talk I heard from a woman at Shambala. She said she had to live a life of insane drive and degrees and CEO positions to exhaust the karma. I think I, too, had to really try samsara on for size to see for myself if the dharma was true.

And I did see—samsara can only deliver delusion, that even the best of the best, of the best of samsara is shit. I went through all of that to land here and see that I am wealthy beyond what I knew in the gifts I have received from the dharma, with my meditation and yoga. And now that I see, I have the opportunity to do something with them. 

I feel blessed beyond measure that I can see this now, and that I am meeting what seems to be an initiation with grace. In here, you cannot pretend. You can either get out of bed or you can’t. I get out of bed. I see what I have been given. I do my practices. Pray, meditate, say my mantras, read my sutras, do my tummo.  

It feels like coming home to a home I love so much. 

I remember in a 12-step meeting years ago someone saying, “I’ll be sober for 10 years in a week, god willing,” and an old timer raised his hand and said, “Oh honey god is willing.” Oh right, God is always willing, Tara is always the wish fulfilling jewel for the wishes toward enlightenment. The world is my oyster. 

I wrote more this morning to set my psychic compass, something of a 10th step inventory. I wrote down all the things that gnaw at me like a mosquito. It helps me remember to remember the states of mind that I’ve touched, the interactions I’ve had with my experience guru, that inspire me to continue.

I remember an attorney meeting recently, where I started to brace. Some “bad” news coming in, a seed of upset seemingly caused by another. Confusion, holding my breath and clenching. The result was a slight membrane formed, a separation. A shell that I then had to soothe. And, afterward, exhaustion. I’d let my ego run the show. The ego uses confusion as a disguise rather than follow the upset back to the source. The tightness cut me off from the wisdom that would have me know. Contraction causes wreckage. 

I see, though, that I can’t do it out of force. Like in Bikram yoga when I watch someone execute a pose perfectly and then I visually match them while compromising where I actually am. The only thing that helps is being where I am and keeping a vision of the realized pose as my aim. Honest sadness is more potent than feigned happiness. Honesty with myself is the only way to my destination 

One thing I do here is to consider the Dalai Lama.

How did he live with that level of torture, heartbreak, and injustice? How is he so strong and tender? It must be possible to use those as fuel and not be eaten alive.  

Cleared out of all of these, I turn to my desires. To live in flow, a fluid reality, removing all confusion. I want to have wordless communication with others, to know and to feel and to move from that place. 

I feel suddenly brought to my knees with a realization. All upset, anger, and discomfort are the result of the ego trying to steer the infinite or control it rather than surrendering to it, trusting and coasting on it. I see in my mind an image of my Lama with a slight whistling sound describing riding the wind. I remember a vow I had made years ago, to not stop until liberation and to trust the unfolding of liberation.

Here I am. In prison. Living that vow.

I’m no longer trying to visualize from a cloud. I understand today. I can’t force my mind in a direction and try to get myself to follow. Rather, I have to use all efforts to fully apprehend that everything, even this, is for my liberation. The ego is powerless over the infinite. 

And with this, I finish my practices and get up to head to the computers. My mind which had been sluggish yesterday, the colors having a hue and density verging on a slight brown, are now lighter, clearer, vivified. The emotional rain of yesterday seems to have washed much clear and left rainbows on the sidewalk. Happy for this. Happy to not be trying to paint a rainbow cast on mud.

On my way back to Religion Row, I pass Jingyi, who is working on a new puzzle, having completed the “Impossible Puzzle,” 3,000 pieces with all the marvel movie posters as the image. This one is called the diamond puzzle, in the shape of a diamond and made up of these most beautiful pieces. It’s a cross between a crystal, a mirror, and a diamond that from various angles reflect different light, much how I imagine the rainbow of White Tara to be. She defines beauty, strong round face, perfectly set eyes, hair down to her waist, totally composed in silence. I’d never actually spoken to her before, although she frequently silently offers extra coffee or sugar packets other women discard, knowing that I like them, dropping them silently on the table. 

Today, I say to her as I pass by, “That’s my favorite color.” 

“It’s transparent,” she responded, without looking up, but with a note of inquiry. 

I stop for a moment and note that when I move slightly the light cast goes from orange red to green. She takes a piece in her hand, moving it to create the same effect. 

“From clear light to color,” she says as she adjusts the piece. “Magic”

*Publisher: Soulmaker Press republished with author’s permission

Photo: Pixabay

Editor: Dana Gornall (for TTB)

 

 

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Nicole Daedone is a teacher, author, and spiritual practitioner with three decades of Zen practice and five years of deep study in Tibetan Buddhism. She is the founder of Orgasmic Meditation, a contemplative practice she developed and taught for over twenty years through OneTaste, exploring the intersection of sexuality, attention, and awakening. She is also the founder of Unconditional Freedom, a 501(c)(3) organization built on the belief that human flourishing is not a luxury—serving 250,000+ incarcerated participants, 140,000+ restaurant-quality meals to anyone who walks through the door, and giving a permanent home to the work of incarcerated artists. She is the author of Jailbirds in Flight: Everything You’ve Wanted to Know About Enlightenment in Prison but Were Afraid to Ask, written entirely during her incarceration at New York City’s Metropolitan Detention Center, where she remains today. Over the past year she has led a thriving meditation community inside MDC—culminating in what is believed to be the first Tibetan Buddhist empowerment ever given in a federal prison.

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