Photo: Jody Darcey, courtesy of Liberation
May 2004
Buddhism Behind Bars
An Interview with the Venerable Robina Courtin
by Suzanne Saucy
Kentucky State Prison is located in the heart of the Bible Belt. Inmates’ quarters are cramped. The amenities that we on the outside take for granted are absent. Yet this very poverty of means can lend itself to a path of insightful self-examination, according to the Ven. Robina Courtin, a Tibetan Buddhist nun who directs the Liberation Prison Project (LPP). The LPP now serves prisoners in the United States, England, Australia, and New Zealand. Courtin meets inmates in prison chapels without fear. They sit on folding chairs as she teaches them reverence for their lives and those of others. She gives death row inmates tools to prepare for their own deaths.
In Tibetan Buddhism, some revere the yogi Milarepa as the patron saint of prisoners. He himself had once used black magic to murder the family of an uncle who had cheated him out of an inheritance. Overcome with remorse for his vengeful misdeeds, he sought liberation under his guru, Marpa. Today, the LPP’s work with prisoners is part of a larger movement among diverse Buddhist groups (see sidebar) to respond to the human suffering inherent in prison life. It exemplifies a long tradition of socially engaged Buddhism that is integral to the spread of its teachings and practices in the West.
Courtin’s path has always combined devotion and activism. Her Catholic upbringing fed a desire to become a Carmelite nun. Her twenties brought political awareness of the social struggles faced by women, people of color, and prisoners. She became an activist. At 31, she had given up sex, drugs, alcohol, and radical politics. Following an injury practicing kung fu, she went on a retreat and learned of Buddhism. She found her teacher, Lama Yeshe, and became a nun 22 years ago.
Courtin is a feisty and compact 5’ 2” Australian woman with a brilliant smile. Her sharp wit makes her speak honestly about spiritual practice. She guides those seeking food for their souls, whether inside or outside the prison walls. This interview took place at Tse Chen Ling, a San Francisco Buddhist Center where the LPP offices are located.
CG: Can you talk about how the LPP began?
RC: It was in 1996. We received a letter from a young Mexican American ex-gangster in Pelican Bay, a maximum-security prison built about 20 years ago for troublemakers from the other yards throughout California. He’d read a book, seen our name, and written to us. His letter came to me. I wasn’t thinking about prisons at all. They had nothing to do with my life. He was very sincere, and I eventually answered him. This is the heart of our activity. A person will hear about the LLP through the grapevine or our magazine, Liberation. By the end of the 1997, we had heard from 40 or 50 people from all over the state of California. We now get more than 200 letters every month from prisoners all over the country.
How this work evolves is a crucial point, because in Buddhism it is inappropriate to proselytize. People come to us; we don’t go to them. This idea is extremely practical. You can take a horse to water but you can’t make him drink.
CG: How many people are working with the LPP now?
RC: There are probably about 40 or 50 volunteers. In the main office in San Francisco, there are five salaried people. We receive the letters and delegate them to seven or eight teachers depending on the type of request. I am one of those, mostly monks and nuns, who become their spiritual teacher and advisor. We then write to the prisoners and take care of their practice, selecting books, tapes, and other materials to suit their individual practice and studies.
CG: So it is mostly one-on-one work?
RC: It is quite intensive from that point of view, and has grown over the years with 4,000 prisoners having written to us. Obviously, not all continue. Some have had a full-on practice for the last eight years. But everything we do starts with the letters. There are now many groups within the prisons. An individual becomes enthusiastic and goes to the prison chaplain and says, “I want to start a Buddhist group.” He gets a slot in his chapel, and then others come. Eventually we’ll send someone into the prison to teach the group. We now have eight people who teach in prisons in California, Montana, Idaho, Massachusetts, North Carolina, and Virginia. And whenever I travel around the country teaching in our Buddhist centers, I go to prisons nearby. We are growing strongly in Australia, where Buddhism is very popular. We have small groups in England and New Zealand as well.
CG: What type of person finds his way to the dharma?
RC: I would say 98% of the thousands of people who have written to us are men. That’s interesting because if you go to any Buddhist center, you’ll find that 98% are women. Many of those who write to us are poor, uneducated or Latino or Afro American — people you wouldn’t often find in Buddhist centers.
CG: Can we talk about the mental and emotional pain that is experienced in prisons?
RC: There are all sorts of reasons that you are in prison. You may have killed someone; you may have stolen just a small thing; maybe you were wrongly accused or committed a drug-related offense. All that aside, prisons are not very pleasant places: they’re often crowded, physically unpleasant, and very noisy. What I’ve observed is that the major suffering stems from being at the bottom rung of society. There’s great fear around you, whether or not you are to be feared. And there is an enormous loathing. There’s also a strong wish that you stay there and never leave, because you are the scum of the earth, and you deserve it and had better suffer. We all know that when even one person does not like us, it can be unbearable. So to be part of a group of people that everyone broadly speaking hates — that is quite intense.
For anyone who wants to look within and who’s really interested in trying to understand what the hell life is all about, the experience of being in prison can be an incredible catalyst for change. More than anything, you can say that the Buddha is dealing with psychology, even though most people think of it as a religion. If you take anything of Buddhism into your life, it can help you learn who you are and realize that you are valid in and of yourself; that you have this amazing potential for clarity, contentment, and the other human qualities that Buddha says are the core of our being. And then, in turn, you can be of use to others wherever you are.
When this young Mexican who first wrote to us turned 21, I asked Lama Zopa Rinpoche, my teacher, to write him a birthday card. There he is in the Security Housing Unit of Pelican Bay sitting in his small cell. He’s there 23 hours a day, with one hour of exercise, and he has virtually no possessions or rights. What Lama Zopa wrote him was quite shocking. He said (and I am paraphrasing): “Your prison is nothing in comparison to the inner prison of ordinary people — the prison of attachment, the prison of depression, the prison of anger, the prison of pride.” It sounds almost patronizing, but if we were to take a cursory look at our own lives, which is scary, then we will find this is true.
Many of the people we deal with in prison really do understand this. Many prisoners have had a so-called ordinary life, with a wife or husband, and kids, and then that’s taken away. They’ve been stripped naked. We all experience some level of suffering, of not getting what we want. But when everything is taken away, when you have zero say about your life, you have nowhere to turn but yourself.
Have you seen that excellent book by a guy at San Quentin, Jarvis Masters, called Finding Freedom? He is on death row there. He is a Buddhist. Finding freedom is such a cliché. But it is really true.
CG: How do you see the relationship of the prisoners to the prison guards?
RC: Thinking in terms of the victim and oppressor is a trap. If I meet someone who happens to be called prisoner then I deal with that person. Equally, if I meet a person who is a victim of a crime, I deal with that person. I don’t get caught up in who is doing it to them. As soon as we meet a person who is suffering, we immediately think: “Who did it to them” and we get angry — the blame mentality. This is the view of the world. There is no doubt that there is suffering; no doubt that there are people called guards who are brutal and horrible; no doubt that there are people who are called prisoners who are innocent; and no doubt there victims of crimes. But for me that isn’t the issue. The issue is to deal with whoever pops in front of me in my life whether a homeless person, a multimillionaire, a victim or a prisoner and then helping them to deal with their particular suffering and take responsibility for their lives. Human beings are human beings.
CG: Will you talk a little about His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s involvement with prison work?
RC: In the latest issue of our magazine, Liberation, there is an article about His Holiness’s teaching in New York last September at the Healing Through Difficulty gathering. Actor Richard Gere, the founder of the Initiatives Foundation, organized a 90-minute meeting between 18 former prisoners and His Holiness. Most of the participants had connected with Buddhism during their incarceration. His Holiness is very enthusiastic that more meetings take place in a symposium atmosphere, where people could openly discuss from many different viewpoints — including victims’ organizations, wardens, prison guards, legislators, and governors.
And that’s also how we at the Liberation Prison Project want to be involved. One of our volunteers serves on the parole board of a state prison system. He has invited me to participate in an international parole board conference in May. They will show the film Chasing Buddha, and I will give a talk about how the work we do helps prisoners become productive human beings.
CG: Does it take a certain type of person to work in prisons?
RC: Many of my friends are filled with horror at the thought. They feel scared and have all sorts of projections. Or they just don’t feel they can bear the suffering. One of my Mexican friends in prison hadn’t met a Buddhist nun before and didn’t know what to expect. After our meeting, he said, “I am so glad, Robina, to know you have a wild side.” Maybe you need it to do this kind of work.
We characterize prisons as violent, and I recognize that anger is a strong part of my personality. It is a part of myself that I have been working with. We can say there is a good side and a bad side to all these qualities. And so, that part of me that I am learning to work with and transform to make it useful is an active, strong one and that is what you need to do this work. I have such respect for anybody who has wild, uncontrolled energy and has suffered because of it; and who is now working in the confines of a prison.
This is where we can bring together action and spiritual practice. We have this big schism in life — all the meditators on the mountain and then all the political activists. But there is this lovely saying in Buddhism: a bird needs two wings — wisdom and compassion. Internally, all the practice involves developing the wisdom wing — the work you do on your mind, using mediation as a psychological tool to know and transform yourself. The result is that you are more relaxed, more content, more clear and wise, but also more compassionate. And then you put your money where your mouth is; and you get out there to do the compassion wing, which is to benefit others.
But you can’t serve others properly without the wisdom wing. When I was doing all the political work, I wasn’t really qualified. I hadn’t ever looked at Robina, so I was full of all this anger, hurt, and misery. I wanting to help others and I was of some use, but not really, because I was flailing about. Look at how so many who are activists or who do social work just burn out. People get exhausted and drained because they haven’t done enough work internally.
Going into prisons, you see suffering and violence. We either go into the victim/oppressor mentality, or we turn away because we can’t bear it. But it’s possible to go in there and be of benefit and not get drained and not get angry. When I see people who are full of anger and violence, it helps me see mine. And I’m humbled by the way human beings in places such as prison can transform themselves. We are all human beings together in this big boat. So it’s very inspiring. As long it is necessary, I will keep doing it.
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