{"id":7918,"date":"2020-08-21T15:04:56","date_gmt":"2020-08-21T15:04:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.resources2.soundstrue.com\/?post_type=transcript&p=7918"},"modified":"2020-08-21T15:04:56","modified_gmt":"2020-08-21T15:04:56","slug":"waking-up-in-prison","status":"publish","type":"transcript","link":"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/transcript\/waking-up-in-prison\/","title":{"rendered":"Waking Up in Prison"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"image_print\"Print Transcript<\/span><\/a><\/div>

Tami Simon:<\/strong> You\u2019re listening to Insights at the Edge.<\/em> Today, my guest is Fleet Maull. Fleet is a longtime student of Ch\u00f6gyam Trungpa Rinpoche and is an acharya<\/em>\u2014or senior mindfulness meditation teacher\u2014in the Shambhala International Meditation Community. Fleet founded the Prison Dharma Network\u2014now called The Prison Mindfulness Institute\u2014in 1989 while he was in the midst of serving a 30-year sentence with no parole for drug smuggling at a maximum security federal prison medical facility. In addition, in 1991, Fleet founded the National Prison Hospice Association, launching the movement that now includes hospice programs in over 75 state and federal prisons.<\/p>\n

Fleet Maull is the author of the book Dharma in Hell: The Prison Writings of Fleet Maull<\/em> and leads prison programs, meditation retreats, chaplaincy and hospice trainings, activist trainings, bearing-witness retreats, and street retreats throughout the world. He\u2019s also the founder and executive director of the Peacemaker Institute, and he\u2019s cofounder of the Uppaya Chaplaincy Program.<\/p>\n

In this episode if Insights at the Edge,<\/em> Fleet Maull and I spoke about how the only way out is through, and how this teaching helped Fleet deal with regret and fueled his focus to create as much good as possible while he was in prison. We also talked about the teaching of basic goodness, and how Fleet tested this view of basic goodness while he was in prison\u2014[as well as] how it informs his work today with the Prison Mindfulness Institute. We also talked about service and how devoting ourselves to caring for others keeps us from being small and only focused on our own suffering. Finally, we talked about a vision for transformation of the criminal justice system, and what it might mean to work for the creation of an enlightened society. Here\u2019s my conversation with the very truth-telling and inspiring Fleet Maull:<\/p>\n

Now, you are a very unusual person and have lived such an unusual life. It\u2019s true. That you\u2019ve spent approximately 15 years on the inside of the prison system as an inmate-dharma practitioner, if you will, and now you\u2019ve spent something like 15 years on the outside\u2014but bringing dharma and meditation into prisons. To begin our conversation, I\u2019d love it if you could help dispel what I think are misconceptions\u2014and I imagine there are many\u2014that people might have about meditating in prison, and what that\u2019s actually like.<\/p>\n

Fleet Maull:<\/strong> OK, I\u2019ll do my best. It was actually 14 years that I spent inside, then some time under supervision when I got out. Interestingly enough, I also spent 10 years as a practitioner before I went to prison, which begs the question of why I ended up in prison. Suffice it to say, I was kind of thickheaded and one of those folks back in the \u201860s and \u201870s that got very into the whole counterculture movement and everything that was involved in it.<\/p>\n

Prisons are extremely chaotic and noisy places, for the most part. So, they\u2019re not what most people would think of as the ideal setting for meditation or developing a meditation practice.<\/p>\n

You also had very little or any privacy. I spent the first seven months in an extremely chaotic, noisy county jail. Then, when I did arrive in federal prison, where I did my time, I spent about the first two and a half years living in a number of large dormitories. The first one\u2014I think\u2014had 28 men living in it, and then I went down to a 20-man and a 14 and an 8 or something like that. I eventually worked my way into one of the few single cells on the living unit where I lived, and managed to hang on to that by staying out of trouble (for the most part) for the rest of my time.<\/p>\n

And that was a real gift\u2014having that single cell\u2014because it really allowed me to focus even more on my dharma practice, my study, and gave me that space. It was still extremely chaotic just on the other side of my door. In fact, in the evenings\u2014from when you come back from dinner all the way through to lights-out at around 10:30, and then sometimes beyond depending on whether the guard enforces lights-out\u2014it\u2019s just chaotic in the halls. Just groups yelling and screaming and shucking and jiving, and all kinds of craziness going on.<\/p>\n

But, that was always just right outside the door. Still, it was a real gift having that single cell.<\/p>\n

So, it\u2019s a challenging place to practice meditation. Actually, during the early years, when I lived in those big dorms, I would either try to stay on the top bunk. Most people\u2014you know, seniority-wise\u2014you start off on the top bunk and then you move to a bottom bunk, and then you move to a smaller room and so forth. I preferred the top bunk because, first of all, I had head clearance to be able to sit and meditate on the top bunk, where you didn\u2019t on the bottom bunk. Secondly, I could sit up there at night and nobody paid that much attention to me.<\/p>\n

But, later, I also began clearing out the trash closets that they at the entryway to these big dorms. I\u2019d take a folding chair and go in there. I\u2019d put some of the brooms and stuff outside of the closet so people could get at it. I\u2019d go in there and sit and practice, sometimes for hours at a time on weekends. I had a little window in the door so people could look in. In fact, they\u2019d open the door to go in there and get something, and they\u2019d see me and be kind of startled.<\/p>\n

In the summer months, it was just like a sauna. I would just sit in there and pour sweat. But, it did give me the opportunity to do my practice.<\/p>\n

Getting locked up was a huge wake-up call for me, obviously\u2014and the kind of split life I\u2019d been leading of being a dharma practitioner on the one hand and this kind of crazy, cocaine outlaw on the other hand. That all came to an abrupt halt and I really focused on transforming my life. So, I was hell-bent on practicing any way I could, any time I could in prison.<\/p>\n

But, sometimes people reference prisons as monasteries. There are some similarities in that you get three hots and a cot, right? You\u2019re provided with meals and a bed. Everybody wears more or less the same clothes, and you don\u2019t have a lot of responsibilities in the outside world.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s about where the parallel ends because monasteries are designed as environments to be contemplative and to support mindfulness and wakefulness\u2014whether they may be Catholic or Buddhist or other types of monasteries\u2014or Hindu ashrams. But, they\u2019re set up to support the practice and prisons are not that way at all. In fact, generally it\u2019s a mixture of chaos and people just wanting to numb out and kind of go to sleep, and sleep their time away.<\/p>\n

So, people do get these ideas. But, having said that, for me\u2014because the great gift was that I came in with a strong practice and a strong practice background, and with the wake-up of coming to prison\u2014and the devastation of what I had done to my son, who was nine years old when I got locked up\u2014my dedication to practice allowed me to really make that environment my monastery, even though it wasn\u2019t what one would normally think of as such.<\/p>\n

TS:<\/strong> That\u2019s interesting. So, you hear that phrase\u2014\u201cTurning a prison into a monastery\u201d\u2014[and] you don\u2019t feel like, \u201cOh my God. Could you please not say that kind of thing? It\u2019s so fantastical and unlike the violence and chaos that\u2019s in a prison. Please don\u2019t say that.\u201d It sounds like you actually found a way to turn\u2014as you said\u2014your prison experience into a practice environment\u2014monastic environment, if you will.<\/p>\n

FM:<\/strong> Yes, I did. And I actually took monastic vows for the time that I was in prison.<\/p>\n

You know, I\u2019m kind of ambivalent about it because I\u2019ve also\u2014I was interviewed for quite a number of articles and some radio interviews while I was in prison. Sometimes interviewers would say, \u201cWell, prison seems to have really worked for you. It really has brought about transformation and you\u2019re doing a lot of really great things with your life.\u201d I would say, \u201cYes,\u201d but I\u2019d always have to also reflect that, for the vast majority of people who go to prison, it\u2019s actually very damaging and they come out worse than they went in.<\/p>\n

So, in general, prisons are\u2014in my view\u2014mostly pretty damaging and inhumane environments. But, with the strength of practice, I was able to do that.<\/p>\n

Now, I\u2019m not the only one. I certainly am one of the progenitors of this kind of work\u2014[along with] Bo and Sita Lozoff. We unfortunately lost Bo Lozoff to a motorcycle accident a couple years back, but his wife Sita continues the work. But, they founded the Prison Ashram Project and the Human Kindness Foundation many, many years ago. They had been in touch with many, many long-term prisoners. And of course, through our work, we\u2019ve been in touch with many lifers and long-term prisoners who have, in some really tough places, become really serious practitioners and found their own way to make that very hellish place their monastery, in a sense\u2014their practice place.<\/p>\n

But, it certainly doesn\u2019t lend itself to that. So, I suppose you could say that if you\u2019re able to do that, it\u2019s a very powerful field of practice because of everything you\u2019re confronted with.<\/p>\n

In the outside world, we have a little more control of our environments\u2014a lot of us\u2014at least those who have that privilege. So, it\u2019s often a little easier to not be so wakeful and not be so mindful because we can kind of move around in our world with a lot of familiarity and sense of control. Whereas in that environment\u2014in the environment in prison\u2014the environment is in your face constantly. You\u2019re just immediately aware\u2014especially if you have any background in practice\u2014you\u2019re immediately aware of your state of mind at all times because it\u2019s just in that confrontation with the environment.<\/p>\n

So, in that sense, it\u2019s a very powerful place to practice. If you have a practice, it\u2019s probably a very challenging place for people to begin a practice.<\/p>\n

TS:<\/strong> I\u2019m curious: you talked about the noise of the environment. What did you learn from meditating in a super-noisy situation?<\/p>\n

FM:<\/strong> Well, I think it\u2019s just another aspect of working with our minds. Interestingly, at some point during prison I remember reading a book by the Korean Zen teacher Seung Sahn, who\u2019s famous for the expression, \u201cOnly don\u2019t. Only don\u2019t know mind. Only don\u2019t know.\u201d This book had correspondence from students in it, and I think it was a prisoner who was writing to him and talking about the noise and the chaos. He spoke about it as being a very advantageous opportunity for practice.<\/p>\n

But, in my experience, that was the case because when we\u2019re practicing various forms of mindfulness-awareness meditation\u2014Shamatha-Vipassana meditation\u2014we learn to work with all of the sense perceptions. We may start really grounding our practice in the sensate field of the body and the breath, but we also work with visual perceptions and auditory and olfactory and gustatory perceptions. Sound is one that\u2019s really immediately available.<\/p>\n

Sound also can be very advantageous for practice because it\u2019s not so solid. We can all get in working with our thoughts and, once we have a little practice under our belts, to see the ephemeral nature of thoughts and that they kind of come and go. They come and go, and they come out of nowhere. They disappear to nowhere and they\u2019re very ephemeral. It\u2019s easier to see that kind of emptiness or non-solidity within our thoughts.<\/p>\n

Now, if you\u2019re mediating on physical contact or a wooden table in front of you, it might be a little harder to get that sense. But sound, kind of like thought, comes and goes and is more ephemeral in nature. So, it\u2019s actually a very interesting thing to practice with\u2014perhaps from a Mahamudra perspective, for example\u2014of doing those kind of investigations into the nature of mind.<\/p>\n

TS:<\/strong> But Fleet, I\u2019m also curious\u2014I guess\u2014how you would deal with the pure agitation and irritation. I know, for me, if I just have a neighbor who\u2019s using their lawnmower or something like that, it\u2019s like, \u201cOh, I don\u2019t want to meditate while there\u2019s someone mowing their lawn next door.\u201d Just how irritated I would be. That\u2019s what I\u2019m imagining.<\/p>\n

FM:<\/strong> Again, that\u2019s what I was thinking\u2014how that environment in prison is so much in your face all the time. I really could really tell the quality of my practice all the time\u2014especially once I had that single cell.<\/p>\n

I would come out into the hallway\u2014because you almost always would step out into a certain level of chaos, especially in the evenings. When my practice was kind of good\u2014or at least felt good and I was in that kind of mode\u2014I could step out into that environment, and see and hear the chaos\u2014feel the chaos\u2014and just kind of go, \u201cAh, interesting.\u201d When I wasn\u2019t quite in that mode, I\u2019d step out there [and] what immediately was in my face was irritation or resistance.<\/p>\n

So, when sound would come up and the chaos in the environment would come up, paying attention to how I was reacting to it\u2014whether it did bring up resistance or irritation or pain or aversion\u2014that was something to really see about my state of mind. And then noticing when the aversion didn\u2019t arise, and there was just a sort of curiosity about the energy of the chaos and the noise in the environment.<\/p>\n

So, that was kind of a real sort of marker of practice in a certain way. It was just interesting to experience those differences. Not that at any one point in time, it\u2019s about making judgments about the practice. But, just seeing those differences really helped me tune into really working with my state of mind as a practice\u2014like having my very state of mind be an object of the mindfulness and awareness practice.<\/p>\n

TS:<\/strong> Now, you also mentioned, Fleet, that when you were incarcerated originally, that you had a son who was nine years old at the time. There you were, leaving your son [and] not being able to be there as a father. I\u2019m curious how you worked with the regret and self-recrimination and blame\u2014how you worked with that as part of your dharma practice.<\/p>\n

FM:<\/strong> Well, it was one of the great challenges. I went in the beginning\u2014especially during the seven months I spent in a county jail during my trial and sentencing, and then awaiting transfer to a federal prison\u2014that was a real dark night of the soul experience for me.<\/p>\n

Once I got to the federal prison and became really engaged in that world, at that point\u2014just because I became very engaged in teaching and serving and helping to create the first hospice program in a prison anywhere, and teaching meditation\u2014getting very engaged in that community\u2014that it wasn\u2019t that same kind of dark night of the soul experience. But, the underlying devastation or regret just fueled my practice.<\/p>\n

You know that expression, \u201cPracticing like one\u2019s hair is on fire?\u201d Well, it really was the way I felt. I had this real urgency to practice, and I became really dedicated to eradicating any of the negativity out of my life. I wanted to leave my son a better legacy than just \u201chis dad went to prison.\u201d<\/p>\n

I had no surety at all that I would survive prison. I went in with a 30-year, no-parole sentence and it took me a few years to figure out the \u201cgood time\u201d and all that, and figure out that I would actually end up doing 14-and-a-half on that if I stayed out of trouble\u2014which still felt like forever at that time.<\/p>\n

But, I was determined to leave a better legacy for my son than just, \u201cYour dad went to prison,\u201d or even died in prison.<\/p>\n

I was in touch with my son. I stayed in touch with him. He and his mom [were] from Peru, and so they moved back to Peru. I stayed in touch with them by correspondence and a little bit by phone when I could afford to every now and then. But, my family very kindly brought my son up every other year from South America and he spent\u2014during his school vacation down there, which was the wintertime here\u2014he came up and spent a month or two months living with my family. They would bring him down on weekends to see me.<\/p>\n

Another time, close friends in the Shambhala Buddhist Community\u2014which is my primary sangha<\/em> and community\u2014also paid to bring Robert up one time to visit with me. They also paid for him to go up to a youth program called Sun Camp up in Nova Scotia when he was there that time.<\/p>\n

So, I was able to stay in touch with him. But, the devastation and regret I felt about my son, about letting my teacher down, about letting my family down\u2014and then, as I spent time in recovery and really saw the harmful nature and the impact of what I\u2019d been involved in in terms of trafficking in drugs, that deep regret about the harm I\u2019d caused through those activities\u2014all of that just became fuel to really just dedicate my life to practice and service while I was in there.<\/p>\n

TS:<\/strong> Now, Fleet, I\u2019m wondering if somebody\u2019s listening and they have a level of regret in their life, but it hasn\u2019t turned into fuel. It\u2019s just something that stews around in their inner experience. They just sort of circle around in it. What might you be able to suggest to help that person find fuel from the experience instead of just more self-terrible talk?<\/p>\n

FM:<\/strong> Yes. Well, I think there\u2019s two things. One: my practice\u2014I\u2019m very fortunate to have been a close student of Ch\u00f6gyam Trungpa Rinpoche back in the 1970s and early \u201880s. My practice has always been really grounded in this idea of basic goodness\u2014or in more Buddhist language, perhaps buddha nature\u2014and really having a sense of my own inherent goodness.<\/p>\n

So, even though I was devastated about what I had done and recognizing the incredible selfishness of the decisions I\u2019d been making for so long and the negative impact it had had on my son and others\u2014and the deep regret I felt [around] that\u2014that didn\u2019t really obscure for me my faith in my own innate goodness and the goodness of others. It also gave me the strength and resilience to really embrace that regret.<\/p>\n

I remember listening to a videotape\u2014I think with Jack Kornfield\u2014while I was in prison. He referenced\u2014I think this is the right reference. But, he referenced a placard or a sign that\u2019s on the wall of a Christian monastery somewhere in England, in the United Kingdom. He\u2019d either been there or heard about it. I can\u2019t remember the story. But, the big placard said, \u201cThe only way out is through.\u201d I think that\u2019s become a common expression\u2014and very much my experience.<\/p>\n

For me, the most painful thing about being incarcerated is being separated from your loved ones. I think most prisoners would say the same.<\/p>\n

Prisons vary in terms of how hellish an environment they are. There are no \u201cnice prisons.\u201d People talk about country club prisons, or some of the minimum security prisons. They may be better on some level, but most of them are so overcrowded that they\u2019re pretty hellish anyway. And then some prisons are just off-the-charts, complete hell realms.<\/p>\n

So, there\u2019s a lot of cause for suffering in the environment of a prison. But still, I think for most people the most painful thing is being separated from your loved ones. That pain for me\u2014especially in terms of my son\u2014would come up at times that would just [be] almost like blinding me on the spot. It was just like this flash of white heat\u2014just excruciating agony and pain. It felt like I was going to die. [I] couldn\u2019t withstand [it].<\/p>\n

I remember this hitting me in my cell and feeling like I just wanted to smash my head on the concrete wall. Somehow, because of my practice\u2014and I was practicing a lot. I didn\u2019t try to do this. It just happened. But, there was that agonizing pain that was just felt like it was going to burn my brain away. Then, just very naturally, a kind of awareness formed around that and expanded. That pain and agony dissolved in the midst of that larger awareness. Then there I was on the other side of it, feeling bliss\u2014which was a very disturbing experience the first time it happened.<\/p>\n

It was like one minute I\u2019m in this devastation and agony about my son and not being there for him and being separated. In the next moment, I\u2019m in this blissful state of heightened awareness. That was very disturbing.<\/p>\n

But, over time, I kind of came to recognize what it was, realizing that by embracing the pain, embracing the regret, embracing the devastation that on the other side of that is some kind of release\u2014some kind of freedom. It doesn\u2019t invalidate the feelings or invalidate the context of the feelings. But, somehow it moves us beyond that personal identification with it and can really be a springboard into\u2014I think\u2014great compassion because we tap into a more universal level of it.<\/p>\n

I think that was a combination that I was practicing several hours every day and many more hours on weekends, and doing retreats whenever I could. I was also very engaged in hospice care on a daily basis, taking care of men who were dying and finding ways to give back\u2014and holding the intention around my son. That worked.<\/p>\n

So, it was a combination of those things that allowed me to embrace the pain, embrace the regret, and have it actually be a springboard to deeper awareness and deeper compassion.<\/p>\n

So, I don\u2019t know if that makes any sense for someone who\u2019s just working with regret in their life. But, I think the basic idea is we have to work with it. There\u2019s no escape from it. You can\u2019t jump around it or go over it. We do have to find some way to embrace it and be willing to feel it and own it\u2014and go through it.<\/p>\n

I think that\u2019s the spiritual journey, with our whole human experience [and] our willingness to really feel every inch of our humanity\u2014the light and the dark\u2014and be willing to go through it, really own it, and move through it and embrace it. I think that\u2019s where our evolutionary possibilities lie.<\/p>\n

TS:<\/strong> Now, you mentioned this teaching about basic goodness that you learned from Ch\u00f6gyam Trungpa Rinpoche. I want to go into that a little bit more, because it seems like if any situation might make one question the basic goodness of others\u2014you talked about it in terms of relationship to yourself, but let\u2019s just talk about other people being basically good\u2014it would be being in a prison and seeing [potentially] really messed up people with tremendous cruelty and behavior that might seem very hard to accept. \u201cReally? This person has basic goodness?\u201d<\/p>\n

So, talk to me about that a little bit.<\/p>\n

FM:<\/strong> Well, it\u2019s interesting you bring that up because I had a bit of a project going for a while in prison. It was kind of a participatory, phenomenological research project, I guess. And this question came up for me. I\u2019m originally from Missouri, the Show-Me State, so I\u2019m kind of skeptical by nature and had a good, skeptical, rationalist, modern, Western education and so forth. So, even though I\u2019ve always had a sense of that sense of basic goodness\u2014I think even before ever being introduced to those teachings\u2014and had a real sense of it and faith in it.<\/p>\n

But still, these questions came up exactly as you\u2019re saying. There were a lot of candidates in that environment\u2014both among my fellow prisoners and among some of the prison staff and the guards\u2014who would make you wonder. Right? So, I actually was kind of following some of these characters and looking for that person that actually doesn\u2019t have basic goodness\u2014to prove the theory or disprove the null hypothesis, or something.<\/p>\n

So, interestingly enough, every time\u2014this went on for quite some years until I finally gave it up\u2014but every time I kind of thought I had my man\u2014this was mostly male prisoners and mostly male guards. Some female guards. But, every time I thought I\u2019d found that person\u2014that this person clearly does not have basic goodness or has no redeemable qualities at all\u2014the minute I thought I had found that person, they would inevitably reveal their heart in some way\u2014reveal their humanity to me, reveal their basic goodness, and so on.<\/p>\n

It was uncanny how it would happen. Some of the toughest guards that just seemed like they probably chewed nails for breakfast, and came in and [I] got nothing but hate and venom from them. I would be [watching], and then\u2014boom. That person would reveal their humanity and their basic goodness to me.<\/p>\n

It was uncanny. I finally retired the project after a number of years.<\/p>\n

TS:<\/strong> How does that perspective about the basic goodness in yourself and all other people\u2014how does that inform the way you go about your life and work?<\/p>\n

FM:<\/strong> Well, very importantly, because working with a lot of the work I do and all the wonderful people in the world that we support and train to our organization to do this kind of work\u2014[they] work with a lot of people who are suffering, work with a lot of people with a lot of trauma in their backgrounds, work with a lot of people who are in some kind of dysfunctional kind of situation in their present situation. It could be very easy to get into a mode of wanting to fix them or seeing their brokenness, or having some kind of rescuer mentality\u2014which is the antithesis of how we train people to work and how I work with people.<\/p>\n

I always work from a perspective of seeing someone\u2019s wholeness; seeing their basic healthiness, their intrinsic sanity, their own wisdom. And really, what we\u2019re doing in the work is holding space for another person to find their own feet so they can do their own healing work. Really, I think it\u2019s really important that we\u2014even though people can be in a very un-resourced state and need help. We can all find ourselves in that place.<\/p>\n

But, to really work from a perspective of seeing their own strengths and their intrinsic goodness and wholeness and integrity. That\u2019s what we\u2019re mirroring back to them and that\u2019s [how] we\u2019re supporting them in discovering themselves. [It\u2019s] a very different way of working with people than when we kind of focus on people being broken and we\u2019re going to come in and somehow fix them or put them back together. So, I think it\u2019s really important.<\/p>\n

Actually, we\u2019ve been working with prisoners and training people who work with prisoners for over 26 years. In the last five or six years, we\u2019ve had the opportunity to start working with correctional officers and other corrections professionals, training them in mindfulness-based programs of various kinds. We\u2019re especially focusing now on a program that we call \u201cMindfulness-Based Wellness and Resiliency,\u201d because correctional officers are at extreme risk for depression, anxiety, and suicide, or early death and severe illness from all the chronic stress-related illnesses. Officers who have worked in a secure institution for more than 20 years have a life expectancy as low as 58 years, if you can imagine that. And many of them retire and die.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a lot of suicides. It\u2019s almost a kind of pandemic of suicides in corrections\u2014much worse than law enforcement, and as bad or worse than among combat veterans.<\/p>\n

So, we\u2019re bringing this kind of program now to correctional officers and also to law enforcement and first responders. The first major contract we got was\u2014actually, we did some work here in Rhode Island with corrections professionals here. Then we got a contract in Oregon to do work there. We\u2019re still working there very proactively.<\/p>\n

We were told that the reason why we got the contract instead of a different provider was that they really liked our approach grounded in intrinsic healthiness. They felt the other organization, although they did good work, was coming in kind of with a pathological perspective\u2014kind of saying, \u201cYour staff are really all suffering from PTSD and they\u2019re all traumatized. We\u2019re going to bring this program in to kind of fix them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead, we were coming from the perspective of recognizing their intrinsic healthiness and giving them a skill-based training to help them build on that, and to build on their resilience\u2014more of an assets-building approach. So, I think this perspective of basic goodness or intrinsic healthiness is incredibly important to the work we do.<\/p>\n

TS:<\/strong> Now, Fleet, if it\u2019s OK, I\u2019m going to push this just a little bit further\u2014because I\u2019m imagining someone listening who\u2014I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s a Show-Me State kind of thing or what it is\u2014but who\u2019s like, \u201cCome on. There are these people who are sociopaths\u2014these people who have hurt children. Really? We\u2019re going to focus on their intrinsic health? Aw, come on.\u201d<\/p>\n

FM:<\/strong> Yes. It\u2019s a great question. Of course, that\u2019s what people often bring up\u2014\u201cWhat about the sociopaths?\u201d Of course, that\u2019s a pretty broad category and you\u2019d have to be clear about defining that. But, people do really heinous and harmful things.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, a colleague of mine has done work in San Quentin for many years. He leads these wonderful, long-term programs with lifers and people doing really long-term incarceration. In one of the groups, one of the prisoners made the comment that, \u201cHurt people hurt people.\u201d<\/p>\n

We know that people who get involved in harmful, violent, destructive behavior have themselves been hurt. I mean, it\u2019s just inevitable. We just know that. People who become abusers have been abused themselves. That\u2019s just without question.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, not all people who have experienced some kind of abuse in their childhood become abusers. But, all people who are involved in some kind of chronic abuse and violence\u2014inevitably you will find that damage and that abuse of some kind\u2014psychological, emotional, sexual, physical\u2014in their childhood.<\/p>\n

So, that\u2019s the first point. Second is, it appears\u2014what we know from research, and we know more and more about the brain all the time\u2014that with some types of individuals where there\u2019s some range of what would be called \u201csociopathic,\u201d that the empathy circuitry is simply not functioning. It\u2019s not hooked up. People are able to harm others because they don\u2019t really [inaudible<\/em>] the other. They\u2019re objectifying. They don\u2019t really see or recognize the personhood of the other. Of course, that makes people very dangerous\u2014especially when they\u2019re hurt and they\u2019re full of fear and anger and resentment and pain.<\/p>\n

So, I think we don\u2019t know yet whether we will learn how to help people reconnect the empathy circuitry in their brain in a kind of a programmatic way. But we know these certain types of people that suffer from this particular kind of sociopathic condition\u2014that we\u2019ll be able to do these things and it will reach those results.<\/p>\n

At the same time, though, we have countless stories of people that have committed what most people would consider very heinous crimes who have turned their lives around and who are leading exemplary lives. Certainly people who have murdered. Actually, one of the lowest recidivism rates of any type of crime is that of murder. Many murders, of course, are crimes of passion. That\u2019s very different from if you have a situation where you have someone who\u2019s chronically violent, or a serial murderer or killer, or something like that. It\u2019s very different.<\/p>\n

But, there are many people who have committed murder who have turned their lives around to become exemplary human beings. There are people who have committed rape and turned their lives around [to] become exemplary human beings. There are people who have committed sexual offenses against children and have turned their lives around.<\/p>\n

So, we don\u2019t yet know that we can have confidence that we can do this in a programmatic way. But, having said all that, the true sociopath is an extremely small number of people who are in prison. We\u2019re talking about a very small percent of the people who are in prison today [who] fall into that category. So, the vast majority of prisoners are actually nonviolent offenders. But, even among those who have committed violence, it\u2019s a very small percentage who would be described clinically as sociopathic.<\/p>\n

Whether the empathy circuitry\u2014just the last thing I\u2019ll say. For me\u2014and I\u2019ve been around such people. I did time with such people. I\u2019ve met such people on the inside. I\u2019ve met such people on the outside.<\/p>\n

For me, my intuitive sense is that even though their brain may be dysfunctional in a certain way\u2014there may be damage there; their empathy circuitry may not be hooked up; they may be sociopathic and dangerous\u2014but I can still see the humanity. I\u2019ve spent time in Rwanda with genocideers. I\u2019ve been to prisons and prison farms [on a number of occasions], and sat knee to knee with men and women who have committed horrific genocide crimes.<\/p>\n

Initially\u2014I remember being in one prison farm and sitting in a circle with about a dozen men who had all committed just horrific crimes. Initially, I got this flash that I was actually seeing some kind of evil. It was the first time I had even really had that thought. But, as I sat longer with those men, I realized that\u2019s not what I was seeing. What I was seeing in their eyes was deep, deep fear. And I could see the humanity behind the fear.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s my personal experience, but that\u2019s what I rely on.<\/p>\n

TS:<\/strong> Now, Fleet, you mentioned that relatively early on in your prison experience, you said that you became engaged in a certain way\u2014that you started a hospice project and other projects inside prison. I notice part of me thinks, \u201cReally? There\u2019s a way to be an innovator and launch projects in the midst of being in prison?\u201d How does that work?<\/p>\n

FM:<\/strong> Well, I\u2019m not the only prisoner that\u2019s done such things. But, it is a little bit unusual.<\/p>\n

In that environment, if you walk up to any staff person and say, \u201cYou know, we\u2019d like to try this,\u201d or, \u201cMaybe we could try this,\u201d or, \u201cCould we start that program?\u201d or, \u201cCould we do this?\u201d the first answer\u2019s always, \u201cNo.\u201d And if you say, \u201cWhy?\u201d they may want to lock you up just for questioning them.<\/p>\n

But, if they are going to give you an answer, they\u2019ll rattle off a story of, \u201cWell, we used do something like that, but boom boom boom\u2014this happened and we don\u2019t it anymore because it got abused,\u201d or whatever. So, that\u2019s the kind of environment you\u2019re in.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re also in an environment where\u2014it is what sociologists call a \u201ctotal institution,\u201d which means it\u2019s a totalitarian environment. It\u2019s, \u201cResistance is futile.\u201d<\/p>\n

The place where I was, which was a maximum-security federal prison hospital, I was one of the general-population inmates there that are just there to help run the place\u2014to work in food service or hospital orderlies or the carpentry shop. Because I had an education, I taught school. That was my day job for 14 years. Nine to five, I taught school\u2014helping other prisoners get their GED, learn to read, so forth\u2014or learn English.<\/p>\n

But at any rate, there were about 1300 prisoners\u2014about 600 medical, about 400 psychiatric, and about 300 of the general population inmates. If you tried to buck the system, you would literally be in the psychiatric wing somewhere in four-point restraints on a concrete bench, full of thorazine, getting hosed down at night. I mean, literally. You cannot buck the system in there.<\/p>\n

Prisoners do. They get thrown in the hole again and again until they get any access to a law book. They\u2019ll try to file grievances and file lawsuits. Then, depending on the system, they might start shipping them from system to system, or between county jail and county jail, into other prisons and other prisons so they don\u2019t have access to the law books.<\/p>\n

But, it\u2019s pretty tough to buck the system. If you buck the system, you\u2019re really going to pay for it.<\/p>\n

So, there I was. I realized this was going to be a huge chunk of my life and I wanted to do something with it. I had the inspiration of my spiritual teacher, Ch\u00f6gyam Trungpa Rinpoche, there right on my shoulder all the time\u2014this man who, for me, had just dedicated his life 24\/7 to waking others up and serving humanity.<\/p>\n

And so, I was in this world of tremendous suffering. That was actually\u2014when I first arrived at that federal prison, as you can imagine I was pretty caught up in the drama of my own situation. I had just received a 30-year, no-parole sentence. I thought I would be 65 years old when I got out. I was just caught in the drama of my own circumstances.<\/p>\n

Within a couple days of being in this federal prison and seeing around me men in prison who were blind and being guided around by somebody; who were paraplegic or quadriplegic, being wheeled around in a wheelchair by someone; or who were emaciated from cancer or AIDS; and seeing men from the psychiatric wing doing the thorazine two-step down the hall and talking\u2014I was just surrounded by all this suffering. It really woke me up and snapped me out of that preoccupation with my own situation. [It] really inspired me to figure out some way to show up and serve in this place.<\/p>\n

So, I became very dedicated to doing that. I was trying to figure out how, in an environment where you have absolutely no power at all and the answer to everything is, \u201cNo,\u201d how do you get anything done? I really relied on my Buddhist training and my training from Trungpa Rinpoche. He always placed a great emphasis on skillful means.<\/p>\n

So, it wasn\u2019t so much getting caught in what\u2019s right or wrong, or justice and injustice. Not that we aren\u2019t concerned about right and wrong and justice and injustice, but more focusing on what works and what doesn\u2019t work\u2014what\u2019s beneficial and what\u2019s not beneficial.<\/p>\n

So, I was always saying, \u201cOK, how do I work with this situation?\u201d I came to see the human beings\u2014even the most challenging human beings\u2014among my fellow prisoners and the prison staff. We all have these buttons on us\u2014kind of like a vending machine. That\u2019s probably not a great analogy. But, you push this button [and] you get one thing. You push another button and you get another thing. I found that everybody\u2019s got a \u201chuman being\u201d button somewhere.<\/p>\n

If you go up to staff and push their authority button, that\u2019s what you\u2019re going to get. But, if you\u2019re considerate and professional and patient and you work with people, I found that you could get things done.<\/p>\n

In taking that approach, rather than a combative or adversarial approach, I managed to start\u2014with another inmate and the help of a staff psychologist and a staff chaplain\u2014we started the first hospice program in a prison anywhere. Then I started a national organization and got that model out into the world\u2014all while I was in prison. There\u2019s now 70 or 80 hospices in state and federal prisons around the country. [I] started a Prison Dharma Network\u2014what\u2019s now called Prison Mindfulness Institute\u2014from my prison cell.<\/p>\n

[They] would have given me permission to do [none of those things]. I just did it and kept working with people and working with people, finding a way to engage them with kindness and courtesy. Over time, it worked. It\u2019s very unusual, but I\u2019m very grateful to my training that allowed me to get that done\u2014and very grateful to all the staff that did cooperate with me in allowing those things to happen.<\/p>\n

TS:<\/strong> You know, Fleet, when I was reading a book that\u2019s a collection of your writings\u2014this book called Dharma in Hell<\/em>\u2014the last chapter is on service and how, really, your own engagement in service was a huge part of your own transformative process while you were in prison. I thought of how often people have this idea that, \u201cConditions need to be different before I start to serve. I need to have accomplished this or that. Before I volunteer, I need to have made a certain amount of money. I don\u2019t really have the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

I just thought, \u201cHere was Fleet in prison, dedicating himself to being of service.\u201d So, I wonder if you could talk a little about how that provided a path of transformation for you.<\/p>\n

FM:<\/strong> Yes. It was a huge part of my path. I\u2019m very grateful that I was inspired in that direction by my teacher\u2014not so much that he was telling me, \u201cThis is what you need to do in prison,\u201d but just by the example of his life.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, I started a meditation group not long after arriving in prison. That was kind of an interesting story in of itself, because I went to the chapel and there were two or three staff chaplains. The one I spoke to that day was a woman. She was a Methodist minister, I think. I said, \u201cI\u2019m a Buddhist and a meditator, and I\u2019m trained as a teacher. I wonder if we have any kind of meditation or yoga group\u2014anything like that\u2014in the prison. If not, I would like to try to get something started.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said, \u201cWell, we don\u2019t have anything like that. Prisoners aren\u2019t starting anything around here. It has to be started by an outside group, and we\u2019ve got a long list of organizations that want to start programs here, so forget about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, I had noticed that the actual chapel space outside her office was empty. I said, \u201cWell, would you mind if I just go in there and sit and meditate in silence?\u201d I could tell she was looking for a reason to say no, but she couldn\u2019t come up with one. So, I did and I just started coming down at times when I knew it was empty, and started sitting. [I] got some other guys to come sit with me. Over time, they came to accept us and we became a regular prison group.<\/p>\n

But at any rate, in the early days, I would put some posters up around the institution. I worked for the education department, so I had the ability to go around and put up posters for education programs. Guys would meet me and get interested. But, guys periodically would come to the group in the chapel for our meditation group\u2014we met on Saturdays and Wednesdays; Wednesday evenings and Saturday mornings. To begin with, I noticed that guys would come and they might seem interested, but if it was a nice day they would rather be outside playing softball or something\u2014sports.<\/p>\n

So, I remember thinking, \u201cWell, my fellow prisoners\u2014they seem to be kind of a not very motivated bunch.\u201d Of course, fortunately I recognized that as not very helpful, judgmental thinking. I said, \u201cWell, maybe the way I\u2019m presenting this is not enough or not helpful.\u201d So, I was always thinking about that.<\/p>\n

What happened next was there was a woman that I connected with who was able to come into the prison and share some dharma teaching with us. Her name was Mary Jo Meadow, [who] is a student of Joseph Goldstein. But, she was also involved in contemplative Christianity. She was like a Third Order Franciscan, I think. She was very involved in bringing Vipassana\u2014like the insight meditation\u2014to Twelve Step groups. She had this whole approach to integrating the Twelve Step recovery model with Vipassana meditation.<\/p>\n

So, we got her in. I invited some of the men from the Twelve Step group I was very involved with to come. So, we got some of those involved. Now I had a group of men\u2014including myself\u2014to kind of do my research on who were doing both the Twelve Step work and the meditation. I started to see more change.<\/p>\n

Then, when we started the hospice program, I naturally recruited men from the meditation group and the Twelve Step group\u2014not exclusively, because we recruited men of all different faiths. But, I had some men then who were doing the meditation group, the Twelve Step work, and the hospice service. Some were doing some other kind of genuine spiritual work\u2014some really committed spiritual path other than the Buddhist path. But, they were involved in the Twelve Step work and the hospice service. I started to see really deep change.<\/p>\n

The hospice service\u2014it was kind of different than being a hospice volunteer on the outside. We were really like surrogate family members, because these men were terribly isolated. Many of them were sent there from the high-security penitentiaries. All the prisoners who came for medical care or psychiatric care at this federal prison came from the major US penitentiaries like Louisberg in Atlanta and Montauk and so forth.<\/p>\n

So\u2014sorry, I lost my train of thought there for a moment.<\/p>\n

But\u2014oh! They were very isolated because, for many of these men serving a long time, they weren\u2019t that connected to their families on the outside anymore. Their real close friends or family were their fellow prisoners back in some penitentiary. Or, if they still were connected to their family, most tended to be from the East Coast and the West Coast, and this was in the middle of the country. Many were African-American; many Latino. Many of their families couldn\u2019t afford to come visit them. Or, if they could, they could come once during their illness.<\/p>\n

So, we spent time with them every day\u2014hours with them every day\u2014up there on our meal breaks, our dinner breaks, evenings, weekends. So, we were doing every kind of care but medical care\u2014bathing them; psychosocial care; spiritual care; helping them with the practicalities like taking them out to the yard, taking them to the chapel, helping the write letters home and so forth.<\/p>\n

You really became closely identified with them. You realize that there but for the grace of whatever goes you. Many of them were younger and dying of AIDS, and you realized that could easily happen to you. Or they\u2019re dying of cancer. We actually had two hospice volunteers who were great volunteers who were healthy, and became sick while they were there. [They] ended up in the hospital and ended up as hospice patients. One of them was a very close friend of mine, and the other one ended up being my hospice patient.<\/p>\n

So, it really gave you a powerful sense of your own mortality. It was in your face all the time. At the same time, these men\u2014prisoners have pretty good radar with each other, and they\u2019d check you out. If they felt they could trust you, they pulled you in and made you like their brother, their son, their father\u2014whatever the age relationship was, and a very powerful relationship.<\/p>\n

One of the most powerful things I think about service altogether is the value of simply getting our attention off ourselves and onto somebody else, because most of our suffering is caused by [the fact] that we\u2019re too focused on our own needs. That\u2019s not to say that we\u2019re supposed to abandon our own needs. But, the conundrum of even spiritual work, I think\u2014because we\u2019re suffering, and to one degree or another; maybe we have some kind of hole in our gut from our pain or childhood pain\u2014we naturally think by focusing more on ourselves, we\u2019ll take care of ourselves. But, we actually make ourselves and everyone else more<\/em> miserable in that way.<\/p>\n

Most spiritual paths begin with a kind of self-focus. So, how do you do that without it becoming narcissistic and without it just increasing the pain and the self-identification?<\/p>\n

So, I think service is a real antidote to that. You actually spend some time where you\u2019re really focused on another\u2019s suffering, and it\u2019s not about you. It\u2019s about them. I think that is just incredibly powerful and transformative.<\/p>\n

TS:<\/strong> Now, Fleet, there are so many things that I\u2019d like to talk with you about. But, just a couple of more topics that I want to be sure to cover.<\/p>\n

One is that I know that you\u2019ve explored and investigated quite deeply what is needed right now in terms of transforming the prison system\u2014making it a system that actually works for our society instead of\u2014you\u2019ve pointed out even in this conversation many of the aspects of the prison system that don\u2019t help rehabilitate people. So, what would you say if you were going to give me your kind of pith manifesto about transforming the prison system? What\u2019s required?<\/p>\n

FM:<\/strong> Well, fortunately, we are at a time over the last couple of years where there is a mood of reform in the country. People on both sides of the political spectrum are realizing that the system is broken\u2014that it\u2019s both a policy failure and a moral failure\u2014and, really, an embarrassment that we\u2019re incarcerating 25 percent of the world\u2019s prisoners. And we\u2019re doing a lousy job of it.<\/p>\n

So, there is an opportunity for reform that\u2019s quite new. Even six or seven years ago, to us it felt like we were just lighting candles in the darkness, and the darkness was growing\u2014even though we knew we were doing really good work and helping a lot of people.<\/p>\n

So, in terms of what\u2019s needed: we\u2019re working on a number of fronts. One is to establish mindfulness\u2014the reason we changed the name of our organization from Prison Dharma Network to Prison Mindfulness Institute was [that] we still very much support chapel-based and faith-based, dharma-based programs throughout the prison system. We feel it\u2019s very important. But, we also wanted to get secular mindfulness-based interventions into the mainstream of corrections\u2014in rehabilitation programming, prerelease and or reentry programming, drug and alcohol treatment programming\u2014because unfortunately only a minority of prisoners will ever access chapel programming.<\/p>\n

So, we\u2019re working hard to establish mindfulness-based interventions like our Path program\u2014which is a mindfulness-based emotional intelligence curriculum\u2014and some other programs that colleagues of ours have started around the country\u2014similar programs. We\u2019re working very hard to do the research to establish those as evidence-based practice for the field of corrections.<\/p>\n

So, that\u2019s one avenue that we feel is very important because, up until now, the only thing that\u2019s really considered evidence-based for prison programming is cognitive behavioral treatment. Of course, there is a mindfulness-based cognitive behavioral model. So, our Path of Freedom program includes part of the cognitive behavioral model as well.<\/p>\n

So, we\u2019re working very hard to do that. That\u2019s very important\u2014so that we can mainstream these kinds of interventions into the field of corrections.<\/p>\n

We also feel it\u2019s not enough to just work with prisoners. So, fortunately, we\u2019ve been getting the opportunity over the last four or five years to work with corrections professionals as well. We\u2019re now offering what we call a mindfulness-based wellness and resiliency training. We\u2019re also doing some mindfulness-based motivational interviewing training. Motivational interviewing is considered one of the best practices in case management for probation, parole, and case managers.<\/p>\n

But, we\u2019re doing these kind of mindfulness-based trainings with more and more correctional staff. We\u2019re doing research around all those so we can demonstrate that these are also evidence-based approaches. Corrections professionals are just off-the-charts at risk for anxiety, depression, and suicide, all the chronic stress-related illnesses, and have a very low life expectancy if they\u2019ve been working at a secure facility for more than 20 years. So, we\u2019re addressing that need, which corrections is starting to awaken to.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re also beginning to look at the whole system front to back. We\u2019ve launched a project in collaboration with one entity at the Berkeley Law School two-and-a-half years ago. We\u2019re calling it The Mindful Justice Initiative. It\u2019s to work with the whole system front to back, and look at how we can bring reform to this whole criminal justice system\u2014including law enforcement, the courts, corrections, reentry, post-release programming, victim advocates: the whole spectrum of the criminal justice system. How can we get engaged in this wave of reform that\u2019s in the air now and bring the mindfulness perspective to this? And what can add to that so we can create a downsized, much more humane, more effective, more compassionate, more mindful criminal justice system?<\/p>\n

So, we had our first conference. The Boettcher Institute sponsored our first conference this past September. We had 24 very influential leaders from every part of the criminal justice system. We went out and did workshops in all the areas where there has not yet been mindfulness-based programming. There\u2019s been a lot of prisoner programming and continues to be. We\u2019ve been doing work with correctional officers.<\/p>\n

We went out and did workshops with community corrections professionals, with judges, with probation officers, with public defenders, with district attorneys, and had papers written around all this. All this built towards this meeting at the Boettcher Institute conference center last September. A whole new round of initiatives was coming out of that. So, we\u2019re working with others and collaborators to engage this national effort to come up with front-to-back solutions that have a mindfulness perspective.<\/p>\n

Finally, as the mainstream gets interested in mindfulness and mindfulness-based interventions, we all know the mindfulness movement\u2014what some call the secular or nonsectarian mindfulness movement\u2014has just taken off. Healthcare, education\u2014starting to move into corrections and law enforcement with our work and others. Many sectors of society.<\/p>\n

The question is: who\u2019s going to deliver this? Up until now, most of the mindfulness-based programming that\u2019s been in the mainstream has been brought into various sectors of the mainstream by dharma practitioners as volunteers. Jon Kabat-Zinn\u2019s organization\u2014the Center for Mindfulness at University of Massachusetts\u2014has led the way\u2014especially in healthcare\u2014in getting professionals engaged in mindfulness and becoming mindfulness teachers, and had some success there. But, it\u2019s mostly been the dharma people. But, that\u2019s a very small pool\u2014and a very small pool among those that have been trained as teachers or want to do this kind of work.<\/p>\n

So, clearly, for any of this to go to scale is the mainstream waking up and saying, \u201cWe want this.\u201d It\u2019s becoming a no-brainer, really, [for] preschool through to the last stage of our life, to include some kind of mindfulness and some kind of social-emotional learning. It\u2019s just becoming a no-brainer to give people the tools to manage their own physiology, to manage their own emotions, and to be more present, more aware.<\/p>\n

And how do we manage this complex thing called the human body and the human brain? We now have the simple tools for being much more in charge of our own situation. So, that\u2019s becoming a no-brainer. But, who\u2019s going to teach it?<\/p>\n

So, we went to Engaged Mindfulness Institute this past year as a division of Prison Mindfulness Institute. We call it the Engaged Mindfulness Institute as a kind of parallel to the engaged Buddhism movement, but also because it\u2019s not going to just be about prisons. We\u2019re training people\u2014professionals and paraprofessionals\u2014who are working with at-risk individuals and underserved or marginalized communities, in various realms of the criminal justice spectrum, other areas of social service\u2014working with people with a lot of trauma in their backgrounds, whether it\u2019s at-risk youth or abused women or people who are experiencing homelessness.<\/p>\n

So, we started this program to train them to become mindfulness facilitators and mindfulness teachers. So, we have 42 students in our first year now. If they complete this first year\u2014and it\u2019s a very daunting curriculum\u2014then they can go through a certification process and apply for certification. It\u2019ll be like a 200-hour certification as a mindfulness facilitator. And there\u2019s a second year that they can go on to immediately or several years later. It\u2019ll involve a lot more practice teaching and more training that could lead to a 500-hour certification as a mindfulness teacher.<\/p>\n

In this first year, we have teachers where\u2014even though it\u2019s a secular program\u2014we want to make sure they\u2019re getting a classical, foundational training in mindfulness. So, the first course has teachers like Jack Kornfield, Sharon Salzberg, John Halifax, Elizabeth Mattis-Namgyel, Pema Ch\u00f6dr\u00f6n. We have neuroscientists like Rick Hanson and Rich Fernandez and Kelly McGonigal. We have senior teachers from other training programs like Diana Winston, who leads the MARC program at UCLA; Saki Santorelli, who now heads up the Center for Mindfulness, Jon Kabat-Zinn\u2019s organization at UMass.<\/p>\n

So, we\u2019re really involving this really stellar group of online faculty, combining with that with live retreats to really train people up. We\u2019re just getting started with this, but it\u2019s a long-term project to produce a lot more people who are trained to deliver this kind of work. The requests that we\u2019re beginning to get\u2014to bring this kind of mindfulness-based work to correctional officers and law enforcement\u2014is really growing. I think the floodgates are going to break pretty soon, and it\u2019s really going to be a challenge to find people to meet the need.<\/p>\n

TS:<\/strong> Now, for listeners who are inspired to get involved and support the work that Fleet Maull\u2019s doing, if you\u2019re interested in this teacher training component, you can visit engagedmindfulness.org. If you\u2019re interested in the work that Fleet has been doing to bring mindfulness directly to prisoners, you can visit prisonmindfulness.org.<\/p>\n

Fleet, just two final questions for you. Here\u2019s the first one: On your website, it talk about how you have been inspired by Ch\u00f6gyam Trungpa Rinpoche\u2019s vision of creating an enlightened society. I know as I hear you talk about what a vision might be for a mindful criminal justice system, I think, \u201cOK. This is a lot of aspirational\u2014if you will\u2014vision.\u201d A mindful criminal justice system\u2014what it might actually be to work together to create an enlightened society.<\/p>\n

My question is: do you think this is something that actually can exist here on Planet Earth? Or is this something we just toil towards and keep working towards in an aspirational kind of way\u2014but it\u2019s always somewhat out of reach?<\/p>\n

FM:<\/strong> Well, I think yes to both. The idea of an enlightened society is not some kind of utopian society. It\u2019s more a society that\u2019s grounded in our recognition of the innate goodness of humanity and where we\u2019re continually inspired just to take care of business\u2014like doing the laundry. You never get the laundry done forever. We have to do the laundry every day. You got to do the dishes every day. You got to take care of your kids every day.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a society of people who are connected to some faith in their own goodness and the goodness of others, who feel good about humanity, and embrace a kind of fearlessness and a commitment to taking care of everybody\u2014to taking care of themselves, their children, their neighbors, and to take care of society. It\u2019s really bringing back in the humanity.<\/p>\n

If we don\u2019t feel good about ourselves as human beings, we\u2019re going to create fear-based institutions that are going to bring about a lot of collateral damage, basically. So, I think we really have to shift the conversation\u2014to have the audacity to begin talking about human goodness and the goodness of humanity, and to try to begin creating institutions grounded in that rather than always focusing on the lowest common denominator and creating all of these fear-based institutions that really lose their humanity so quickly.<\/p>\n

So, I think it is possible, but I agree: I think it\u2019s something we\u2019re always working towards. It\u2019s not something we\u2019re ever going to perfect. But, I think we can see major shifts. I actually have a lot of\u2014in particular for the criminal justice system. I\u2019m not na\u00efve about this at all. I\u2019m like the least na\u00efve person in this work. And yet, I really have a strong, positive sense of what\u2019s possible today.<\/p>\n

The one great thing about the economic collapse of 2008, which created so much damage to so many people and unfortunately led to no accountability for those who brought it about\u2014but it did put the brakes on what sociologists call \u201cthe prison-industrial complex.\u201d There just wasn\u2019t any more money. The states started running out of money. We\u2019ve been siphoning funds out of every part of society that would take care of people and keep people out of prison to warehouse human beings as an industry.<\/p>\n

So, I think they recognized\u2014at least for now\u2014the party\u2019s over in terms of the growth of that industry. There\u2019s a real possibility of downsizing the system and getting it to work better, focusing more on communities. I think we\u2019re waking up [and] a lot of it\u2019s very painful. What we\u2019ve seen with all the violence against African-American young people at the hands of the police\u2014this is very painful stuff to work with and recognize. We don\u2019t want to demonize the police either, but at the same time we\u2019re grappling with this stuff. I think it can lead to real, systemic, and cultural change that\u2019ll be very positive.<\/p>\n

I actually have a lot of hope for that today.<\/p>\n

TS:<\/strong> And one last question for you, Fleet. You mentioned that your 14-and-a-half years in prison \u201cwoke you up.\u201d I notice people use that term\u2014waking up; spiritual awakening\u2014they use it in different ways and mean different things. So, I\u2019d love to just know what that means to you\u2014waking up, spiritual awakening. What does that mean to you?<\/p>\n

FM:<\/strong> Well, I think it was twofold at least. It was probably multidimensional. But, on the one hand, I simply woke up to how I\u2019d been leading my life. Despite that I had been sincerely involved in a spiritual path, I\u2019d been compartmentalizing my life and still allowing myself to make incredibly selfish decisions\u2014and that a good part of my life was still guided by my inner demons and childhood stuff. I was not really leading a conscious life, and as a result I was causing a lot of harm\u2014even though at the same time I was doing good with parts of my life.<\/p>\n

So, I woke up to the harm I\u2019d been causing and experienced that deep regret. I think, in some ways, the real spiritual path or the path of human evolution\u2014we\u2019re always in it, but you could say it begins at that point where we at least have a profound desire to not cause any more harm\u2014at least not cause any more harm. So, I woke up to that, and that became a lever from tremendous change in my life.<\/p>\n

Secondly, to me waking up means just becoming conscious\u2014which means that we start to have an access to an awareness that is not [concentrated] in our more mechanical, conditioned nature. We can see that the operation of our kind of fear-based and highly conditioned nature\u2014which is part of our human survival instinct; you couldn\u2019t be without it. Some of that condition and programming we have is useful. A lot of it\u2019s not so helpful. But, it\u2019s not who we are. It\u2019s certainly not all of who we are.<\/p>\n

To the extent that we wake up to and become grounded in an awareness and a context that\u2019s outside of that more mechanical part of our nature\u2014that\u2019s outside of the limited view of the self\u2014to me, that changes everything. It changes our relationship to our everyday life\u2014our moment-to-moment life. It changes our relationship to our own challenges and suffering. It opens us to a much greater capacity to be with the suffering of others and to have compassion for others.<\/p>\n

So, I think that\u2019s what waking up [was for me.] Waking up to the damage of my unconscious behaviors, and then waking up to a context beyond the limited self, if you will\u2014from which to begin leading my life.<\/p>\n

TS:<\/strong> I\u2019ve been speaking with Fleet Maull. If you\u2019re interested in knowing more about his work and supporting it, you can check out the Prison Mindfulness Institute at prisonmindfulness.org and also a new division of the Prison Mindfulness Institute that\u2019s focused on transformational leadership training: engagedmindfulness.org.<\/p>\n

Fleet, thank you so much for all of your tremendous work\u2014and your great honesty and just forthrightness. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much.<\/p>\n

FM:<\/strong> Well, thank you for having me on, Tami. It\u2019s been a pleasure.<\/p>\n

TS:<\/strong> SoundsTrue.com. Many voices, one journey. Thanks for listening.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"template":"","meta":{"_expiration-date-status":"","_expiration-date":0,"_expiration-date-type":"","_expiration-date-categories":[],"_expiration-date-options":[]},"class_list":["post-7918","transcript","type-transcript","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nWaking Up In Prison - Transcript | Sounds True<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Read the full transcript from this Sounds True conversation with Waking Up In Prison. 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