Symbols and
Narration in Buddhist Prison Ministry: The Timelessness
of Skillful Means Abstract Buddhists from all the major traditions are very active today in prison ministries, bringing the Dharma to inmates and staff in such varied ways as volunteer ministry; correspondence; providing books and worship supplies; supporting zendo and other in-prison workshop sites; providing visitation, meditation course instruction, and AIDS hospice work; and giving legal aid concerning freedom of religion issues. This activity and the methods used go back to the very roots of Buddhism and the Buddha’s conversion of the criminal Aṅgulimālā, whose story inspires prison workers and prisoners today. The use of art and narrative in conveying the teachings has been both effective and true in content and intent. The historic roots of three stories, those of Aṅgulimālā, Milarepa, and Queen Vaidehi, are traced, as are those of three bodhisattva images, Fudo, Kannon, and Jizo. Comments by prison chaplains on the usefulness of these in conveying the teachings show their enduring value and effectiveness. Buddhists from all the major traditions are very active in Western prison ministries, bringing the Dharma to inmates and staff in such varied ways as volunteer ministry; correspondence; providing books and worship supplies; supporting zendo and other in-prison worship sites; providing visitation and instruction, meditation course instruction, and AIDS hospice work; and giving legal aid concerning freedom of religion issues.(1) Great difficulties are encountered, first in even being permitted to offer the courses or services in prison, and then in the severe challenges that the hellish prison environment presents all sentient beings. Giving the teachings in this setting is staggeringly challenging. The history of Buddhism over the past 2500 years has shown that ways of teaching are not so much carved in stone as written in water. Prison chaplains respond to the spirit of The Flower Ornament Scripture when it advises enlightening beings to be consonant with skill in means, while “generating great compassion for bad sentient beings who are mean and fixed on error.”(2) However, Ken Kraft has asked if, in effect, some ways of presenting the Dharma may muddy the waters: “We must ask, without prejudging the answer: When is the stretch from traditional Buddhism to engaged Buddhism too big?”(3) “When do fresh interpretations, often in the service of engagement, distort Buddhism’s past inauthentically?”(4) He specifically asks those active in prison work if it is acceptable to use the Buddha’s disciple Aṅgulimālā, who had been a murderer, as the patron saint of a modern prison reform movement (Aṅgulimālā, the Buddhist Prison Chaplaincy Organization of Great Britain).(5) This critique may be extended to include the use of other people with criminal pasts, such as Milarepa, and wrathful figures (Fudo, for example) as either devotional figures or subjects of teaching stories. The experiences of a number of prison chaplains interviewed about their work can put these questions to a double-edged empirical test: first, is the use of hellish-looking images and stories about criminal behavior effective in the prison setting; and second, are they used in a way that is faithful to their content (is the translation and re-telling accurate) and intent (are they used in a way consistent with their use in Buddhism’s past and the Buddha’s teaching methodology). The Value of Narration and Image in Prison Work As is true of all teachers, prison chaplains need to be able to reach their students. Pema Chodron notes that sometimes the teachings need to be presented in a simple way because communication is vital. We must learn how to speak so that others can hear us rather than causing barriers to go up and ears to close.(6) Parables and stories, with which the Buddha’s teachings abound, are a classic way to reach an audience. The Buddha himself taught by conversation. In the Sermon of the Great Decease, he told his disciples how he blended into each audience, “becoming a color like unto their color,” and “in a voice like unto their voice.”(7) Barbieri asks, “Is there a teacher of ethics who has not on occasion entertained the suspicion that no work of scholarship could ever match the virtuosity of the literary artist in addressing complex moral themes?”(8) In his development of the usefulness of a “narrativist ethics,” he finds much potential for religious accounts that incorporate narrative into their ecclesiologies, their church stories.(9) In Asia, rhetoric has consistently been seen as being inseparably interconnected with problems of ethics, psychology, politics, and social relations.(10) Because stories such as that of the serial murderer Aṅgulimālā are in the canon, they must be important. The mystery of the symbolic process is basic to the Buddhist conception of reality.(11) Archetypal images, when used under the guidance of a trained chaplain, can be very effective in communicating cross-culturally, while maintaining their original meaning. Using art images also has deep roots in Buddhism, as it does in some Western schools of rhetoric. The ars memorativa technique employs images in a “memory-help” system. Rhetoric manuals stress that an effective memory is a visual memory.(12) Art can also be revelatory, enabling the viewer to see into his or her secret part or shadow. “The spiritual in art confronts us with what we have forgotten.”(13) The symbolic structure of such art as the devotional figures discussed below can reveal “perceived relationships, or designs, in the phenomena of human life and in the phenomena of the universe, which is our dwelling place.”(14) Indeed, the root meaning of “art” is to join or fit together. Buddhism’s stories and images of beings who have encountered hellish circumstances, criminal activity, and imprisonment provide a rich heritage upon which all traditions can draw when speaking to people currently facing these very realities. Exemplars from the Scriptures and History: Aṅgulimālā, Queen Vaidehi, and Milarepa There is perhaps no more confrontationally intense, yet compassionate, illustration of both the question of using such images and the affirmative answer to their effectiveness and appropriateness today than the red-and-white home page of Great Britain’s Angulimala Prison Chaplaincy website.(15) Aṅgulimālā writhes in frustration before the serenely sitting Buddha, whom Aṅgulimālā had been stalking at an ever-quickening pace for hours in order to kill him and thus complete a gruesome necklace of severed fingers (the meaning of his name) required of him by his deluded university teacher to regain his favor. Over and over again he had killed to fill the necklace, and he needed but one more victim. Bloody handprints surround him, and one can almost feel his brain squirming like a toad in his skull as he screamed in frustration “Stop, monk, stop!” The moment is captured when the silent traveler halted, turned slowly, and like a compassionate father to his prodigal son, said, “I have stopped, Aṅgulimālā, you stop too.”(16) The story appears in the Middle Length Discourses (Majjhima Nikāya) of the Pāli scriptures, Buddhism’s foundational historical tradition. The home page states, “It teaches us that the possibility of Enlightenment may be awakened in the most extreme circumstances.” The text links this inspiration with the selection of the date for the organization’s founding in February (1985), when the Buddha explained his teaching in its simplest and most universal form as “ceasing to do evil, learning to do good, and purifying one’s own mind. It reminds us that behind the exoticism and intellectualization, the need for practical application lies at the core of everything the Buddha said.” Aṅgulimālā, converted by the simple words and powerful presence of the Holy One, deeply repentant, was steadfast despite reaping the consequences of his acts. He was distrusted by the villagers, who frequently refused to help him during his alms rounds, pelting him instead with stones. He chose not to react with violence and eventually became an arhant, finally attaining the Way. The story is ripe with symbols pertinent to all of us, but particularly to people who have committed acts of violence. He was rehabilitated, becoming a productive member who contributed to the welfare of the community in which he lived. The story also clearly teaches that one’s actions produce consequences. Spiritual transformation is the core of the story and is another important theme. His birth name was Ahimsaka (“harmless”), and he eventually recognized this as indeed his True Nature, his Buddha Nature:
Non-harming or nonviolence (Akimsa), as noted, is also at the heart of the Buddha’s teachings. That this was his birth name symbolizes that from birth we all have Buddha Nature, that we are born with original blessing, not original sin. This teaching is very important to prisoners, who feel that they are defective. It is an aspect of what Buddhist ministry offers that is distinctly Buddhist. The Judeo-Christian ethic posits an outside being as necessary for entering the good life, and if one does not obey and recognize this one is condemned forever to hell. Prisoners already deeply feel such dualism, having often been subjected to situations in which other sources have the power to “give” them their desires and needs if only they obey (abusive parents, school administrators, societal rules, prison authorities). They obey until the outside “being” either cannot supply the needs or they are no longer afraid of the power that the outside force can exert. Buddhism presents them instead with an inner morality and the teaching that we are all interdependent, interrelated. This leads to the realization that the power not to harm lies within themselves, that it is a decision made from the realization of this interdependence, from the “conversion experience” to the feeling of bodhichitta, of their at-oneness with all beings. Anthony Stultz, who has served Zen Buddhist prison chaplain for ten years, states the Second Precept as follows in his liturgy used in the Blue Mountain Zendo, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: “We take complete responsibility for our own life and all of our actions.” He defines the Third Precept by noting that “[w]e affirm our own being and acknowledge it as a path to awakening and freedom.” Aṅgulimālā recognizes all this as he recognizes the truth of his original name, his Buddha Nature, good and pure. For prisoners, this recognition is an incredible experience. In turn, the act of taking this vow of non-harming and its effect on Aṅgulimālā are at the heart of his story’s pertinence today and the root of its effectiveness in the prison setting. As Reverend Stultz notes, in this particular setting, with these particular people, the vows are the glue that holds the rest together. A prisoner wrote, “Recently I found myself on the receiving end of a physical assault during which I chose not to fight back … and only block his blows. This is in no small part due to my vow not to harm anyone.”(18) Reverend Stultz feels that Aṅgulimālā is a great example for prisoners. First he transgressed; then his response to anxiety was to remove the impediments, to murder people to gain his goal. What is more, he is an example of someone who seemed beyond redemption, beyond rehabilitation. A real patron saint for prisoners needs to be someone who has conquered a problem; the image of a patron saint should not exclude anyone. It should draw everyone back into the fold. People’s negative responses to him could have turned him back into a murderer. This is certainly the way in which many people view those in prison, for example, “rehabilitate them but don’t let them live in my backyard”; “let’s rehabilitate them but I’m not going to hire them”; or “they’re not going to date my daughter.” He exemplifies the hard fact that just because you are awakened, not everyone is going to love you, a reality that former inmates have to face daily. He suffered, but was free from continuing it within himself and from extending it to others. The Buddha’s teaching to Aṅgulimālā and Aṅgulimālā’s message to those today who have committed criminal acts is: “I can stop. I can change the way things manifest and how I respond to them. From now on I will bring love and creativity to life instead of harm and destructiveness.” Prisoners are looking for a new identity, a new way of understanding themselves. They loathe themselves, and society has labeled them as loathsome. The Aṅgulimālā story and the teachings show that you can change your identity positively and choose to act out of this new identity. In the Reverend Stultz’s long experience, recidivism is more related to whether the person decided to have a new identity than to education or other help programs. The decision to change themselves is what helped them deal with whatever came along when they were released. It should be noted that even many early sangha members feared criminals and did not all respond favorably to the Buddha’s welcoming Aṅgulimālā. The Mahāvagga, part of the Vinaya Piṭaka (Monastic Rule) texts, states that no robber after Aṅgulimālā who wears the emblems of his deeds can be a monk (I, 41), nor can robbers escaped from jail (I, 42), nor proclaimed robbers (I, 43), people punished by scourging or branding (I, 44, 45), debtors (I, 46), or runaway slaves (I, 47).(19) This would seem to preclude some of the prison work done by Buddhist groups today. However, with regard to the discipline for the Hīnayāna monastics, this collection of rules was composed for those who were leaving society and taking on a new identity as a community devoted to the path of the arhant. The Theravādin communities developed a canon law that was probably written in the second century B.C.E. This canon, which has largely fallen into disuse within contemporary Theravādin life, was very strict and replete with sectarian bias, a rejection of lay life, distortions, additions, and omissions. In time, a schism developed that eventually led to the creation of the Mahāyāna community, which had a more lay-oriented approach to the Dharma and was not obsessed with the keeping of monastic rules. The Vajrayāna tradition of Tibet contains the story of the famous saint Milarepa, 1040–1123 C.E. He had been a sorcerer, but sought the transformative teachings of the Dharma from Marpa after being plagued with feelings of remorse and guilt when he caused the death of thirty-five relatives with his black magic. Marpa forced him to undergo terrible ordeals to cleanse his negative momentum, driving him to the point of suicide. After twelve years in contemplative retreat in the high Himalayas, he became a perfectly enlightened adept. He then traveled all over Tibet, teaching thousands and singing his profound teachings in a folk-song format. He serves as an example of an ordinary man who became a great sinner and then, through sincere practice and great ordeals, became enlightened and a great teacher.(20) Milarepa’s tale is perhaps not quite as deeply appropriate as Aṅgulimālā’s. It is more like a spaghetti Western, a story of revenge. Aṅgulimālā did not have that excuse. He made an adult decision and repeated his actions over and over, calculating each murderous act and ignoring the pleas of his victims for mercy. Milarepa is very popular among the many prisoners served by today’s Vajrayāna ministries. One wrote of a new prison study group: “We decided upon the name Milarepa Buddhist Community because the example of Je Mila is especially dear and relevant to us.”(21) Deeply significant to the Jōdo-Shinshū tradition is the story of Queen Vaidehi, who lived during the Buddha’s lifetime. Her narrative is contained within the Meditation Sūtra (Kanmuryoju-kyo) in one of the Three Pure Land Sūtras that is known as the Sūtra on Meditation on the Buddha of Immeasurable Life. Queen Vaidehi was imprisoned unjustly by her son Prince Ajātaśatru, who was in the sway of Devadatta in his ongoing quest to harm the work of the Buddha. She begged the Buddha for help. First, he sent two disciples, one of whom was Anānda. Then the Buddha himself appeared, visiting her in prison like today’s prison chaplains. The queen prostrated herself, asking to be shown a land of no sorrow and no affliction where she could be reborn. The Buddha then transmitted the method of visualizing the Pure Land. Shinran Shonin (1173–1262 CE), the founder of the Jōdo-Shinshū school, held the story of Queen Vaidehi in deepest regard. He himself was, in effect, a criminal during part of his lifetime. The Jōdo-Shinshū tradition was being persecuted, and in 1207 its leaders, including Shinran, were banished, deprived of their monkhood, and given secular names. Some were condemned to death. For Shinran, Queen Vaidehi was a model of steadfastness under difficult circumstances and of single-minded devotion.(22) The queen’s story was illustrated in the great Taima Maṇḍala, a tapestry based on the Contemplation Sūtra. Woodblock copies were made and distributed throughout Japan and China. Copies were widely used as etoki, or explanations of the teachings by picture.(23) Even those who break the Five Precepts and constantly pollute their streams of birth and death are liberated, as was Queen Vaidehi, in a single moment upon encountering the wisdom of the Buddha. Her example also showed that one need not be a monastic for this practice of receiving the Buddha’s name (Nembutsu), but instead that the practice is available to all lay people regardless of status or condition, she herself being in prison. She is mentioned in Shinran’s Shoshinge, chanted daily by Shin Buddhists. Her story accompanied Japanese-American Shin Buddhists imprisoned unjustly during World War II in internment camps in the American West.(24) Bodhisattvas: Fudo, Kannon, and Jizo The prison chaplains interviewed mentioned using devotional figures of three bodhisattvas that either show wrathful aspects and/or appear in hell. The bodhisattva images may be considered archetypes, that is, “fundamental models of dominant psychic aspects of the enlightening beings.”(25) Archetypes themselves are “[c]rystallizations of components of the psyche, and catalysts to self-understanding.”(26) They can serve as models or guides for the beholder’s own life when they are introduced by the appropriate teachings. Fudo-Myo-o (Achalanatha Vidya-Raja) is the immovable King of Light, the wrathful aspect of Dainichi (Vairocana) Buddha. His visage is fierce, with glaring eyes and fangs. Holding a sword and rope, often wearing ankle chains, and sometimes surrounded by flames, Fudo is a very formidable figure. Correctly presented, he represents steadfast will to enlightenment, standing with determination in the flames of ignorance, anger, and greed. With training, the flames may come to represent to the student the cleansing fire of Truth. The ankle chains represent his vow to stay in hell and help all beings pass through safely. The rope signifies the precepts, and the diamond-bladed vajra sword cuts through all delusion. He offers these tools to people to use, without force or coercion. In the words of the Hymn to Achalanatha, “By our own wills and vigilance, may we cut our fetters away.”(27) One minister, who does not use Fudo, but does use the Aṅgulimālā story, felt inmates might misinterpret the images. Sometimes published descriptions are themselves inaccurate, such as one calling Fudo a “scourge of the sinful.”(28) In one instance of Japanese history, an unusual version showing Fudo running, sword held behind and high, was supposedly used by Emperor Kameyama in a prayer for deliverance from the Mongol armies.(29) However, those who have actually used Fudo were effusive in praising his effectiveness in the prison setting. Reverend Stultz, who worked with a small devotional statue of Fudo, found it extremely relevant and meaningful. The ankle chains represent Fudo’s determination to stay in a hellish environment to save beings. This image is very relevant to prison life, and the prisoners saw this. It helped them transform the traditional image of chains as something being imposed from the outside. This image was turned on its head to become an image of their determination to maintain their True Nature in the hellish prison environment and to transform prison from a penal colony to a spiritual colony (a transformation noted by representatives from all the major traditions as they worked with inmates in various settings). The image of Fudo in the flames of hell was very powerful to the inmates. The hell for them was not necessarily just the prison environment. It may have been their early life; the environment from which they came; the hell of the pain and suffering that they caused others; or the hell of their own self-condemnation, which was probably the worst and was probably what was ultimately keeping them from changing. By identifying with a new identity, that of a bodhisattva, they were able to embrace Fudo as an image of one who could be strengthened by one’s experience thanks to their Buddha Nature. Fudo is a strong figure for difficult times and situations, and he represents resolution and firm commitment. Furthermore, he represents a person who has made a vow and lives into that vow regardless of the cost. There is nothing false about him. Some of these prisoners are never going to get out and enjoy a family life and a well-paying job. Hence, the ability to accept the anxiety of being in that hell and turn it into something good, something that protects what is good and nurtures what is whole, is exceedingly important. Not causing harm is always a choice, and Fudo makes us aware of that. Fudo reminds us all that we must make a choice in this respect to have an immovable mind. The Reverend Kyogen Carlson, Dharma Rain Zen Center, also utilizes teachings of Fudo with positive results. Fudo represents cutting through self-deception and confusion, however these conditions might arise. His will to be steadfast and vigilant in the midst of all conditions is the kind of effort necessary to honestly and fearlessly face the conditions in which we find ourselves; nowhere is that more true than in prison.(30) Jizo (Kṣitigarbha; Ti-ts’ang in Chinese) is another bodhisattva mentioned by prison chaplains. One of his aspects is that of the bodhisattva who saves beings even from the depths of hell. Jizo vowed to assume whatever forms and employ whatever means necessary to deliver all suffering creatures, wherever they reside (Sūtra of the Past Vows of Kṣitigarbha Bodhisattva). In paintings he is often shown in hell, standing by and comforting the afflicted and working ceaselessly to release beings from their sufferings. Hell is not seen as an eternal destiny. Hell can be a physical location such as a prison or a psychological state experienced as a consequence of unwholesome actions.(31) Kannon or Kanzeon (Avalokiteśvara in Sanskrit, Quanjin in Chinese), who assumes many different forms, is best known as the Bodhisattva of Compassion. Two parts of his/her being are especially relevant in prison work. “The Universal Gateway of the Bodhisattva Regarder of the Sounds of the World” chapter of the Lotus Sūtra, verse 11, notes that “[i]f the jailkeeper locks you in a yoke, [m]anacles your hands, and shackles your feet, [l]et your thought dwell on the power of Kwannon. The chains will drop off and let you go free.”(32) Again, the symbol of transformation is important. The Reverend Carlson interprets the verse to mean that when we are physically bound in chains, the real shackles are reactions like anger, denial, and self-pity. If one stops trying to escape the reality of the physical condition of being in prison, the shackles can end up being “the very things that truly set us free.”(33) Kannon shows the power of all-acceptance. In prison, that means to accept fully—without flinching—all of the causes and conditioning that led to where you are now, letting all excuses and self-pity drop away. Reverend Stultz states the Fourth Precept as: “We embrace all aspects of our being, including our shadow, so that they may be transformed.” Acceptance and transformation echo throughout the scriptures and are vital to a successful practice wherever it is done. Kannon, in the form of Bato-Kannon (Horse-Headed Avalokiteśvara) also appears as a fierce, wrathful figure, quite a different picture than the gentle, visibly compassionate face usually shown. Yet this nonetheless expresses an aspect of compassion because some beings need such incitement to awaken or be helped.(34) This is a “tough love” aspect of skillful means, an operational philosophy advocated by various help groups today, including one bearing that name devoted to aiding parents of delinquent or severely troubled children. The Timelessness of Skillful Means Ken Kraft notes that “as engaged Buddhist thinkers continue to refine methodologies, the concept of skillful means will itself be subjected to new tests. On this, Western scholars and Buddhist practitioners agree: a good method must also be a self-reflective one.”(35) Using stories of people with criminal histories or having been affected by crime goes back to the very roots of Buddhism: the original sangha and the Buddha’s teachings and teaching methodology. The power of these narratives is as forceful now as it was when the stories were first told in the various traditions. The usage of the stories of Aṅgulimālā, Queen Vaidehi, and Milarepa, as well as the images of bodhisattvas Fudo, Jizo, and Kannon, passes the double-edged empirical test of effectiveness in the prison setting and of faithful rendering of their content and intent. This conclusion is based on the historic overview of the development of the stories and the distillation of the experiences of a number of chaplains from the major Buddhist traditions, many of whom were interviewed for this study. To return to the Flower Ornament Scripture and the vow of Universally Good, the reader should consider the following verses:
These images and stories are for when times are tough, when life is hell. “The spiritual in art makes its contribution to the pilgrim’s halting progress. It is a resource for those who look beyond, understand that there is work to do, and undertake it.”(38) Is Aṅgulimālā suitable as a patron saint of prison chaplains and others engaged in the various aspects of Buddhist prison ministry, or indeed the original ancestor of a lineage of those engaged in this vital work, including the prisoners bravely living the teachings in hell? Pema Chodron’s words are ringingly resonant: We become part of a lineage of people who have cultivated their bravery throughout history, people who, against enormous odds, have stayed open to great difficulties and painful situations and transformed them into the path of awakening. We will fall flat on our faces again and again, we will continue to feel inadequate, and we can use these experiences to wake us up, just as they did.(39) The answer can only be “yes.”
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