So much of Anything Good
We received the following essay from Majid in California, a subscriber to our national newsletter, Dharma Friends. The essay was featured in our fall 2020 newsletter. We hope you enjoy what Majid has to share.
—————————————————————————————-
I greet you in the spirit of great love and respect. I would like to say that I admire you all very much for the thoughtfulness and compassion that I felt from your Summer 2020 issue. It was my first experience with you guys and I could sense the spirit of teamwork and family that went into that effort.
I was introduced to your newsletter through a guy who ended up being my roommate for a while, and I did not know that this kind of network even existed; I told him how I thought I had been practicing mindfulness for almost 10 years but had only done so truly for about a year.
We talked about a lot of things like getting out of prison (of course!) and traveling around the country. I told him that I believed there were people all around the world who, if I met them, would instantly experience a bond with. I believe that we all have “spiritual” families to seek out, and that they are uniquely a part of our destinies and that once we decide to live in that higher purpose, all the things we need to fulfill that destiny - whether it be creativity, relationships, encouragement, training - it will flow to us because its just how the universe works. It’s like the natural order of life!
Since I’ve been in prison, I’ve seen and heard about some of the most hateful and disturbing acts of violence inside of prison and outside. The conclusion that it has led me to about hatred, racism, violence, and other ego-powered ills is that it’s a mindset, a pathology.
This is why I now consider myself a self-proclaimed Mental Health and Wellness Activist. I am strongly proposing to prison administrators a wellness program I created with some other inmates that emphasizes mindfulness meditation as an important tool in maintaining mental clarity and wellness. I am a true believer in the “hurt people hurt people” axiom. If a person had a traumatic childhood, it’s a good chance they’re going to form the kind of mental complex that prompts one to resort to the same kinds of violence - physical, emotional, sexual - visited upon them as a child. I, myself, am a testament to this fact.
In 2012, I discovered mindfulness meditation through a mentor and I’ve only recently begun to realize how that time was, for me, one of life’s intersections - a sort of crossroads of destiny. Since then, there have been countless insights and breakthroughs that have pushed me toward myself in deeper and deeper ways. I recently told a friend about the experience of the inner self. I said that it was like seeing a great lighthouse after being tossed and shaken up by the tempests and storms of life. There is the immediate feeling of relief, safety, and warm compassion. I told myself, “I have come home.”
By deeply observing and analyzing my thoughts and feelings, and just allowing myself to be in those experiences has given me such an inner peace and love that is quite incomparable with anything else.
I never knew that so much of anything good could be found within my own mind, within my own spiritual center. In the poem Song of Myself, by Walt Whitman, he says:
One world is aware and by far the largest to me, and that is my-self
The line strikes at the heart of my greatest insight: all of my perceived “problems” are only solvable from within my own mind. Nothing else can offer me the kind of clarity and resolve that being aware of my own thoughts and emotions can; accepting those feelings gives me the power to change them to something more positive or pleasant. In this way, I transform negative to positive, heavy to light, pain to serenity, and blindness to sight. This is seeing God in all things; this is being absorbed in awareness.
Lots of people seem to believe that they can simply buy the solution to all the problems they’re facing. The materialistic notion that money or drugs or sex can provide whatever you need to be happy, that you can purchase a peaceful mind, is obviously not true. And even though you may not say these words, this is what you’re thinking. It’s a pathology of the ego and a complete misconception.
For lots of people in jail or prison, this is an important thing to understand: a lot of our opinions, beliefs, likes, dislikes, reactions, and perceptions are a part of our past conditioning. We think they are our own, that they come from within us, but most of our so-called “knowledge” and wrong understanding is not even original. It has been accepted from others: parents, bad friends, TV, pop culture, society. To be free, to know the truth, we must be freed from this conditioning, this mental programming. A person’s own mind is the root cause of all the conditions and experiences that affect him. He vibrationally attracts conditions corresponding exactly to his predominant and habitual thoughts. Through his own mind, a person creates his own “hell” or “heaven” right here and now.
Make no mistake, “enlightenment” is not something that happens overnight, but gradually over time. How much time? It depends on how long it takes us to give up our ignorance, conditioned reactions and patterns, and to recognize the truth about ourselves, others, and the world. It takes a certain amount of receptivity, kindness and compassion toward oneself as well as fearlessness to give it all up.
May we all find the courage and compassion to see ourselves truly, and may we all live in that Love and Light that is our truest nature.
Namaste,
Majid
—————————————————————————————-
If you would like to send a note to Majid, you can email us at cory[at]compassionarkansas[dot]org
or send the letter to our mailing address: PO Box 7708, Little Rock, AR 72217-7708. Indicate on the envelope that it’s for Majid in California.