David Sheff examines the life and spiritual transformation of Jarvis Jay Masters, a man who has spent years on death row and in solitary confinement for a crime he says he didn’t commit.
“Even if Masters was innocent, I didn’t know what to think about the claims that he was, as his supporters described him, an enlightened Buddhist practitioner who had changed and saved lives.”
It is a powerful non-fiction account not only because Masters is honest and open about how he came to be where he is today, but because the spiritual lessons he has discovered throughout his experience are applicable for all of us. You don’t have to be sitting in a literal prison to feel like you’re locked in a cell and can’t get out.
The mind and heart can create suffering wherever in the world you are.
“Set in a place of unremitting violence, insanity, confusion, and rage, Masters’s story traverses the haunted caverns and tributaries of loneliness, despair, trauma, and other suffering- terrain we all know too well- and arrives at healing, meaning, and wisdom.”
I don’t think you need to be a practitioner of Buddhism to appreciate the wisdom in this book. Spiritual lessons like the knowledge that can be found in self awareness and how to obtain freedom from suffering can be helpful for all of us.
I enjoyed the book so much that I read it in only a few sittings.
The lama wrote that all people have been sentenced to death- in that way, Jarvis wasn’t unique. … “We all live in a prison, and we all hold the key,” Chagdud Tulku wrote.
Highly recommended for spiritual seekers of all types.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a free digital copy of this book.
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