The Buddhist on Death Row: How One Man Found Light in the Darkest Place

by David Sheff

But now Pema challenged him to go back to the worst memories and fears again—to intentionally meditate on them. She said not to push them away, not to try to transcend them, not to run from them, but to go toward them. Jarvis said, “You’ve got to be kidding.” “It isn’t a onetime thing,” Pema said. “It’s a process. We chip away a piece at a time. To free ourselves, we have to keep going, to go deeper.” Jarvis felt weary and afraid. “Deeper?” He shook his head. “That is not something I want to do.” “I know,” she said. Then she counseled, “It feels like going back to the pain will kill you, but it won’t. The thing is, yes, the pain hurts, but only by facing it will it stop chasing you. The thoughts will come, they’re very strong, and you sit with them. You experience the sharp feelings and stay there. “People think as a Buddhist you want to transcend the everyday, transcend the past, transcend the pain. But the goal isn’t dangling above the messiness of life, it’s sitting in it; you don’t want to transcend the past but be there fully. When you fully connect with your past… that’s when it begins to lose its ability to harm you—to control you. What you do is go to the events; you don’t judge them as good or bad, and you sit with them even if they scare you.” She added, “Especially if they scare you.”