The following talk is given by Tara Brock, meditation teacher, psychologist and author.

Namaste and blessings.

I'd like to begin this talk with a story told by a man named Jarvis Masters, who is someone I've come to admire really greatly.

Jarvis has been on death row at San Quentin for quite some time now.

And good number of years ago he became a Buddhist and began meditation practice which has really been at the center of his life there.

He took the Bodhisattva vows of compassion and he wrote a book, a memoir.

And this is from the memoir that I'll be telling you.

He tells a story of being in the prison yard one winter day in a seagull landed in a puddle.

And a big young inmate next to him picked up a rock to throw at the seagull.

And so following his vow of compassion Jarvis instinctively raised his arm to stop the thrower.

And then the young man of course inmate shouted, what are you doing?

Because you're not supposed to interfere with other people.

You do that the risk of your own life in a way.

So Jarvis describes looking back and spontaneously responding, that bird got my wings.

That bird got my wings.

And with this the young man looked at him really quizzically and lowered the stone and everybody else relaxed.

Because they were waiting to see some real violence go on.

And Jarvis recounts how afterwards for the next number of days different inmates would come up and say, what would you mean by that?

And he didn't say anything.

He didn't tell them. It was like I was in Cohen.

But and yet everyone knew what he meant.

And we all know that bird got my wings.

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