How to Meditate in Prison
In January of 2020, CWFA launched a new men’s meditation group at the Wrightsville unit in the Arkansas Department of Corrections.
The first night was pretty chaotic.
About 20–25 guys showed up at first. Some were excited, others were more reluctant. But they signed in, settled into their seats, and the mood lightened as they made small talk amongst themselves.
Just before we began, a guard opened the door and in walked another 15–20 guys. They had been on their way to the gym down the hall to play basketball but for some reason the guard re-routed them into our meditation group.
Imagine getting your mind ready for basketball, laughing and joking with friends on your way to the gym, and then suddenly someone tells you to meditate for an hour.
They weren’t happy!
Still, they showed respect during the actual meditation time and refrained from interrupting or becoming restless. But, in the ensuing discussion time, they let loose.
Most of them laughed and joked among themselves, and a few made comments or asked questions just to get a laugh.
As the father of eight kids (7 of whom are boys), I wasn’t too fazed. But those who came to meditate were visibly bothered.
After a while, the guard returned, opened the door, and let everyone who was ready file out and head to the gym or back to the barracks. The second group of guys all left and headed toward their previously-scheduled basketball game.
But almost everybody else stayed — around 20 or 25 men.
The quieter space helped cultivate deeper conversation. A few of the men were experienced in meditation, but most were hearing about it for the first time, and they had lots of questions.
One of the new participants raised his hand and asked probably the most obvious question of the night:
“You just saw what it’s like in here. Guys are always clowning around, making noise, getting in your space. How am I supposed to meditate in prison?”
A few of the experienced guys knew of some practical ways to do this.
One said that he makes it a point to wake up before everyone else in the barracks so that he can sit in the stillness and quiet of the morning.
A few others nodded
Another said he purchased ear plugs from the commissary and sometimes puts them in, pulls his blanket over his head, and meditates on his bunk at night once everyone’s asleep.
Another mentioned the tablets that are available for reading and listening to music. Those often have guided meditations downloaded on them, as long as you have money to pay.
The young man nodded his head but still seemed unsatisfied.
“I don’t know,” he said. “It feels pretty impossible in here.”
So I suggested that perhaps we need to define meditation.
WHAT IS MEDITATION?
Personally, I was raised in a fundamentalist Christian tradition. I don’t recall any specific teachings about meditation, but I was fully aware that it was to be avoided, if not feared.
I have heard religious and nonreligious people alike compare it to witchcraft and devil worship.
But meditation is simple and wonderful. As with most practices, it ranges in levels of intensity and duration, and anyone can do it.
My preferred definition for meditation is intentional returning. When your mind wanders during a seated meditation practice, you intentionally return it back to your breath, a mantra, an image, or whatever you have chosen as an object of focus. This point of concentration centers us deep in our being, strengthens our focus, and enables us to receive the present moment rather than react to it.
Returning from an undesirable to a desirable state can happen anywhere, any time.
So, it is certainly a challenge to find a quiet space in prison where one can sit with their eyes closed and feel completely at peace. But by taking advantage of small meditation moments — in the morning before everyone’s awake, on the bunk at night after everyone’s asleep, recorded meditations on a tablet — people living in prisons can make mindfulness a habit.
They can practice mindful eating at meal times, mindful walking from the barracks to the gym, focus on their breath when people around them cause trouble, and extend lovingkindness to themselves and those around them.
We have far more opportunities for seated meditation in the free world, but the goal is still the same: intentionally return to a desirable state.