Jarvis Jay Masters' early life was a horror story whose outlines we know too well, alas. Born in a hard part of Long Beach, CA, his home was filled with crack, alcohol, physical abuse, and the men who paid his mother for sex. He and his siblings were split up and sent into foster care when he was six, from whence he progressed quickly to juvenile detention, car theft, armed robbery, and ultimately San Quentin. While in prison, he was set up for the murder of a prison guard, a crime which landed him on death row, where he's been since 1986. At the time of his murder trial, he was also in solitary confinement, a 5'-by-11' cell he would occupy for 22 years. He was by turns sullen and violent, an understandable combination given his circumstances, but also one that produced unbearable headaches, seizures, and panic attacks. A counselor repeatedly offered to teach him breathing exercises, but he insulted the offers again and again until desperation forced him to ask her how to do "that meditation shit." That's where Masters' life and this book take off. With uncanny clarity, Sheff describes the nuts and bolts of enlightenment. We discover each nut, each bolt as Masters does: how easy and how hard it is to just sit and breathe; how one minute of sitting can become five, then ten, then twenty; how those minutes spawn heightened perception and deepened compassion, the right way to remember one's pain, and much more. Sheff does a brilliant job of reifying Masters' gradual but profound transformation - from a man dedicated to hurting others to a man who stops brawls in the prison yard, talks prisoners out of suicide, and counsels high school kids by mail. Along the way, Masters becomes drawn to the principles Buddhism espouses - compassion, sacrifice, living in the moment, etc. - and he gains the attention of prominent Buddhist practitioners, including Pema Chodron, probably the most popular Buddhist cleric in America after the Dalai Lama. Today, Jarvis is still in San Quentin, and still on death row. But he is also a renowned Buddhist thinker himself and a Boddhisatva - a being dedicated to reducing others' suffering. One need not espouse Buddhism to embrace this revelatory book. Indeed, Sheff is no Buddhist. But over the course of hundreds of hours spent with Masters, Sheff has seen how his friend's struggles and triumphs show us all how to ease our everyday suffering, relish the light that surrounds us, and endure the tragedies that befall us all.
