In a different period of my life, I made a document detailing what I wanted sent to me if I ever went to prison. Written there was some legal information and two requests: that I be sent money to get vegan food from the commissar, and that one text be sent to me, the Sukhavativyuha Sutra. Back then my life was more spartan. Aside from a bed, I had two other pieces of furniture: a record player on an upturned laundry basket, and a typewriter on another of the same blue color. Against the north wall was a large printout of the Shakyamuni Buddha, and against the east wall was some poem that I had written. It never occurred to me that I was a Buddhist. I cannot remember ever taking refuge. Yet tied up with this is something I wrote that I called a "new ascetic outline," the highest representation of my spiritual goals. They were more coherent than anything I've written on the subject since.

Not long after that, I was arrested without charge or good reason. Handcuffed and on the sidewalk, my first reaction was to meditate, and I did so successfully. My fingers were tied to those of Amida Buddha, and they must have been, for I remember little about the day I spent in a holding cell. Someone there had seen me on the street, and because we had time, I recounted the life of Shakyamuni.

I remember that it was around this time that I memorized a long passage from Conze's translation of the Diamond Sutra, and some Issa, both of which are still with me. I repeat them to myself for comfort.

This life has faded away. The image of the Shakyamuni was removed from the wall when I left: perhaps reverently, but still removed. My thoughts are with that time. My heart is turned to that direction, the direction of the past.