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I was mentored by men who had murdered. Let me tell you about one of them. A thread in honor of Herb Blake.

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They were good like that. I just asked them.

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The Prison Spiritual Tradition. This is my lineage.

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"Our actions are driven by relevance. We all want to feel we matter in some way. Relevance is what makes one kid go to college while another kid joins a gang. Each does what he or she thinks is necessary to be acknowledged. In search of relevance men and women become saints or sinners." - Herb Blake

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It seems that I'd passed the letter on to one of the group's volunteers. Here it is:

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Then, a few years ago, I re-read a short book he'd written called "The Last Place I Looked". Somehow, I had missed an important part of the book, likely because it was nestled at the very end, like an appendix. It was the letter he'd written.

For years after learning that Herb Blake had passed away, I wondered what had become of the letter I'd read on his behalf the night I left Folsom Prison. I vaguely remember giving it to one of the group members, but I couldn't remember who. It seemed that it was lost to time.

Herb Blake passed away just a few years after leaving prison. He spent twenty three years incarcerated and, perhaps, his greatest mark was left in the hearts of the men he mentored there. My heart is marked by him, and I feel like it is my responsibility to mark hearts in the same way that he did.

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It would be my last time going to the Contemplative Fellowship and it felt momentous to be the usher of his parting words, like he was entrusting me with something very special. I read his parting words for the men in Greystone Chapel, and then I shared my own.

Blake was finally granted parole in December of 2008, the same month that I was to be leaving Folsom State Prison for a lower security facility. He was not going to be able to attend the Contemplative Fellowship before leaving, so he gave me a letter he’d written to the group.

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Instead, when he showed up to the Contemplative Fellowship after his denial, it was he who encouraged us to stay the course, rather than the other way around. Blake’s forbearance in the face of disappointment was powerful and contagious. He inspired us all to be better.

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I’ll never forget the day Blake had his parole date rescinded by the Governor, though the parole board had found him suitable for release. I would’ve expected him to be dejected and melancholic.

Blake had an aura about him, a way of being in the world that made his mere presence a transmission of wisdom & kindness. I half expected him to step out of his skin one day and reveal to the world that he was actually one of those beings of light from the movie Cocoon. Blake was a spiritual giant.

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e was gentle in his handling of discord and gracious in the way he met disagreement. He often led the group in meditation, famous for likening thoughts during meditation to the letters arriving during mail call.

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Blake spoke clearly and compassionately, able to communicate fluently with men from different cultural and religious backgrounds. He embodied what might be called upaya, or skillful means, in Buddhism.

By the time I met Blake (his preferred way of being called in prison) in 2007, the man who had murdered had long since left prison and had been replaced with a selfless human being who mentored others in the art of awakening.

fter having gone to prison for murder in the 1980’s, he spent twenty something years getting to the roots of the greed, hatred, and delusion that had caused his younger self to commit the crime he had.

I met men in prison who could only be referred to as spiritual giants. Rarely have I met people in the free world as genuinely awakened as some of these men I had the pleasure to do my time with. One of these men was a man named Herb Blake.

In a world where human touch was nonexistent save for the violence, these moments of mutual, physical care were priceless.

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A number of men would venture to the back of the chapel where, beneath a painting of the last supper with convicts as Christ’s disciples, we’d exchange shoulder rubs or chiropractic back-cracks.

When the meditation and discussion time was over, most of us remained in the chapel for the duration of our allowable time on the yard. We’d continue the discussion started earlier or catch-up with folks we hadn’t seen in a week.

Sometimes, this bit of wisdom was a simple reading from a spiritual text and sometimes this bit of wisdom was a prepared talk about a subject relevant to our path. Ours was a path of transformation and of love.

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We sat in a circle silently together, though, occasionally, one of the men would guide us in meditation. When the meditation was finished, someone would share a bit of wisdom, something for us to discuss within the circle.

Despite our different likes and preferences, we all met in loving fellowship for a couple of hours every week. We entered the chapel and exchanged hugs and handshakes.

Suffice to say, the men who met in Greystone Chapel on Monday nights were an eclectic bunch. It was apparent we all had our own spiritual paths and that we all studied from within different traditions, but that was never an issue.

The man who’d invited me to attend the meeting was certainly Christian, but he was a Christian who knew that I was mostly atheist and Buddhist-leaning. I didn’t get the sense he was trying to convert me to anything.

But the men who came to the Contemplative Fellowship weren’t all Catholic. I’m not even sure it would make sense to say that most of them were even Christian, though many of them were.

Technically, our weekly event was sponsored by the Catholic chaplain and was intended as a space to practice Centering Prayer, the Christian variant of meditation made popular by the late Father Thomas Keating.

When I was in Folsom State Prison, I was part of a group called the Contemplative Fellowship. This group met in Greystone Chapel on Monday evenings.