Q & A with Robina

The stupa at Mende, just below Lawudo Retreat Centre, Lama Zopa Rinpoche's family home in the Nepalese Himalayas. Photo: Ven. Katy Cole.

In February 1997 Pelican Bay inmate Francisco Vasquez wrote for the first time to Ven. Robina about the opening of his heart to Buddhism. He met her through his cellmate, AK, the first person to have written her, a year earlier, and the start of the work of Liberation Prison Project. Francisco was released and deported to Mexico at the end of 1999.

Venerable Robina,

My utmost love and prayers to you. With this I take the liberty to write to you in order to express some of my changing experiences ever since you have come into contact with AK and how it has taken effect in my life as well as in his. I hope you do not mind this spontaneous act.

Well, how do I begin to explain this change in my heart that has overwhelmed me dramatically. I guess I could start from the beginning, right?

It all started in my first trip to prison about 10 years ago. I was only 18 years old, so I guess you could say I came in with an attitude of wanting to hurt anybody and everybody who posed a threat to my reputation, status or person. But then after seeing how much suffering goes on in here, I started to feel this stirring feeling inside my heart. Just to see the faces of some of the prisoners who walk around gloomy, some of them knowing that the possibility for them to ever get out was slim. So, they walked around wearing a mask of a bad guy. It covered up their anguish. I guess I started to feel compassion. I only get this for certain people. I discovered then something that had been veiled by anger, hate and greed for so long.

This something was feeling for another being, but I fought it off because of reputation and pride. I continued with these conflicting, ambivalent feelings for so long, but inside I was always yearning for liberation. I just didn’t know the way to liberation. I didn’t even know that such a way existed.

Anyway, my feelings ever since have been emerging gradually. I started to develop a growing compassion for my people in Mexico, and this desire to help them, but never actually took the initiative to do so. I still couldn’t fully give up a life I had been living deceitfully for many years just that easily. I had grown up believing that gangs was the way of life, only to discover how wrong I was.

It didn’t actually hit me until half way through this term how much I yearned to help my people. Every time I read the newspapers or saw the news on TV, I could see how bad my people were being mistreated, all the corruption going on and the economic crises and all these revolutionist factions taking up arms only heightened my desire to help them. So in a sense I started to renounce certain thoughts and beliefs that no longer had any solid foundation – only I didn’t know it was renunciation.

However, at the commencement of this sentencing I continued to do harm to others, and the cause of it was still pride. Even though I did not believe in the causes for what I was doing then, I still did them out of pride for my reputation. Lama Yeshe wasn’t lying when he said, “Pride is one of the main causes for ignorance.”

To me these past ten years served to pave the way for what had taken place in my life now. The more I contemplate cause and effect, the more I see its truth. I feel that the reason for AK and me ending up as cellmates has a purpose.

AK had been receiving many books from you but I actually never took the time to read them, except I read twice Wisdom Energy by Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche, but I never really understood its meaning. So it took a few months after contemplating the books to feel anything.

I think it’s best if I explain a little about my religious beliefs here. I’ve never taken religion seriously. In fact, I had a contemptible feeling towards it. Although I was baptized as a Catholic, I’ve always renounced it. Maybe I developed this feeling after I found out about some of its history. It seemed to be misinterpreted centuries ago. But now I see how wrong I was to pass judgement on something I didn’t even know, especially on something that is meant to benefit the world. But people throughout time have badly misused it. Besides, Catholicism and Christianity couldn’t answer my questions.

So, like I said before, it took a few months of contemplating for the truth of Lama Yeshe’s words to hit me. Then suddenly I didn’t want to live this life anymore. It was as if something smacked me dead on the face and said, “What have you done with your life all these years?”

Then I started to feel scared because I didn’t know what to do next. I remained dazed for some time, not knowing what step to take in my life. So I asked myself, “Do I want to help my people or do I want to cling to my pride and reputation?” The answer was clear. I wanted to help my people.

Then on January 22, AK and I were talking about our purpose in life, when he reached for one of his Mandala magazines to share a certain quotation with me, and as he turned the pages I happened to get a glimpse of the Great Kirti Tsenshab Rinpoche. I immediately felt something ineffable go through my body, but I didn’t say anything to AK because I wasn’t sure any sound would come out. So I just focused on the feeling.

After AK and I had got done talking, I asked him if I could borrow some of his magazines. Then I sort of crawled onto my bunk and began to go through them until I found Kirti Tsenshab Rinpoche’s picture again and I stared at it for some time. Finally when I came out of this trance I contemplated on this feeling, which felt so clean, so pure. Never have I experienced something like this in my life. I knew then that this is what I want everyone else to feel, this pure joy.

Ever since this experience I knew I did not want to waste my life in any other way. I just want to live and devote my life to working for others and to bring joy into their lives.

I have since been reading, studying, contemplating and meditating on Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand and all the other books you have sent to AK. My main goal is to cultivate bodhicitta for all sentient beings. Just as I have cultivated this passion for my people, I now want to expand my compassion for all in equality. As Lama Yeshe said, “You need to develop equanimity.”

Ven. Robina, I have two years before I get out of here – that is if I am still alive by then – and what I’m saying is that I want to follow the Buddhadharma path for the rest of my remaining years, months or days and fully devote them to it and all sentient beings.

I will be deported back to Mexico upon my release. I feel that I was born a Mexican in this life for a purpose, and that purpose is to bring happiness to the Mexican people for a change, after many centuries of war, suffering, hunger, disease, corruption and suppression – the list goes on. The Mexican people are ripe for the Buddha’s teachings. But I don’t only want to bring happiness to the Mexican people but the world in general, to all sentient beings. This is why I want to develop and train my mind in bodhichitta.

I’ve already taken a vow to myself not to ever harm another human being physically and also I’ve taken your advice to AK to “make my first thoughts Dharma thoughts, my first words Dharma words and my first action a Dharma action,” and to abandon the ill belief of an “eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.” And I have adopted your advice to AK on how to set up an altar. If you are able to give me a practice schedule, I will adhere to it and work with it until I myself have the opportunity or fortune to meet a lama and maybe he can give me the next step to my practices. Nothing would make me more happy.

AK mentioned that the FPMT would be going to Mexico. That would be really great. Remember that you will have student, but I want to be more than a student. I want to fully devote myself to the Dharma and eventually achieve Buddhahood.

How can I be of help or of service to the FPMT in Mexico or anywhere else? I want to contribute in any way I can. I’m at your service. I see there aren’t many institutes for the Spanish-speaking people. Maybe I can be of some help in this way. I could further my education in Spanish upon my release. Well, I planned on this anyhow. It doesn’t matter in what way I help, I just want to help. I don’t want to live any other way.

Well, Ven. Robina, once again please excuse my spontaneous act n writing to you. I’m the one that asked AK if he could mail you this letter. So please don’t feel that he has pushed me to do this. I only thought you might be glad to know your words and effort have not only benefited AK, but have also benefited me. 

I just wanted to say thank you so much for your kindness. 

Much love and prayer,

Francisco Vázquez

February 5, 1997

Dear Francisco,

I was delighted to get your letter. Thank you so much for I like very much your spontaneous act! And your explanation of your inner journey moved me very much. It is clear that you have a strong connection with the Tibetan Buddhist path: Kirti Tsenshab Rinpoche affecting you so deeply is proof of that. Yes, as you say, there is purpose to you and AK ending up in cell #108 together. How fortunate you are to have each other!

Kirti Tsenshab Rinpoche is indeed a very precious lama. Perhaps AK told you that he is one of the main gurus of Lama Zopa Rinpoche. I have had the honor to have had teachings from him. His attendant, Alak Rinpoche, is also very special. Like many Tibetans he was unable to escape when the Chinese took over in 1959, so for 25 years, from the age of five, he was confined and made to do terrible things: more than anything the Chinese tried to destroy the Tibetans’ religious spirit. When Alak Rinpoche was finally able to leave Tibet for India to be with his guru, Kirti Tsenshab Rinpoche, who had escaped in 1959, he first decided to do a pilgrimage to the holy places of Lhasa, two thousand miles away. But in order to purify any negativities that he had created over the years – as if he hadn’t purified enough – he decided to prostrate all the way to Lhasa, which took more than two years. This is common among Tibetans, so great is their devotion and their deep understanding of karma and purification. They literally cover every inch of the ground in prostrations with the length of their bodies. They just sleep where they stop and beg for food. Their spirits are so strong. This is something I admire so much about Tibetans.

Your spirit seems strong, too, Francisco, and pure. You really touch my heart. And you are going to need all the strength you can muster. To work for the Dharma is no easy matter. You need to practice so hard now, to put the Dharma deeply into your mind stream, to purify much. You have such an unbelievably blessed, precious opportunity right now in that cell of yours. So use it to the fullest, dear Francisco! You certainly seem ready to.

I can say without any hesitation that the past 20 years of my life – which is when I have tried to turn around my mind and to practice, to do something worthwhile with my life, to be useful to others – have been the hardest of my life. So painful to confront the delusions, to transform the mind. So hard to really practice Dharma in the face of all the obstacles, especially in this degenerate society, where morality and wisdom and the wish to benefit others are suffocated by the delusions and the suffering. We need incredible perseverance and determination. 

How right you are about Mexico crying out for the Dharma. And the time does seem to be right now, doesn’t it? As AK mentioned to you, Lama Zopa Rinpoche has said that he will teach in Mexico next year. I know he has students there, and I know there are some Dharma centers there. For example, one course I did at Kopan included a group of people from Mexico City. I will see what I can find out for you.

Also, today I sent a copy of your letter to Rinpoche, with a letter from me explaining who you are and your wish for a practice and your offer of your services to the FPMT. You didn’t give me your number, so I told Roger, Rinpoche’s attendant, that if Rinpoche writes to you, Roger should address it to AK for now.

Francisco, as for your practices: already you are doing well: studying Liberation is excellent. And I recommend you read Lama Zopa’s two books, The Door to Satisfaction and Transforming Problems. Well, read everything! Which is what you are doing, I think. The instructions that Rinpoche gave AK about doing the meditation on the Buddha from Rinpoche’s book, A Daily Meditation Practice, certainly applies to you too. AK can explain the things I told him about doing it. And if you could do prostrations to the Thirty-five Buddhas morning and night - and any other time you wish - that would be very good. I am sure AK has explained. He can help you with the Buddha meditation as well. Just do everything in a way that is comfortable for you. But please ask me questions if you want. I am happy to help you. Please write whenever you want.

Actually, if you like you could send me a visitor’s form and we could talk on the days I come to see AK. I plan to come March 1-2. I would be glad to meet you (I am not saying you need to if you don’t want). If you would like this, then we could discuss your practice then, face to face.

My dear Francisco. I am honored to have connected with you. Thank you so much. I am happy you wrote! Thank you so much for opening your heart to me. 

Robina