SITTING IN PRISON

A Vietnamese student once studied English literature at Indiana University before returning home to Vietnam, where she was ordained as a nun.

As a nun, she devoted her life to easing the suffering of others. Because of this, she was arrested and placed in prison. 

Inside her cell, she practiced sitting meditation.

It wasn’t easy. The guards saw her stillness as a threat. To them, her peaceful presence felt like defiance. So she waited until night until the lights were out so she could sit like a free person.
 

Those who imprisoned her tried to control her outer world. But she practiced so she would not lose her inner one. Sitting gave her space in her heart. Breath by breath, she remained anchored in herself.

She even taught others who were incarcerated how to sit and breathe, so they too could suffer less.

In her outer form, she was imprisoned.

But inwardly she was completely free.

If you can sit like that, the walls are not there. You are in touch with the whole universe. You hold more freedom than those outside who imprison themselves with agitation, fear, and anger.

People can try to take many things from us… But they can never steal our determination. They can never steal our practice. They can never steal our inner freedom.

✨ Melanie Chryshelle’s Reflection:

This story reminds me that freedom is not something we wait for on the outside. It is something we remember on the inside.

Even when the world tries to confine us through fear, through judgment, through circumstances we did not choose there is a place within us that remains untouched, unowned, and eternally free.

When I sit with myself… when I breathe… when I return inward, I reclaim my power. I remember that no wall, no voice, no past experience gets to define my spirit.

This is the kind of freedom that cannot be taken. This is the kind of peace that lives beyond conditions. This is the moment I choose presence over panic, love over resistance, and trust over fear.

And in that choosing… I am free.🙏🏾