Jarvis Jay Masters

That Bird Has My Wings is the astounding memoir of death row inmate Jarvis Masters and a testament to the tenacity of the human spirit and the talent of a fine writer. Offering scenes from his life that are at times poignant, revelatory, frightening, soul-stirring, painful, funny, and uplifting, That Bird Has My Wings tells the story of the author’s childhood with parents addicted to heroin, an abusive foster family, a life of crime and imprisonment, and the eventual embracing of Buddhism.

The Autobiography of an Innocent Man on Death Row

That Bird Has My Wings

In 1985 correctional officer Sergeant Burchfield was murdered in San Quentin, and Masters was convicted and sentenced to death for sharpening the blade that killed him. Masters had suffered from an extremely violent past. Now Masters shares stories of his life since 1990 on San Quentin's death row and how his own spiritual growth through Buddhism changed his life inside the prison.

Writings from Death Row

Finding Freedom

There are many forms of liberation—some that exist at the mercy of circumstance and others that can never be taken away. In this stirring and timely collection of stories, essays, poems, and letters, Jarvis Jay Masters explores the meaning of true freedom on his road to inner peace through Buddhist practice. He reveals his life as a young African American man surrounded by violence, his entanglement in the criminal justice system, and—following an encounter with Tibetan Buddhist teacher Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche—an unfolding commitment to nonviolence and peacemaking. At turns joyful, heartbreaking, frightening, and soaring with profound insight, Masters’s story offers a vision of hope and the possibility of freedom in even the darkest of times.

How Death Row Broke and Opened My Heart

Finding freedom behind the walls of San Quentin.

Jarvis Jay Masters

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