Defensiveness often arises when identity is challenged. When information about ourselves and the world runs counter to the way we view them, hold them, and maybe even cling to them.
How, then, might defensive strategies be seen as a form of active ignorance? And how might we use the arising of defensiveness around selfhood as a mindfulness bell?
I explore these questions and more in this talk offered for the Insight Meditation Center on May 6, 2025.
In this guided meditation, Matthew leads the practitioner through mindfulness of elements using Bhikkhu Analayo’s method of Satipatthana practice. The meditation begins with establishing embodied mindfulness and then moves into body scans using earth, water, fire, and air elements.
The Buddha taught that the body can be a doorway to liberation from suffering, a place we can return to find steadiness and ease. With practice, the body can become a place of refuge – a fertile ground for presence and insight.
Matthew leads the practitioner through mindfulness of anatomy using Bhikkhu Analayo’s method of Satipatthana practice. The meditation begins with establishing embodied mindfulness and then moves into body scans of the body using skin, flesh, and bone.
People mediate for a variety of reasons. To slow down. To heal. To stay sane. To meet what’s here. In this talk, Matthew explores these motivations for practice and the ways they align with a more traditional, Buddhist understanding.
Can the present moment be devoid of everything that came before? How might our mindfulness practice be framed as a way of understanding the past?
Flightless Bird explores incarcerated firefighters, talking to former inmate Matthew Hahn who signed up to fight fires when he was serving time.