There was a time in my life when I actively felt aversion for entire people, for everything about them, and I felt justified in doing so.
Matthew Hahn
October 18, 2024
There was a time in my life when I actively felt aversion for entire people, for everything about them, and I felt justified in doing so.
Sometimes, a mind arises that tells us, “There has to be something more than this”, which can serve as inspiration to practice the Dharma. In the Zen tradition, this is
Perhaps there is a sense that the suffering just keeps tumbling toward you as the prison system perpetually churns out wounded people. I get that. The carceral wheel of samsara
If the present is the inheritance of the past, and the future is the inheritance of the present, doesn’t this mean that the future is the inheritance of the past?
I was facing many centuries in prison under California’s three strikes law. My suffering was inescapable. It was time to do something different.
Have you every heard the phrase, “Dirty hands, clean money”? It comes from the trades and refers to the idea that we can be proud of what we’ve earned so
Though not practiced as often as other subjects, mindfulness of death (maranasati) is an important part of the Buddha’s teachings.
The Buddha also teaches us that we can find refuge in a dangerous world. What does it mean to find safety despite the inevitability of danger? What are the conditions
Prison Mindfulness Summit: useful approaches to volunteering in prison, pitfalls that facilitators might encounter in incarcerated settings, and what makes for safe prison sanghas.
One way we can train our hearts is by practicing metta, which is often translated as lovingkindness. The word also carries with it ideas of benevolence, friendliness, and care for
When the Buddha taught the four foundations of mindfulness, part of the way he instructed students to be mindful of the body was through the lens of the four elements: earth,
The story of Matthew’s arrest and near-miss with life in prison has been the subject of numerous podcasts, but in this session, we’ll be talking to him about how the
Vesak is a traditional Buddhist holiday and festival, usually celebrated in late spring or early summer. The holiday celebrates, in total, the birth, life, awakening, and death of the Buddha.
If my prison story isn’t in service to something transformative, I am not interested in sharing it. Mine is a path of transformation and of love.
If my prison story isn’t in service to something transformative, I am not interested in sharing it. Mine is a path of transformation and of love.
As the teenagers passed in front of my truck, I rolled the windows down and turned up the “Ill Communication”. Don’t act like you’ve never done this before.
Suffering is built into the fabric of life and there is a certain amount of it that’s completely unavoidable. We don’t need to personalize it.
As one breathes in and out with careful attention, one may simply note the varying sensations of breath as soft or hard, wet or dry, cool or warm, and moving
My response to suicidal ideation was that there must’ve been something severely wrong with me. That I was broken.
When the mind gets lost in thought, we gently note the distraction as whatever it may be and then return our attention to the sensation of breathing.
My grief was none other than love that I didn’t want to feel. Love that was so great it felt too dangerous to allow out.