A Meditation to Nourish an Undefended Heart

There’s a paradox inside mindfulness practice: When we want to heal something, we move toward what hurts, not away from it. It’s not easy to keep our hearts soft or open, and a mindful practice doesn’t change the inherent risks in being a human in a world of other humans. This week, as part of his mini-course Opening Ourselves Up to Compassion, Vinny Ferraro shares a practice to meet our pain and uncertainty, to recognize our inherent connection, and to summon the courage to lower our defenses. Vinny Ferraro has been a practitioner of insight meditation (vipassanā) since the early 1990s. He is a co-Founder of the Dharma Punx and co-Guiding Teacher of Against the Stream Buddhist Meditation Society. He is also a nationally recognized leader in designing and implementing interventions for at-risk adolescents and is currently Senior Trainer for Mindful Schools. The transcription of this guided meditation will be online and in our app at Mindful.org next week. Stay curious, stay inspired. Sign up for our free newsletter or download the app for free at . Show Notes Find more from Vinny Ferraro . Go Deeper For more resources on wise boundaries and how to stay open when you want to shut down, check out these resources from : (a mini-course) To try another meditation to help lower defenses and break down armor, try . And more from Mindful here: Let us know what you thought of this episode of 12 Minute Meditation by leaving a review or by emailing .

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A Meditation to Nourish an Undefended Heart is an episode from The Mindful Podcast by mindful.org.

This episode is 00:11:20 long.

This episode was published on Feb 27, 2026.

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