How to Train a Happy Mind

“It is not more surprising to be born twice than once,” Voltaire once said. In this episode we contemplate the miracle of existing at all, from our place at the end of our universe’s 14 billion years’ evolution to the simple joy of another 24 hours alive that Thich Nhat Hanh describes.Episode 4: The Preciousness of Life from Cosmos to the KardashiansIn this talk Scott explores:How to appreciate life moreWhy money can't buy you happinessHow to find satisfaction and meaning in your lifeHow to stop worryingWhy meditation is so powerfulHow to become self-awareWatch this episode as a YouTube videoIf you’d like to practice with others and bring these ideas into your life, join our weekly meditation community with Scott.

Laurie Anderson leads a meditation on death and rebirth, guiding you through the Buddhist understanding of death, the bardo, and a joyous rebirth. These tracks come from Songs from the Bardo, an album inspired by the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Meditating on death is a powerful Buddhist practice that enhances gratitude, helps you embrace impermanence, and increases mindfulness.Laurie Anderson is one of our greatest living artists. Her work includes spoken word and performance, top-charting albums and music videos, digital art, film, virtual reality, and the invention of ingenious instruments like the tape bow violin and the talking stick. She’s won the Grammy Award and many other honors, and is currently the subject of a fantastic solo show at the Hirschhorn Museum in Washington, D.C.Episode 107: Guided Death and Rebirth Meditation with Laurie AndersonIf you’d like to practice with others and bring these ideas into your life, join our weekly meditation community with Scott.

One of our most popular episodes of all time is our interview with artist and musician Laurie Anderson. Today, we're sharing a new, unedited version with almost a half hour of additional material.For anyone unfamiliar with Laurie’s work, many people consider her one of our planet’s greatest living artists. Her work spans spoken word and performance, top-charting albums and music videos, digital art, film, virtual reality, and the invention of ingenious instruments like the tape bow violin and the talking stick.Laurie’s won a Grammy Award and many other honors, and she continues to be a huge inspiration for new generations of artists and musicians all over the world. She’s also a longtime student of Buddhism and meditation. In our interview, she talks about her personal path with Buddhism, her long relationship with Lou Reed, and how she coped with his death. She shares insights on how to approach art with a beginner’s mind, and how to stay present with suffering without letting it overwhelm you.Episode 212: Laurie Anderson's Buddhism, Art, Meditation, and Death as Adventure [Full Uncut Interview]If you’d like to practice with others and bring these ideas into your life, join our weekly meditation community with Scott.

A complete guided meditation session expanding your compassion, stabilizing concentration on the breath, and observing your thoughts.Episode 3: Guided Meditation: Stabilizing the Mind and Watching ThoughtsIf you’d like to practice with others and bring these ideas into your life, join our weekly meditation community with Scott.

Over the past few years meditation has become popular as a way to help reduce stress, be focused at work, sleep better, or simply relax. Yet meditation isn’t just a tool to improve focus or relax, but a way to strengthen the positive qualities we all naturally possess: compassion, kindness, generosity, patience, humor, and finding joy in everyday life. This episode explores this higher purpose of meditation through the less familiar technique of analytic meditation that uses stories, thoughts, and emotions to steer our minds toward happiness, meaning, and benefiting others.Episode 2: What Is Meditation?If you’d like to practice with others and bring these ideas into your life, join our weekly meditation community with Scott.

In this meditation, we explore the subtle body, the energetic connection between body and mind, through the lens of Tibetan Buddhism. It's part of a broader conversation we've been having about art, embodiment, and Buddhist practice.Together, we'll gently guide our awareness through the body, connect with the breath, and reflect on how our mind and body are not separate, but deeply intertwined. We'll also explore how this energy body shows up in movement, creativity, emotion, and everyday life.Episode 211: Meditation on the Subtle Body If you’d like to practice with others and bring these ideas into your life, join our weekly meditation community with Scott.

We're in the middle of a small series of episodes right now on Buddhism and art, and this one is about our host, Scott Snibbe. Not everyone who listens to this podcast or who’s read How to Train a Happy Mind knows that Scott's main job for most of his life has been as an artist: one who works mostly with computer software and interactive installations. He often jokes that he used to be a part-time Buddhist, and now he's a full-time Buddhist, but he still spends about 25% of his time making art. Earlier this year, Scott was invited to San Francisco's Commonwealth Club to give a talk and have a discussion with Hugh Leeman about his new series of work called Hidden Geometries. These new pieces reveal the hidden geometric diagrams that underlie the thousand-year-old tradition of devotional Buddhist paintings known as thangkas. In the talk, Scott also shares a couple of the greatest hits from his career in interactive art. We also recommend watching this on our YouTube channel so you can see all of the artworks discussed! If you’d like to practice with others and bring these ideas into your life, join our weekly meditation community with Scott.

In the United States, we celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday this week. It’s a time that brings up a variety of challenges for many people: family conflicts, political disagreements, concerns about overeating, and the painful historical roots of the holiday in colonial exploitation of Indigenous people. In this episode, we share a private talk and meditation Scott gave to the Train a Happy Mind community last Thanksgiving. In it, he grapples openly with these issues, while exploring how we can still make the holiday meaningful. How can we use the deeper spirit of Thanksgiving—generosity and gratitude—to expand compassion and awareness to include all beings across the planet? In this episode you'll learn:How to Celebrate Thanksgiving In a New WayHow to Do the Buddhist Practice of UniversalizingWhat Are the Five Delusions in BuddhismWhat Are the Antidotes to Buddhist DelusionsHow To Stay Open Through Both Pleasure and PainOverview:01:55 The Problematic Side of Thanksgiving03:45 A Broader Kind of Gathering08:02 Universalizing: How to Create a Mind of Sharing and Generosity11:21 Starting the Meditation: Settling In12:25 The Five Delusions16:12 Stabilize the Mind17:50 Love and Compassion23:52 Universalizing ThanksgivingIf you’d like to practice with others and bring these ideas into your life, join our weekly meditation community with Scott.

Five years ago, we created A Skeptic’s Path to Enlightenment (now called How to Train a Happy Mind) to share the rich tradition of Tibetan Buddhist analytical meditation. We take a secular approach to meditation that requires no belief beyond our current understanding of science and psychology. It's based on powerful Buddhist mind training techniques that use imagination, intelligence, and emotions to probe our inner and outer realities, and expand our compassion.Episode 1: What Is A Skeptic's Path to Enlightenment?If you’d like to practice with others and bring these ideas into your life, join our weekly meditation community with Scott.

In this guided meditation and drawing practice, artist and teacher John Simon Jr. leads us through a series of exercises designed to connect inner awareness with mark-making on paper. Blending Buddhist principles with intuitive art, this session invites you to notice your sensations, thoughts, and environment while allowing your hand to move freely. No art experience is needed, just a willingness to observe, let go, and explore.Episode 208: Guided Drawing Meditation with John Simon Jr. If you’d like to practice with others and bring these ideas into your life, join our weekly meditation community with Scott.