How to Train a Happy Mind

What would you do if someone pulled a gun on you? I don't think any of us really know until we're actually put into that situation. Many years ago, someone pulled a gun on me and I was surprised by how I responded. In this episode of How to Train a Happy Mind, I share that terrifying experience and reflect on how an attitude of love and compassion, at least in this one very specific instance, may have saved my life.This episode is a recording of a talk and guided meditation I gave just a few days ago in our train a Happy Mind community, which meets every Sunday morning for live discussion and meditation. If you'd like to become part of that community, you can learn more at trainahappymind.org.Before I play the episode, I want to offer a clear disclaimer. I am not advocating in any way that anyone respond as I did in a situation like this. In general, personal safety guidance emphasizes that if someone threatens you with a weapon, the safest response is usually to stay calm and do what they ask. This story describes a very specific and unusual situation, where what the person wanted would have caused even more harm. Every situation is different, and there’s no single right or safe response. Please don’t take this episode as personal advice about your own—or anyone else’s—behavior. Instead, take it as a story: one that illustrates how we train our minds toward nonviolence, compassion, and love.📩 Sign up for our free newsletterIf you’d like to practice with others and bring these ideas into your life, join our weekly meditation community with Scott.

Tsherin Sherpa is a remarkable Himalayan artist who draws on Buddhist iconography to explore sexuality, gender, consumerism, and identity. I first met him 25 years ago, when he was teaching thangka painting in the San Francisco Bay Area and I was a young Buddhist hoping to learn how to paint devotional images. Since then, Tsherin has become one of the most respected contemporary artists in the world, representing Nepal at the Venice Biennale.For the full 90-minute dialogue, visit trainahappymind.org and join our Train a Happy Mind community. To watch the 30-minute edited version, featuring images of the art we discuss, go to our YouTube channel.Episode 213: Art & Emptiness: Tsherin Sherpa on Tradition, Identity, & FreedomIf you’d like to practice with others and bring these ideas into your life, join our weekly meditation community with Scott.

A guided meditation on the preciousness of our next 24 hours alive and our unique place in the universe as science understands it: intelligent, self-aware beings at the end of 14 billion years’ cosmic and biological evolution.Episode 5: Guided Meditation on The Preciousness of LifeThemes:Self-awarenessGratitudeStabilizing the breathHow to be happyLoving othersWatch this episode on our YouTube channelIf you’d like to practice with others and bring these ideas into your life, join our weekly meditation community with Scott.

“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.