How to Train a Happy Mind
Scott Snibbe
The How to Train a Happy Mind podcast brings meditation to modern people hungry for happy, meaningful lives. Each week, host Scott Snibbe and his guests share powerful mind training techniques that go beyond mindfulness to harness our intelligence, emotions, and imagination. Learn how to build a happy mind, fulfilling relationships, and a better world through a secular approach to meditation that is based on modern science and psychology, yet grounded in the authentic thousand-year old Tibetan Buddhist tradition of analytical meditation. How to Train a Happy Mind is a project of the nonprofit Skeptic's Path to Enlightenment. Our host, Scott Snibbe, is a twenty-five-year student of Tibetan Buddhism whose teachers include His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Lama Zopa Rinpoche. Snibbe is the author of the popular How to Train a Happy Mind book, and leads meditation classes and retreats worldwide infused with science, humor, and the realities of the modern world.
Episodes
Mentioned books
Oct 17, 2023 • 48min
Are We Fundamentally Good? with Dr. Jan Willis #140
In this episode, I have one of my heroes back for a third time. Dr. Jan Willis is an extraordinary Buddhist scholar and practitioner and today she's talking with me about the question, Are we fundamentally good? Buddhism sometimes seems quite depressing with its focus on suffering and death. But at the core of Buddhism is the idea that in fact, our nature is fundamentally good. Is there any evidence for this? And if so, how do we come to see it? Listen to my interview with Dr. Willis to hear the answers to these questions, and whether we might even come to see the good in someone as destructive as Vladimir Putin.Episode 140: Are We Fundamentally Good? with Dr. Jan WillisSupport the show
Oct 10, 2023 • 23min
Guided Meditation on Pleasure #85 [rebroadcast]
How can we use pleasure in our meditation practice? Buddhism offers specific techniques for meditating on pleasure as a way to deepen our qualities of concentration, fearlessness, loving-kindness, and even our understanding of the ultimate nature of reality.Episode 85: Guided Meditation on PleasureEpisode 84: Pleasure and Buddhism: Food, Sex and Netflix on the Path to EnlightenmentSupport the show
Oct 3, 2023 • 29min
Pleasure and Buddhism: Food, Sex, and Netflix on the Path to Enlightenment #84 [rebroadcast]
Pleasure is often viewed as a hindrance to the spiritual path, a hotbed of craving and attachment, but what if we told you that pleasure can actually be a positive part of the spiritual path, a portal to love and happiness?Episode 84: Pleasure and Buddhism: Food, Sex and Netflix on the Path to EnlightenmentSupport the show
Sep 26, 2023 • 16min
Guided Meditation on Compassion with Tenzin Chogkyi #139
Tenzin Chogkyi leads a guided meditation to cultivate compassion for yourself and others.Episode 139: Guided Meditation on Compassion with Tenzin Chogkyi Support the show
Sep 19, 2023 • 1h 16min
Patriarchy, Gender, and Sexism in Buddhism with Tenzin Chogkyi #138
In this episode Tenzin Chogkyi dives head on into the challenging topics of hierarchy, patriarchy, gender, and sexism in Buddhism. As a practicing Buddhist since the 1970s who spent 20 years as a nun ordained by His Holiness the Dalai Lama himself, she has deep, hard-won insights into these topics. Tenzin Chogkyi is one of the most thoughtful, independent thinkers I know, and a person of extraordinary integrity who has dedicated her life to both inner development and advancing fairness and equality in the outer world. I think you'll enjoy listening to our conversation just as much as I enjoyed being a part of it.Episode 138: Patriarchy, Gender, and Sexism in Buddhism with Tenzin ChogkyiSupport the show
Sep 12, 2023 • 43min
Compassionate AI with Kristian Simsarian #80 [rebroadcast]
Artificial intelligence expert Kristian Simsarian joins host Scott Snibbe to discuss how we can create ethical, unbiased and compassionate AI, whether we should be scared of AI, and the implications of AI on the future of work and spirituality.Kristian Simsarian has a Ph.D. in human-robot collaboration and worked as a Robotics and AI computer scientist before holding leadership positions at IDEO, the California College of the Arts, Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center and many other organizations. He helped found Humans for AI and helped grow the Center for Humane Technology in its early years. His work has appeared in NYT, Business Week, Huffington Post, along with several best-selling business books on innovation. He's also a board member for A Skeptic's Path to Enlightenment.Episode 80: Compassionate AI with Kristian SimsarianSupport the show
Sep 5, 2023 • 36min
Loving Our Parents, Loving Our Children #76 [rebroadcast]
Host Scott Snibbe offers touching personal stories and a meditation on how to best love our parents and our children using powerful Buddhist teachings and techniques on understanding, listening, and compassion.Episode 76: Loving Our Parents, Loving Our ChildrenSupport the show
Aug 29, 2023 • 27min
Guided Meditation on Healing Trauma with sujatha baliga #137
Sujatha baliga leads a guided meditation to work through past traumas in a gentle, loving, and healing manner.137. Guided Meditation on Healing Trauma with sujatha baligaSupport the show
Aug 22, 2023 • 55min
sujatha baliga on Healing Trauma and Restorative Justice #136
Macarthur Award winner sujatha baliga discusses healing trauma, restorative justice, and the power of love and meditation to build a better world.sujatha baliga is a restorative justice educator and advocate and a 2019 winner of the MacArthur fellowship. She has served as the director of the restorative justice project at Impact Justice, a co-founder of Crime Survivors for Safety and Justice, and a Soros Justice Fellow at Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth.Sujatha earned her undergraduate degree at Harvard University and went on to earn her Juris Doctor degree from the University of Pennsylvania Law School. Her life's work in restorative justice was born of the personal advice she received when she was 24 years old from His Holiness the Dalai Lama on forgiving seemingly unforgivable acts.136. sujatha baliga on Healing Trauma and Restorative JusticeSupport the show
Aug 15, 2023 • 22min
Meditation on the Emptiness of Money [rebroadcast] #71
A 20-minute guided analytical meditation on how money exists through parts, causes, and the mind in our interdependent reality, seen through the Buddhist lens of emptiness.Episode 71. Guided Meditation: How Money ExistsPrevious Episode: Bitcoin and BuddhismSupport the show
