How to Train a Happy Mind

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 co...

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 em...

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...

On this podcast, we talk a lot about meditation, but it’s far from the only way to connect with the deepest part of yourself and build a stable, joyful mind. There are so many other paths to reach that same inner stillness: spending time in nature, practicing yoga, exercising, making music, writing, or creating art. For Scott, art was his meditation long before he ever learned to sit in silence. O...

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 Pleasure Join our third annual How to Train a Happy Mind three-day in-person retreat in California's re...

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 Enlightenment Join our third annual How to Train a Happy Mind three-day in-person retreat in California&...

In this imaginative and hopeful episode, Rob Hopkins—founder of the Transition movement and author of How to Fall in Love with the Future—guides listeners through a vivid meditation envisioning the year 2030. Drawing on years of community activism and storytelling, Rob invites us to step through a metaphorical door into a future shaped by collective action, resilience, and radical imagination. Wha...

Rob Hopkins is one of the people doing the most to assure that humanity has a healthy, thriving, and happy future. I was blown away by his new book, How to Fall in Love With the Future, which describes a radical new type of climate activism he's invented. Instead of bemoaning the current state of the world, he invites us to imagine the world we want to live in—that's just around the corn...

This episode turns to one of the most universal human struggles: anger. Scott Snibbe explores how Buddhist psychology defines anger as a delusion: an exaggeration of the negative that blinds us to the good and fuels the wish to harm. Drawing on timeless wisdom, this meditation offers parents (and anyone else who wrestles with anger) practical antidotes rooted in curiosity and compassion. Episode 2...

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 Children Join our third annual How to Train a Happy Mind three-day in-person retreat in California's redwoods August 13–16. LEARN MORE If you...

Join Geshe Sherab for a deeply reflective guided meditation on the emptiness of self—one of the core insights of Buddhist wisdom. Gently explore how the sense of “I” arises, appears, and ultimately dissolves under careful examination. This session invites you to rest in the awareness that the self, as it seems, is empty of inherent existence—opening the door to deeper freedom, compassion, and clar...

We’ve reached the last in our series of episodes this year on Buddhism’s six perfections. The final perfection is described as emptiness, wisdom, or insight. These are all ways of naming the indescribable experience of discovering ourselves to be utterly interconnected with all of life, the universe, and everything. My guest for this profound, but sometimes difficult-to-grasp subject is Geshe Sher...

This rebroadcast episode is in honor of the recent passing of Dr. Larry Ward. May his wisdom live on. *** Dr. Larry Ward—student of Thich Nhat Hanh and author of America's Racial Karma—leads a short but powerful breath awareness meditation. Episode 191: 5-Minute Breath Awareness Meditation Join our third annual How to Train a Happy Mind three-day in-person retreat in California's redwood...

This rebroadcast episode is in honor of the recent passing of Dr. Larry Ward. May his wisdom live on. *** Scott talks with Dr. Larry Ward, a student of Thich Nhat Hanh, and author of America's Racial Karma. His book is about how we heal from the trauma of racism, not just as a society, but in our own minds and bodies. In our conversation, Dr. Ward shares a profound truth: racism is a fiction,...

What happens when you die? No one knows for sure. But the Tibetan Buddhist system describes a precise series of steps that our consciousness may experience as we die, which we can explore in a meditation to probe the boundary of life and death with curiosity and wonder. Episode 58: What Happens When You Die? Join our third annual How to Train a Happy Mind three-day in-person retreat in California&...

The idea of past lives may not make sense, and isn’t scientifically verifiable. But still, the question of what we might have been before our conception is one worth asking. Where did I come from? Episode 57: Where Did I Come From? Join our third annual How to Train a Happy Mind three-day in-person retreat in California's redwoods August 13–16. LEARN MORE If you’d like to practice with others...

Dr. David Kittay stands out as one of the most expansive, intelligent, creative, and warmhearted thinkers of our time. His course at Columbia University, Technology, Religion, Future, is often described as “life-changing” for its exploration of how technology intersects with humanity’s deepest questions. In an earlier conversation with Scott, before the AI boom, he offered insights that felt ahead...

We can't believe this is our 200th episode! For this special occasion, we wanted to share a talk and meditation Scott Snibbe offered in our Train a Happy Mind community a couple of weeks ago called “Is enlightenment possible?”  Over the years, Scott's ideas of enlightenment have evolved as he's interviewed some of the world's foremost teachers and scholars of Buddhism like Dr....

Today we’re sharing a guided meditation from the wonderful Venerable René Feusi (Scott Snibbe's long-time teacher). Settle in, find a comfortable seat, and let René’s clear, grounded guidance open the warm heart of awareness within you. Episode #199: The Warm Heart of Awareness: A Meditation with Ven. René Feusi Join our third annual How to Train a Happy Mind three-day in-person retreat in Ca...

It turns out that many of the greatest living Buddhist teachers are also some of the hardest to receive teachings from. Lacking ego, they have no need to promote themselves. This is the case with Scott's closest teacher, Venerable René Feusi.  Out of a wish to maintain his solitude and focus on long-term students—and probably mostly out of humility—Venerable René has always declined Scott&apo...

This 20 minute guided meditation comes from the sequence Scott shares in the How to Train a Happy Mind podcast and book. The stages are based on the Tibetan Buddhist lamrim, which was created more than a thousand years ago by the Indian Master Atisha Dipankar.  Over the past decade, Scott has adapted it to be a non-religious way to transform the mind from states of frustration, craving, and loneli...

Welcome to this guided meditation on accessing joy with Tenzin Chogkyi. In this practice, we’ll take time to settle the body, connect with the breath, and gently open to the feeling of joy.  Episode 196: Joyful Effort: A Guided Meditation with Tenzin Chogkyi  Join our third annual How to Train a Happy Mind three-day in-person retreat in California's redwoods August 13–16. LEARN MORE If you’d...

Instead of the episode we had planned to share today, a meditation from Tenzin Chogkyi as part of her beautiful conversation on joy, we're postponing that release by a week. In its place, we're sharing a meditation Scott Snibbe led just a couple of days ago with our Train a Happy Mind community.  This meditation was recorded the day after the United States launched a new bombing campaign...

Today's guest is Tenzin Chogkyi, one of our most popular guests, and she's back to talk about another one of the six perfections that we've been talking with other guests about this year. This one is enthusiasm or joyful effort. She talks about not just the Buddhist ideas of enthusiasm, but how to maintain our joy and enthusiasm in life when things are difficult or even when we get...

Scott Snibbe leads a 10-minute guided meditation that is based on the sequence he shares in the How to Train a Happy Mind podcast and book. Many Tibetan Buddhists do this meditation every day. If you don't have much time or want to start small, this is a good place to begin. It touches on the precious life, impermanence, cause and effect, suffering, renunciation, love, compassion, and interde...