How to Train a Happy Mind

If you want to know what love is, search beyond eighties songs to the wisdom of Buddhist loving-kindness that expands our love to all beings while also deepening our connection to our partner and family. This special Valentine's Day episode on love asks great Buddhist teachers the question of what love is, including Dr. Jan Willis, Ven. Kathleen McDonald, Dr. Rick Hanson, Geshe Tenzin Namdak,...

Part two of our mind expanding interview with Buddhist scholar and author Dr. Robert Thurman, who shares what is a healthy kind of ego, how to be a Buddhist without belief, and a powerful vision of enlightenment and Nirvana. Episode 51. Ten Questions for Dr. Robert Thurman (Part 2) Join our third annual How to Train a Happy Mind three-day in-person retreat in California's redwoods August 13–1...

Buddhist scholar Dr. Robert Thurman answers 10 profound questions: What is the nature of time? What is enlightenment? Why is there no evidence for "nothing?" What is a psychonaut? And why is it important to be skeptical of both Buddhism and science? Join us for this first half of a wonderful conversation with one of the world's greatest minds. Episode 50. Ten Questions for Dr. Rober...

Dr. Rick Hanson, best-selling author of Buddha’s Brain and Neurodharma, shares his "Five Breaths" neuroscience-based guided meditation. Dr. Rick Hanson's Five Breaths Meditation 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 and bring these ideas into your life,...

Dr. Rick Hanson, best-selling author of Buddha’s Brain, Hardwiring Happiness, and Neurodharma, shares insights from neuroscience on how to grow our extraordinary potential for inner happiness without denying any of our pain. Episode 48. Interview with Dr. Rick Hanson, Author of Neurodharma and Buddha’s Brain Join our third annual How to Train a Happy Mind three-day in-person retreat in California&...

Our first episode of 2021 is a guided meditation on "purification": a healthy way to let go of regrets from the last year and make a realistic path to being our best self this year through forgiveness and self-acceptance. Episode 47: Beginning the New Year with a Purification Meditation Join our third annual How to Train a Happy Mind three-day in-person retreat in California's redwo...

In this deep and fascinating interview with Dr. Jay Garfield on the connection between compassion and emptiness, he shows how, when we realize our interdependence on other beings, ideas, and the world around us, it helps us to dissolve our self-centered view and embrace the needs of all beings and the reality around us. Episode 46. Dr. Jay Garfield on Healthy Realities Join our third annual How to...

From the Buddhist, as well as the psychological and scientific perspectives, gratitude and dedication aren’t just polite bookends. The process of feeling gratitude and resolve creates the mental and neurological causes to actually become better people and to better serve the world. Episode 45: Meditation on Gratitude, Dedication, and Determination Join our third annual How to Train a Happy Mind th...

We’ve spent the better part of a year going step-by-step through a modern secular version of the major topics from Tibetan Buddhism’s Stages of the Path, what we call A Skeptic’s Path to Enlightenment. In Tibetan this sequence is called the lamrim . It’s a series of meditations that progressively move our mind to better understand itself, bring out our best qualities, and create the causes for a h...

Who am I? From the Buddhist perspective, there’s a systematic way of asking this question of who you are in the form of a meditation on the ultimate nature of the self, or "emptiness." This meditation is said to be the strongest antidote to our disturbing states of mind and a cause for greater self-awareness, happiness, and connection with others. Episode 43: Guided Meditation — The Inte...

Are you your body? Are you your mind? Are you a collection of thoughts, memories, and neural connections that could be uploaded into a computer to live forever? Or are you an old-fashioned soul? This episode probes the nature of the self using the Buddhist notion of emptiness, searching for the partless, independent, unchanging "I" that ordinarily appears to us, and finding a self that&a...

"Buddhism is not meant to make people Buddhist … but to generate happy minds." Western Tibetan Buddhist master Geshe Tenzin Namdak on the mind, disturbing emotions, and emptiness, the ultimate nature of reality. Episode 41. Geshe Tenzin Namdak on the Mind, Disturbing Emotions, and the Ultimate Nature of Reality Join our third annual How to Train a Happy Mind three-day in-person retreat i...

Meditating on the interdependent nature of reality, or emptiness, breaks down the illusion of independent, partless, and unchanging objects; instead we observe their parts, causes, and our mind that wraps these with a label like phone, home, or our delicious dinner. Episode 40. 20-Minute Guided Meditation on the Interdependent Nature of Reality Join our third annual How to Train a Happy Mind three...

The Buddhist understanding of how things exist breaks objects down into parts, causes, and a mind that bundles them into the illusion of a solid, singular, unchanging entity. When we apply this analysis to an iPhone, we see that it is made up of almost all the elements in the periodic table, and is connected to thousands of hours of hard labor and the entire history of our civilization, planet, an...

Objects around us ordinarily appear as if they are solid, singular, and separate from us. However, both science and the Buddhist understanding of reality show us that as we examine things more closely, they exist far more subtly and richly than they appear. This meditation focuses on an object most of us have strong feelings toward—our smartphone—breaking it apart into its myriad parts, and giving...

The Buddhist view on reality, called emptiness, combines the awe of scientific knowledge with the inner, experiential knowledge that comes from meditation and critical reasoning to arrive at a feeling of interconnectedness. The first in a seven-art series on Buddhism's view of dependent origination looks at how objects exist using the example of that most modern wonder and addiction, our smar...

A guided meditation by Ven. Sangye Khadro (Kathleen McDonald) on the natural goodness of our mind, or Buddha nature. In this meditation we let go of all our negative, disturbing states of mind like anger, anxiety, or fear; and cultivate our positive mental qualities of compassion, wisdom, and courage. Episode 36. Guided Meditation on the Natural Goodness of our Mind — Ven. Sangye Khadro (Kathleen...

Venerable Sangye Khadro (Kathleen McDonald), renowned author of How to Meditate and fully ordained Tibetan Buddhist nun, talks about the natural goodness of our mind, karma, and powerful analytical meditation mind training techniques for living a compassionate, meaningful life. Episode 35. Venerable Sangye Khadro (Kathleen McDonald) on The Natural Goodness of our Mind Join our third annual How to...

Sympathetic joy is an easy-to-understand meditation practice that expands our love and compassion by rejoicing in all the good things that others did today. It counteracts greed, jealousy, and envy, and can be done kicking back on the couch at the end of a hard day. Episode 34. Sympathetic Joy: Opening Your Heart to the Happiness of Others Join our third annual How to Train a Happy Mind three-day...

Dr. Jan Willis, renowned scholar and teacher of Buddhism, talks about race and racism through a Buddhist lens. She shares stories about growing up with racism in Birmingham, Alabama; marching with Dr. Martin Luther King there in 1963; brushes with the Black Panthers; her experience as one of the first Westerners to dive deeply into Tibetan Buddhism; and how we can compassionately combat systemic r...

A guided meditation on “universalizing,” a Tibetan Buddhist mind training technique for transforming our everyday problems and pleasures through love and compassion. Episode 32. Guided Meditation: Universalizing our Problems and Pleasures 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...

One of the most powerful Tibetan Buddhist mind training techniques is universalizing, a practice that transforms everyday pains and pleasures into profound meditations. From arguing with the family to stuffing yourself with a delicious meal, life’s problems and pleasures can bring anger, guilt, and sadness. The meditation technique of “universalization” transform our everyday experiences of pleasu...

Tonglen is a meditation practice that combines meditating on loving-kindness with meditating on compassion to release our own pain, suffering, and loneliness. In translation, tonglen practice can be called “taking and giving” or “exchanging self with other." Tonglen is one of the “mind training” techniques from Tibetan Buddhism that reverses our ordinary state of mind of selfishly seeking hap...

A 15-minute guided meditation on compassion: the wish to take away others’ suffering. Episode 29. Guided Compassion Meditation 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 and bring these ideas into your life, join our weekly meditation community with Scott. 🙏 Help us stay a...

Compassion is starting to rival mindfulness as the next most popular up-and-coming form of secular meditation. But what is compassion? Compassion, from the Buddhist perspective, is not just empathizing with others’ suffering, but actively wishing to take it away. Episode 28. What Is Compassion? Join our third annual How to Train a Happy Mind three-day in-person retreat in California's redwood...