How to Train a Happy Mind - TopPodcast.com

View Top 200 Chart

Back to Rankings Page

How to Train a Happy Mind — Buddhism
How to Train a Happy Mind

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.

Copyright: © 2024 How to Train a Happy Mind

Latest Episodes:

Guided Meditation on the Mind #7 [rebroadcast] Apr 19, 2022

Show notes

This guided meditation takes us through different ways of observing the mind, first examining its ever-present parts: perception, feeling, will, and awareness. Then we explore the nature of subjective reality itself by asking what is the mind without thoughts? Where is the space of our consciousness? And, how finely can we slice moments of consciousness? Do we ever arrive at a quantum of consciousness?
Episode 7. Guided Meditation: What Is the Mind?
Two years ago, we created A Skeptic’s Path to Enlightenment to share the rich tradition of Tibetan Buddhist analytical meditation in a form that requires no belief beyond what science currently accepts. The first 40 episodes of the podcast gradually go through all of these topics, in order, beginning with appreciating the gift of our life and our place in the universe, and gradually moving up to cultivating boundless compassion for all beings and understanding the ultimate nature of our inner and outer realities. Over the next year, interspersed with new interviews, we are re-releasing updated versions of these topics.

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 ad-free
📲 Follow us on socials

What Is the Mind? #6 [rebroadcast] Apr 12, 2022

Show notes

If the mind is our thoughts, then what is it that observes those thoughts? What are we without thoughts? Do we ever truly see an object, or only its mental reconstruction? Though we are all convinced that we have one, science has no agreed definition for consciousness or mind. Even subjectively, the mind is elusive, difficult to pin to any specific mental experience.
Episode 6. What Is the Mind?
Two years ago, we created A Skeptic’s Path to Enlightenment to share the rich tradition of Tibetan Buddhist analytical meditation in a form that requires no belief beyond what science currently accepts. The first 40 episodes of the podcast gradually go through all of these topics, in order, beginning with appreciating the gift of our life and our place in the universe, and gradually moving up to cultivating boundless compassion for all beings and understanding the ultimate nature of our inner and outer realities. Over the next year, interspersed with new interviews, we are re-releasing updated versions of these topics.

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 ad-free
📲 Follow us on socials

Dr. Thupten Jinpa on Buddhism, Science, Compassion, and Climate #104 Apr 05, 2022

Show notes

Dr. Thupten Jinpa on the intersection of science, Buddhism, and critical thinking; how Buddhist principles can help us solve the climate crisis; and how to lead fulfilling lives at home with our families and relationships.
Dr. Thupten Jinpa is one of the most renowned living Buddhist scholars and practitioners. He has served for decades as the Dalai Lama's principal translator and was a Buddhist monk for the first decades of his life in addition to his PhD in religious studies from Cambridge University. Thupten Jinpa is the chair of the Mind and Life Institute that conducts dialogues between scientists and His Holiness the Dalai Lama. And he's the co-founder of Compassion Institute.
Episode 104: Dr. Thupten Jinpa on Buddhism, Science, Compassion, and Climate

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 ad-free
📲 Follow us on socials

From What If to What Next — Rob Hopkins' Climate Optimism #103 Mar 22, 2022

Show notes

Rob Hopkins, climate activist, co-founder of the Transition Network and host of the podcast series From What If to What Next talks about an engaged, passionate form of Buddhism that actively works for positive change in our communities and in the world.
103. From What If to What Next — Rob Hopkins' Climate Optimism

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 ad-free
📲 Follow us on socials

Kim Stanley Robinson on Solving the Climate Crisis, Buddhism, and the Power of Science Fiction #102 Mar 15, 2022

Show notes

Kim Stanley Robinson is one of the greatest living science fiction writers, and one of the few people ever to have developed a credible solution to the climate crisis, which he describes in his latest novel, The Ministry for the Future.

In this interview, we talk about climate change solutions, Buddhism in his life and work, sci-fi and cli-fi (climate fiction), colonizing Mars, the outdoors as meditation, and how to stay optimistic.
102. Kim Stanley Robinson on Solving the Climate Crisis, Buddhism, and the Power of Science Fiction

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 ad-free
📲 Follow us on socials

What to Do With Your Next 24 Hours Alive (Guided Meditation) #5 [rebroadcast] Mar 08, 2022

Show notes

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.
5. Guided Meditation: The Preciousness of Life
Two years ago, we created A Skeptic’s Path to Enlightenment to share the rich tradition of Tibetan Buddhist analytical meditation in a form that requires no belief beyond what science currently accepts. The first 40 episodes of the podcast gradually go through all of these topics, in order, beginning with appreciating the gift of our life and our place in the universe, and gradually moving up to cultivating boundless compassion for all beings and understanding the ultimate nature of our inner and outer realities. Over the next year, interspersed with new interviews, we will be re-releasing updated versions of these topics.

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 ad-free
📲 Follow us on socials

The Preciousness of Life, From Cosmos to the Kardashians #4 [rebroadcast] Mar 01, 2022

Show notes

“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 in Peace Is Every Step.
4. The Preciousness of Life from Cosmos to the Kardashians
Two years ago, we created A Skeptic’s Path to Enlightenment to share the rich tradition of Tibetan Buddhist analytical meditation in a form that requires no belief beyond what science currently accepts. The first 40 episodes of the podcast gradually go through all of these topics, in order, beginning with appreciating the gift of our life and our place in the universe, and gradually moving up to cultivating boundless compassion for all beings and understanding the ultimate nature of our inner and outer realities. Over the next year, interspersed with new interviews, we will be re-releasing updated versions of these talks and meditations every few weeks.

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 ad-free
📲 Follow us on socials

Guided Meditation: Empathetic Joy with Ayya Dhammadipa #101 Feb 22, 2022

Show notes

Ayya Dhammadipa leads a 12-minute meditation on empathetic joy, also known as mudita. In this practice, we use joy that is sparked by the joy of other beings to radiate this state of mind, allowing the opportunity to go beyond ourselves and into a much vaster space of joyously relating to the world.
This practice is one of the four brahmaviharas, also known as the heavenly dwellings or four immeasurables.
Ayya Dhammadīpā is a Buddhist nun and teacher with a unique background: Before becoming a nun, she got an MBA, worked in investment banking, and was a devoted mother. For twenty years, Ayya Dhammadipa studied in the Zen Buddhist tradition, but now practices the earlier Buddhist lineage of Theravada. In the last episode, she talked with me about these interesting turns in her life, where mindfulness fits into a complete path of self-development, how to balance motherhood with practice, and about the joys of giving and receiving which she writes about in her recent book Gifts Greater Than the Oceans, which is available now freely on her website. You can also learn more about her online community and offerings at Dassanaya.org.
Episode Webpage - Guided Meditation: Empathetic Joy with Ayya Dhammadipa

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 ad-free
📲 Follow us on socials

Gifts Greater Than the Oceans with Ayya Dhammadipa #100 Feb 15, 2022

Show notes

Ayya Dhammadipa is a Buddhist nun and teacher with a unique background: Before becoming a nun, she got an MBA, worked in investment banking, and was a devoted mother. For twenty years, she studied in the Zen Buddhist tradition, but now practices the earlier Buddhist lineage of Theravada. In this episode, she talks about these interesting turns in her life, where mindfulness fits into a complete path of self-development, how to balance motherhood with practice, and the misunderstood benefits of giving and receiving.
Episode 100: Gifts Greater Than the Oceans with Ayya Dhammadipa

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 ad-free
📲 Follow us on socials

Stabilizing the Mind and Watching Thoughts (Guided Meditation) #3 [rebroadcast] Feb 08, 2022

Show notes

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 Thoughts
Two years ago, we created A Skeptic’s Path to Enlightenment to share the rich tradition of Tibetan Buddhist analytical meditation in a form that requires no belief beyond what science currently accepts. The first 40 episodes of the podcast gradually go through all of these topics, in order, beginning with appreciating the gift of our life and our place in the universe, and gradually moving up to cultivating boundless compassion for all beings and understanding the ultimate nature of our inner and outer realities. Over the next year, interspersed with new interviews, we will be re-releasing updated versions of these talks and meditations every few weeks.

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 ad-free
📲 Follow us on socials

Related Podcasts