How to Train a Happy Mind

Latest Episodes:

Generative Love: Using AI to Turn Lives Into Song #216 Mar 03, 2026

Show notes

Scott Snibbe explores an unexpected intersection of AI, music, and love. After discovering the generative music platform Suno, he created deeply personalized songs for members of his family—turning their life stories, struggles, and triumphs into hyper-specific “love songs” in the Buddhist sense of wishing others happiness. As he shares the music and the emotional reactions it evokes, Scott reflects on how AI art, used skillfully, can transform even painful memories into meaning, lift low moods, and open the heart.

Episode 216: Generative Love: Using AI to Turn Lives Into Song

If you’d like to practice with others and bring these ideas into your life, join our weekly meditation community with Scott.

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Music, Imagination, and Meditation with Chris Ballew (Caspar Babypants) #215 Feb 24, 2026

Show notes

Scott Snibbe sits down with Chris Ballew—frontman of The Presidents of the United States of America and beloved children’s artist Caspar Babypants—for a wide-ranging and deeply personal conversation about music, meditation, creativity, and walking away from conventional success.
From Grammy nominations and rockstar fame to lullabies and “sonic totems,” Chris reflects on the inner signals that guided him toward a more sustainable, service-oriented life.
Along the way, they dive into beginner’s mind, silliness as a byproduct of enlightenment, the emotional power of music, and the spiritual undercurrents in his music. Equal parts playful and profound, this conversation reveals how creativity can become a contemplative practice.

Episode #215: Music, Imagination, and Meditation with Chris Ballew (Caspar Babypants)

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Guided Meditation: What Is the Mind? #7 [rebroadcast] Feb 17, 2026

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?

Themes:

Watching your thoughts
Free will
What is consciousness
Finding peace
Mind-body connection
Buddhist philosophy
Cultivating joy

Watch the episode on our YouTube channel

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What Is the Mind? #6 [rebroadcast] Feb 10, 2026

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?

Themes:

Body-mind duality
Interdependence
Consciousness
Noticing your thoughts
How to be present
The mind's 4 mental factors
Psychology

Watch this episode on our YouTube channel

If you’d like to practice with others and bring these ideas into your life, join our weekly meditation community with Scott.

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What Would You Do If Someone Pulled A Gun On You? Training the Mind for Nonviolence and Compassion in Crisis #214 Feb 03, 2026

Show notes

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.

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Art & Emptiness: Tsherin Sherpa on Tradition, Identity, & Freedom #213 Jan 27, 2026

Show notes

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, & Freedom

If you’d like to practice with others and bring these ideas into your life, join our weekly meditation community with Scott.

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Guided Meditation: The Preciousness of Life #5 [rebroadcast] Jan 20, 2026

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.
Episode 5: Guided Meditation on The Preciousness of Life

Themes:

Self-awareness
Gratitude
Stabilizing the breath
How to be happy
Loving others

Watch this episode on our YouTube channel

If you’d like to practice with others and bring these ideas into your life, join our weekly meditation community with Scott.

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The Preciousness of Life, From Cosmos to the Kardashians #4 [rebroadcast] Jan 13, 2026

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.

Episode 4: The Preciousness of Life from Cosmos to the Kardashians

In this talk Scott explores:

How to appreciate life more
Why money can't buy you happiness
How to find satisfaction and meaning in your life
How to stop worrying
Why meditation is so powerful
How to become self-aware

Watch this episode as a YouTube video

If you’d like to practice with others and bring these ideas into your life, join our weekly meditation community with Scott.

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Guided Death and Rebirth Meditation with Laurie Anderson #107 [rebroadcast] Jan 06, 2026

Show notes

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 Anderson

If you’d like to practice with others and bring these ideas into your life, join our weekly meditation community with Scott.

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Laurie Anderson's Buddhism, Art, Meditation, and Death as Adventure [Full Uncut Interview] #212 Dec 30, 2025

Show notes

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.

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