

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 26, 2021 • 11min
10-Minute Mindful Awareness Meditation with Susan Piver #89
A 10-minute mindful awareness meditation led by NYT bestselling author and Buddhist meditation teacher Susan Piver. Encompassing mindfulness of breath, body, and mind, this meditation helps us relax into a peaceful present moment awareness.Episode 89: 10-Minute Mindful Awareness Meditation with Susan PiverListen to our previous interview with Susan - Episode 88: Four Noble Truths of Love with Susan Piver. In this interview, shares her Four Noble Truths of Love, a framework for anybody to have deeper, more fulfilling, and more loving intimate relationships.Buy Susan's latest book, The Four Noble Truths of Love: Buddhist Wisdom for Modern Relationships (available in hard copy or audiobook). This Earth Day, I’ll be sitting down with one of the most inspiring voices on climate and the future—author Kim Stanley Robinson—for a live online conversation hosted by UC Berkeley’s School of Journalism.We’ll explore how his work offers real hope in the face of the climate crisis—a chance to imagine not just what could go wrong—but what could go right.It’s free, April 22nd at 5:30pm Pacific. Sign up here to watch on Zoom.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

Oct 19, 2021 • 48min
Four Noble Truths of Love with Susan Piver #88
NYT bestselling author and Buddhist meditation teacher Susan Piver shares her Four Noble Truths of Love, a framework anybody can use for deeper, more fulfilling, and more connected intimate relationships.Susan Piver is the New York Times bestselling author of nine books, including The Hard Questions: 100 Essential Questions to Ask Before You Say "I Do", the award-winning How Not to Be Afraid of Your Own Life, The Wisdom of a Broken Heart, and Start Here Now: An Open-Hearted Guide to the Path and Practice of Meditation. Her new book is The Four Noble Truths of Love: Buddhist Wisdom for Modern Relationships, which we talk about in our interview. She is a founder of Lionheart Press and a renowned meditation teacher who leads the Open Heart Project, the world's largest online only meditation center. Learn more about her at susanpiver.com. Episode 88: Four Noble Truths of Love with Susan PiverThis Earth Day, I’ll be sitting down with one of the most inspiring voices on climate and the future—author Kim Stanley Robinson—for a live online conversation hosted by UC Berkeley’s School of Journalism.We’ll explore how his work offers real hope in the face of the climate crisis—a chance to imagine not just what could go wrong—but what could go right.It’s free, April 22nd at 5:30pm Pacific. Sign up here to watch on Zoom.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

Oct 12, 2021 • 26min
Becoming Loving-Kindness - A Guided Meditation with Elaine Jackson #87
Elaine Jackson guides a heart-warming Buddhist loving-kindness meditation (metta meditation). This meditation uses visualization to bring about our natural state of loving awareness for ourselves and all beings.In addition to today's meditation, Elaine joined us for an interview last week to talk about how to integrate the wisdom of Buddhism into our relationships. Ep. 86 - Buddhist Relationship Advice with Elaine Jackson.Ep. 87 - Buddhist Loving-Kindness Meditation with Elaine JacksonElaine Jackson is the co-founder of the Vajrapani Institute, teaches at Buddhist meditation centers throughout the world, and completed a 3-year meditation retreat in 2014. She has studied with many masters and has been a student of Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche since 1977. Read more about Elaine and the Vajrapani Institute here.This Earth Day, I’ll be sitting down with one of the most inspiring voices on climate and the future—author Kim Stanley Robinson—for a live online conversation hosted by UC Berkeley’s School of Journalism.We’ll explore how his work offers real hope in the face of the climate crisis—a chance to imagine not just what could go wrong—but what could go right.It’s free, April 22nd at 5:30pm Pacific. Sign up here to watch on Zoom.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

Oct 5, 2021 • 56min
Buddhist Relationship Advice with Elaine Jackson #86
How do we integrate the wisdom of Buddhism into our intimate relationships? Elaine Jackson shares Buddhist relationship advice for navigating arguments selflessly, knowing when a relationship is over, dealing with divorce, how to meditate while parenting, and relating to a partner who's on a different spiritual path. Episode 86: Buddhist Relationship Advice with Elaine JacksonThis Earth Day, I’ll be sitting down with one of the most inspiring voices on climate and the future—author Kim Stanley Robinson—for a live online conversation hosted by UC Berkeley’s School of Journalism.We’ll explore how his work offers real hope in the face of the climate crisis—a chance to imagine not just what could go wrong—but what could go right.It’s free, April 22nd at 5:30pm Pacific. Sign up here to watch on Zoom.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

Sep 28, 2021 • 24min
Guided Meditation on Pleasure #85
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 EnlightenmentThis Earth Day, I’ll be sitting down with one of the most inspiring voices on climate and the future—author Kim Stanley Robinson—for a live online conversation hosted by UC Berkeley’s School of Journalism.We’ll explore how his work offers real hope in the face of the climate crisis—a chance to imagine not just what could go wrong—but what could go right.It’s free, April 22nd at 5:30pm Pacific. Sign up here to watch on Zoom.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

Sep 21, 2021 • 30min
Pleasure and Buddhism: Food, Sex, and Netflix on the Path to Enlightenment #84
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 EnlightenmentThis Earth Day, I’ll be sitting down with one of the most inspiring voices on climate and the future—author Kim Stanley Robinson—for a live online conversation hosted by UC Berkeley’s School of Journalism.We’ll explore how his work offers real hope in the face of the climate crisis—a chance to imagine not just what could go wrong—but what could go right.It’s free, April 22nd at 5:30pm Pacific. Sign up here to watch on Zoom.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

Sep 14, 2021 • 29min
Guided Meditation on Four Levels of Happiness #83
A daily meditation on the four levels of happiness in Buddhism. Investigate the varying depths of happiness you get from sensory pleasures, positive states of mind, meditation, and the very nature of reality.Episode 73: Guided Meditation: Four Levels of Happiness in BuddhismEpisode 72: Four Kinds of Happiness with Sangye KhadroThis Earth Day, I’ll be sitting down with one of the most inspiring voices on climate and the future—author Kim Stanley Robinson—for a live online conversation hosted by UC Berkeley’s School of Journalism.We’ll explore how his work offers real hope in the face of the climate crisis—a chance to imagine not just what could go wrong—but what could go right.It’s free, April 22nd at 5:30pm Pacific. Sign up here to watch on Zoom.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

Sep 7, 2021 • 22min
Four Kinds of Happiness with Ven. Sangye Khadro #82
Explore the four kinds of happiness in Buddhism with Ven. Sangye Khadro (Kathleen McDonald). This episode offers an opportunity to reflect on where we derive our happiness from and how we can live happier lives by understanding how each kind of happiness relates to desire, attachment, compassion, and our own meditation practice.Episode 82: Four Kinds of Happiness with Sangye KhadroThis Earth Day, I’ll be sitting down with one of the most inspiring voices on climate and the future—author Kim Stanley Robinson—for a live online conversation hosted by UC Berkeley’s School of Journalism.We’ll explore how his work offers real hope in the face of the climate crisis—a chance to imagine not just what could go wrong—but what could go right.It’s free, April 22nd at 5:30pm Pacific. Sign up here to watch on Zoom.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

Aug 31, 2021 • 1h
A Biologist and a Buddhist Monk on the Nature of Reality: A Conversation with Geshe Namdak and Dr. Rupert Sheldrake #81
A biologist and a Buddhist monk have a conversation on how science can make sense of rebirth, emptiness, and karma, the origins of consciousness and creativity, and how modern science's understanding of the nature of reality benefits from the wisdom of contemplative traditions.Rupert Sheldrake, PhD, is a biologist and author best known for his hypothesis of morphic resonance. At Cambridge University he worked in developmental biology as a Fellow of Clare College. He was Principal Plant Physiologist at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics in Hyderabad, India. From 2005 to 2010 he was Director of the Perrott-Warrick project for research on unexplained human and animal abilities, funded by Trinity College, Cambridge.Geshe Tenzin Namdak is a Buddhist monk, scholar and teacher whose education and life experience bridges both East and West. Born in the Netherlands, he graduated with a degree in hydrology and initially worked as an environmental researcher. He encountered Buddhism at Maitreya Institute in 1993 and took ordination from HH Dalai Lama before engaging in his formal studies in Buddhist philosophy and psychology at Sera Jey Monastic university, South India. In May 2017 he was awarded the Geshe degree (equivalent to Ph.D), the first Westerner to complete the entire twenty-year Geshe programme.Episode 81: A Biologist and a Buddhist Monk on the Nature of Reality with Geshe Namdak and Dr. Rupert SheldrakeThis Earth Day, I’ll be sitting down with one of the most inspiring voices on climate and the future—author Kim Stanley Robinson—for a live online conversation hosted by UC Berkeley’s School of Journalism.We’ll explore how his work offers real hope in the face of the climate crisis—a chance to imagine not just what could go wrong—but what could go right.It’s free, April 22nd at 5:30pm Pacific. Sign up here to watch on Zoom.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

Aug 24, 2021 • 44min
Compassionate AI with Kristian Simsarian #80
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 SimsarianThis Earth Day, I’ll be sitting down with one of the most inspiring voices on climate and the future—author Kim Stanley Robinson—for a live online conversation hosted by UC Berkeley’s School of Journalism.We’ll explore how his work offers real hope in the face of the climate crisis—a chance to imagine not just what could go wrong—but what could go right.It’s free, April 22nd at 5:30pm Pacific. Sign up here to watch on Zoom.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


