How to Train a Happy Mind

"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 RealityThis 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 

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 RealityThis 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 

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, and universe.Episode 39. The Interdependent Nature of RealityThis 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 

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 us a meditative glimpse of how it truly exists.This episode is the second in a series exploring the Buddhist topic of “emptiness,” or how things exist through parts, causes, and the minds that perceive them.Episode 38. Guided Meditation: How Things ExistThis 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 

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 smartphone.Episode 37. How Things ExistThis 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 

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 McDonald)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 

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 MindThis 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 

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 OthersThis 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 

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 racism and Anti-Blackness today.Dr. Willis has a distinguished career as a scholar and teacher of Buddhism that spans fifty years. She first met Tibetan Buddhists in India and Nepal when she was nineteen and went on to earn degrees in Philosophy and Indic and Buddhist Studies from Cornell and Columbia Universities. Dr. Willis has taught Buddhist Studies and Philosophy at UC Santa Cruz, the University of Virginia and Wesleyan University. Now in retirement, she teaches part-time at Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Georgia and leads workshops exploring Race and Racism through a Buddhist Lens. In her academic and popular books and essays, Dr. Willis writes with moving precision on Tibetan Buddhism, the lives of Buddhist saints, Women and Buddhism, and Buddhism and Race. Her latest book is the compelling essay collection Dharma Matters: Women, Race, and Tantra. Dr. Willis’ unique personal story is captured in her memoir Dreaming Me: Black, Baptist, and Buddhist—One Woman’s Spiritual Journey. In crisp, moving words, Dreaming Me shares Dr. Willis’ experience as a Black woman raised in Birmingham, Alabama who suffered regular neighborhood raids by the Ku Klux Klan and who marched with Dr. Martin Luther King there in 1963. Her story takes incredible turns in brushes with the Black Panthers and as one of the first westerners to dive deeply into Tibetan Buddhist study and practice.  Dr. Willis’ work has been praised by TIME Magazine as one of six “spiritual innovators for the new millennium,” and by Ebony Magazine, who named her one of its “Power 150” most influential African Americans. We spoke with Dr. Willis by video conference from Georgia last month.Episode 33. Be Willing to Get Woke - Interview with Dr. Jan WillisThis 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 

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 PleasuresThis 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