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 From August 28 to 31, Scott Snibbe is leading an in-person meditation retreat at Vajrapani Institute. We’ll explore antidotes to anxiety, fear, and lo...
Dec 22, 2020•25 min•Ep. 45
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 happy meaningful life. People who practice the Stages of the Path in the Tibetan style normally revie...
Dec 08, 2020•50 min•Ep. 44
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 Interdependent Self From August 28 to 31, Scott Snibbe is leading an in-person meditation retreat at Vajrapani Ins...
Nov 24, 2020•44 min•Ep. 43
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's far richer and interconnected with reality and with others. Episode 42: Who Am I? From August 28 to 31, Scott...
Nov 17, 2020•37 min•Ep. 42
"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 From August 28 to 31, Scott Snibbe is leading an in-person meditation retreat at Vajrapani Institute. We’ll explore antidotes to anxiety, fear, and loneliness—and cultivate the deeper cau...
Nov 04, 2020•45 min•Ep. 41
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 From August 28 to 31, Scott Snibbe is leading an in-person meditation retreat at Vajrapani Institute. We’ll explore antidotes to anxiety, fear, and lonel...
Oct 30, 2020•21 min•Ep. 40
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 Reality From August 28 to 31, Scott Snibbe is l...
Oct 27, 2020•28 min•Ep. 39
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 th...
Oct 20, 2020•32 min•Ep. 38
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 Exist From August 28 to 31, Scott Snibbe is leading an in-person meditatio...
Oct 13, 2020•30 min•Ep. 37
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) From August 28 to 31, Scott Snibbe is leading an in-person meditation retreat at Vajrapani...
Oct 06, 2020•19 min•Ep. 36
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 From August 28 to 31, Scott Snibbe is leading an in-person meditation retreat at Vajrapani Institute. We’ll explore antidotes to ...
Sep 29, 2020•34 min•Ep. 35
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 From August 28 to 31, Scott Snibbe is leading an in-person meditation retreat at Vajrapani Institute. We’ll explore antidotes to anxiety, fear, and loneliness...
Sep 22, 2020•22 min•Ep. 34
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 Bu...
Sep 15, 2020•39 min•Ep. 33
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 From August 28 to 31, Scott Snibbe is leading an in-person meditation retreat at Vajrapani Institute. We’ll explore antidotes to anxiety, fear, and loneliness—and cultivate the deeper causes of a happy mind; connected, loving relationships; and a better world. ...
Sep 08, 2020•16 min•Ep. 32
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 pleasure and pain into engines of love and compassion. Episode 31. Universalizing: Transforming Pain and P...
Sep 01, 2020•25 min•Ep. 31
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 happiness and pleasure for ourselves and those close to us. Instead, we willingly open ourselves to the suff...
Aug 18, 2020•26 min•Ep. 30
A 15-minute guided meditation on compassion: the wish to take away others’ suffering. Episode 29. Guided Compassion Meditation From August 28 to 31, Scott Snibbe is leading an in-person meditation retreat at Vajrapani Institute. We’ll explore antidotes to anxiety, fear, and loneliness—and cultivate the deeper causes of a happy mind; connected, loving relationships; and a better world. It all happens in the beautiful redwood forests of California, while enjoying delicious vegetarian meals and mee...
Aug 11, 2020•17 min•Ep. 29
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? From August 28 to 31, Scott Snibbe is leading an in-person meditation retreat at Vajrapani Institute. We’ll explore antidotes to anxiety, fear, and loneliness—and cultivate the deeper causes of a happy mi...
Aug 04, 2020•27 min•Ep. 28
Khen Rinpoche Geshe Tashi Tsering shares his profound insights on a secular understanding of karma, the importance of analytical meditation, and a warning that the popularity of meditation today might just kill it. E pisode 27. Khen Rinpoche Geshe Tashi Tsering on Karma, Analytical Meditation, and Mindfulness From August 28 to 31, Scott Snibbe is leading an in-person meditation retreat at Vajrapani Institute. We’ll explore antidotes to anxiety, fear, and loneliness—and cultivate the deeper cause...
Jul 28, 2020•38 min•Ep. 27
A guided meditation on love, or loving-kindness, the expansive form of love wishing happiness not only to friends and family but to all beings everywhere including our enemies. Episode 26. Guided Meditation on Love From August 28 to 31, Scott Snibbe is leading an in-person meditation retreat at Vajrapani Institute. We’ll explore antidotes to anxiety, fear, and loneliness—and cultivate the deeper causes of a happy mind; connected, loving relationships; and a better world. It all happens in the be...
Jul 21, 2020•23 min•Ep. 26
Love is complex in our culture, tied up with finding a single person to satisfy our huge list of needs and dreams who we then grant the exclusive gift of our affection. But love—loving-kindness from the Buddhist perspective—is simpler, free from attachment. It's wishing others to be happy. Episode 25. What Is Love? From August 28 to 31, Scott Snibbe is leading an in-person meditation retreat at Vajrapani Institute. We’ll explore antidotes to anxiety, fear, and loneliness—and cultivate the deeper...
Jul 14, 2020•22 min•Ep. 25
On Ten Percent Happier a few weeks ago, The Dalai Lama described to Dan Harris a “simple meditation” for these times. This guided meditation is an interpretation of the two meditations His Holiness recommends in the morning: meditating on the mind and meditating on the kindness of others. Episode 24. The Dalai Lama's "Simple Meditation" From August 28 to 31, Scott Snibbe is leading an in-person meditation retreat at Vajrapani Institute. We’ll explore antidotes to anxiety, fear, and loneliness—an...
Jul 07, 2020•29 min•Ep. 24
The Buddhist meditation on equanimity teaches a technique to eliminate bias and expand our love and concern from family and friends to strangers and even enemies. It tames our fierce attachment to loved ones and our anger toward enemies for a stabler, happier mind and a more just and equitable world. Episode 23: Guided Meditation: Transforming Bias with Equanimity From August 28 to 31, Scott Snibbe is leading an in-person meditation retreat at Vajrapani Institute. We’ll explore antidotes to anxi...
Jun 30, 2020•20 min•Ep. 23
In everyday life we ’ re torn between fierce attachment to our loved ones and anger at those that give us trouble. But Buddhism, democracy, and social justice tell us that all people deserve the same rights and freedoms: we ’ re all equal and we all deserve happiness. The Buddhist meditation on equanimity, applied to our everyday relationships and the painful daily news, teaches us a technique of “ spiritual democracy ” for developing healthy feelings of connection to others — even those we most...
Jun 23, 2020•30 min•Ep. 22
Venerable Robina Courtin, Buddhist nun and advocate for prisoner’s rights, on how activists can leverage meditation and mind training, how Buddhism functions as a science of the mind, and how being a Buddhist doesn’t mean being a pushover. Episode 21. Venerable Robina Courtin — Buddha's Science of Mind From August 28 to 31, Scott Snibbe is leading an in-person meditation retreat at Vajrapani Institute. We’ll explore antidotes to anxiety, fear, and loneliness—and cultivate the deeper causes of a ...
Jun 17, 2020•49 min•Ep. 21
A guided meditation on fighting the systemic racism against Black Americans through compassionate action. Episode 20. Guided Meditation: Fighting Systemic Racism through Compassionate Action #BlackLivesMatter From August 28 to 31, Scott Snibbe is leading an in-person meditation retreat at Vajrapani Institute. We’ll explore antidotes to anxiety, fear, and loneliness—and cultivate the deeper causes of a happy mind; connected, loving relationships; and a better world. It all happens in the beautifu...
Jun 09, 2020•32 min•Ep. 20
A guided analytical meditation through Skeptic’s Path meditations, based on Tibetan Buddhism’s Lamrim Stages of the Path. Each meditation is part of an adventure for the mind to bring about inner joy and purpose considering Life’s Preciousness, Impermanence, Cause & Effect, Refuge, Suffering, and Renunciation. Episode 19. The Adventure So Far: Analytic Meditation on the Stages of the Path From August 28 to 31, Scott Snibbe is leading an in-person meditation retreat at Vajrapani Institute. We...
Jun 02, 2020•50 min•Ep. 19
Dostoevsky once said, “The best way to keep a prisoner from escaping is to make sure he never knows he's in prison.” This is the point of meditating on renunciation: to gain a clear-eyed sense of our state of mind right now, with many moments of frustration and anger and impatience and craving: feelings that we'd rather be free from. And turning away from these delusions toward liberation, a the true source of refuge that we can find within our own mind. Episode 18. Guided Meditation: Renunciati...
May 26, 2020•25 min•Ep. 18
What do The Matrix and Jerry Seinfeld have to do with renouncing suffering? Episode 17. The Red Pill of Renunciation - Embracing Reality As It Is From August 28 to 31, Scott Snibbe is leading an in-person meditation retreat at Vajrapani Institute. We’ll explore antidotes to anxiety, fear, and loneliness—and cultivate the deeper causes of a happy mind; connected, loving relationships; and a better world. It all happens in the beautiful redwood forests of California, while enjoying delicious veget...
May 19, 2020•28 min•Ep. 17
A clear-eyed meditation on suffering: both what suffering is, and the mental source of suffering in our delusions of attachment, anger, and self-centered ignorance. We practice the antidotes to these delusions, giving us tools for a more balanced, less self-centered view of our experience that offers sustained stability and happiness through life’s challenges and desires. Episode 16: Guided Meditation - Letting Go of Suffering If you're enjoying our podcast, please leave us a rating or review in...
May 12, 2020•29 min•Ep. 16
