How to Train a Happy Mind
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.
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.