Several years ago, I read Venerable Thubten Chodron's book, Working with Anger, and I found it quite inspiring. A couple of months ago, her schedule finally allowed time to speak with me. We talked exclusively about anger, what it is, why it's harmful, and how we can work with anger in ways that heal relationships, rather than destroy them. She touches on anger's role in some of the most challenging situations, like gender bias and war protests, and how we can deal with these situations courageously and skillfully. 

Venerable Thubten Chodron is an author, teacher, and the founder and abbess of Sravasti Abbey, one of the first Tibetan Buddhist training monasteries for Western monks and nuns in the U.S. She teaches worldwide and is known for her practical and entertaining explanations of how to apply Buddhist teachings in daily life. She's the author of many excellent books on Buddhist philosophy and meditation. Venerable Chodron is currently co-authoring, with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, an extraordinary multi-volume series of teachings on the Buddhist path, The Library of Wisdom and Compassion. 

Episode 165: Venerable Thubten Chodron on Working with Anger

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Tenzin Chogkyi talks to Scott Snibbe about his new book, How to Train a Happy Mind, at the Medicine for Nightmares bookstore in San Francisco.

Episode 164: Tenzin Chogkyi & Scott Snibbe Medicine for Nightmares SF How to Train a Happy Mind

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What do you do when you’re alone? When you’re scared, anxious, lonely, afraid, or feeling strong craving? In our guided meditation, we explore the Buddhist view on refuge and how to find a deep source of strength and peace within our own minds.

Episode 112: Finding Refuge in the Mind—A Guided Meditation

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What do you do when you’re alone? When you’re scared, anxious, lonely, or afraid, when you feel strong craving? What do you turn to? In this episode, we look at where our mind runs when we feel pain, when we don’t feel balanced or whole. We’ll examine the Buddhist view on this subject that reveals a deep source of strength and support within our own minds accessible to each of us any time we need it.

Episode 14:  What do You do When You're Alone? [re-record]

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Venerable Robina Courtin guides a beautiful Tara meditation on hope that uses visualization and Buddhist teachings.

Episode 163: Tara Meditation on Hope—Ven. Robina Courtin

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Our very first podcast guest, Venerable Robina Courtin is back in today's timely episode on how to deal with the despair and hopelessness many people feel today about war, injustice, inequity, and the environment.  Venerable Robina was ordained as a Buddhist nun in the late 1970s. She's worked closely with her teachers Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche, to help spread Buddhist wisdom as an editorial director of wisdom, publications, editor of Mandala magazine, executive director of Liberation Prison Project,  and the lively, charismatic touring-teacher of Buddhism.

Episode 162:  How to Heal Despair with Venerable Robina Courtin

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In New York City, a couple months ago, I had the honor of sharing a public conversation with one of my Buddhist heroes, the renowned author and scholar Robert Thurman. In this episode's conversation, we share an edited recording from that evening, talking about everything from overcoming self-hatred, enjoying pleasure without attachment, getting ghosted by the Dalai Lama, and how one might come to have compassion for someone as dangerous and deadly as Vladimir Putin.

Episode 161:  Robert Thurman & Scott Snibbe at Tibet House: How to Train a Happy Mind

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A meditation practice of self reflection, taking control of the mental cause and effect that's normally unconscious: the habits and activities conditioned by evolution, our upbringing, society and the media. This is a practice you can do at the end of each day: reviewing your day, rejoicing in the positive, and finding ways to sincerely forgive yourself for anything that you regret, so you can sleep better and be your best self the next day.

Episode 12: Guided Meditation—Mental Cause And Effect

Four 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.

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Science has greater and greater mastery in understanding and controlling physical cause and effect, from planets to particles, but we are only starting to understand cause and effect in our minds. Evolution, habits, and society all affect our behavior. How do we gain conscious control of our behavior, much less our thoughts? One method is a daily practice of self-appreciation and self-forgiveness that lets us release regret and pain to face each day with renewed presence and joy.

Episode 11: Mental Cause and Effect

Four 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.

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Yangsi Rinpoche's gave a beautiful talk a couple of months ago with the intriguing title "Contentment Plus Ambition." He was generous enough to sit down with me afterwards for an interview about the same topic in which he talks about how to practice real self-compassion and even how we can create the causes for world peace.
 
Yangsi Rinpoche studied at Sera Jey Monastery in south India until 1995 when he graduated with the highest degree of Geshe Lharampa. Rinpoche now lives in Portland, Oregon where he's president and professor of Buddhist studies at Maitripa College, a Buddhist Institute of higher education, striving to integrate modern academics with ancient wisdom.

Episode 160: Contentment and Ambition with Yangsi Rinpoche

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