What would you do if someone pulled a gun on you? I don't think any of us really know until we're actually put into that situation. Many years ago, someone pulled a gun on me and I was surprised by how I responded. In this episode of How to Train a Happy Mind, I share that terrifying experience and reflect on how an attitude of love and compassion, at least in this one very specific instance, may have saved my life.

This episode is a recording of a talk and guided meditation I gave just a few days ago in our train a Happy Mind community, which meets every Sunday morning for live discussion and meditation. If you'd like to become part of that community, you can learn more at trainahappymind.org.

Before I play the episode, I want to offer a clear disclaimer. I am not advocating in any way that anyone respond as I did in a situation like this. In general, personal safety guidance emphasizes that if someone threatens you with a weapon, the safest response is usually to stay calm and do what they ask.

This story describes a very specific and unusual situation, where what the person wanted would have caused even more harm. Every situation is different, and there’s no single right or safe response. Please don’t take this episode as personal advice about your own—or anyone else’s—behavior. Instead, take it as a story: one that illustrates how we train our minds toward nonviolence, compassion, and love.

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If you’d like to practice with others and bring these ideas into your life, join our weekly meditation community with Scott.

Tsherin Sherpa is a remarkable Himalayan artist who draws on Buddhist iconography to explore sexuality, gender, consumerism, and identity. I first met him 25 years ago, when he was teaching thangka painting in the San Francisco Bay Area and I was a young Buddhist hoping to learn how to paint devotional images. Since then, Tsherin has become one of the most respected contemporary artists in the world, representing Nepal at the Venice Biennale.

For the full 90-minute dialogue, visit trainahappymind.org and join our Train a Happy Mind community.

To watch the 30-minute edited version, featuring images of the art we discuss, go to our YouTube channel.

Episode 213: Art & Emptiness: Tsherin Sherpa on Tradition, Identity, & Freedom

If you’d like to practice with others and bring these ideas into your life, join our weekly meditation community with Scott.

A guided meditation on the preciousness of our next 24 hours alive and our unique place in the universe as science understands it: intelligent, self-aware beings at the end of 14 billion years’ cosmic and biological evolution.

Episode 5: Guided Meditation on The Preciousness of Life

Themes:

• Self-awareness
• Gratitude
• Stabilizing the breath
• How to be happy
• Loving others

Watch this episode on our YouTube channel

If you’d like to practice with others and bring these ideas into your life, join our weekly meditation community with Scott.

“It is not more surprising to be born twice than once,” Voltaire once said.

In this episode we contemplate the miracle of existing at all, from our place at the end of our universe’s 14 billion years’ evolution to the simple joy of another 24 hours alive that Thich Nhat Hanh describes.

Episode 4: The Preciousness of Life from Cosmos to the Kardashians

In this talk Scott explores:

• How to appreciate life more
• Why money can't buy you happiness
• How to find satisfaction and meaning in your life
• How to stop worrying
• Why meditation is so powerful
• How to become self-aware

Watch this episode as a YouTube video

If you’d like to practice with others and bring these ideas into your life, join our weekly meditation community with Scott.

Laurie Anderson leads a meditation on death and rebirth, guiding you through the Buddhist understanding of death, the bardo, and a joyous rebirth. These tracks come from Songs from the Bardo, an album inspired by the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Meditating on death is a powerful Buddhist practice that enhances gratitude, helps you embrace impermanence, and increases mindfulness.

Laurie Anderson is one of our greatest living artists. Her work includes spoken word and performance, top-charting albums and music videos, digital art, film, virtual reality, and the invention of ingenious instruments like the tape bow violin and the talking stick. She’s won the Grammy Award and many other honors, and is currently the subject of a fantastic solo show at the Hirschhorn Museum in Washington, D.C.

Episode 107: Guided Death and Rebirth Meditation with Laurie Anderson

If you’d like to practice with others and bring these ideas into your life, join our weekly meditation community with Scott.

One of our most popular episodes of all time is our interview with artist and musician Laurie Anderson. Today, we're sharing a new, unedited version with almost a half hour of additional material.

For anyone unfamiliar with Laurie’s work, many people consider her one of our planet’s greatest living artists. Her work spans spoken word and performance, top-charting albums and music videos, digital art, film, virtual reality, and the invention of ingenious instruments like the tape bow violin and the talking stick.

Laurie’s won a Grammy Award and many other honors, and she continues to be a huge inspiration for new generations of artists and musicians all over the world. She’s also a longtime student of Buddhism and meditation.

In our interview, she talks about her personal path with Buddhism, her long relationship with Lou Reed, and how she coped with his death. She shares insights on how to approach art with a beginner’s mind, and how to stay present with suffering without letting it overwhelm you.

Episode 212: Laurie Anderson's Buddhism, Art, Meditation, and Death as Adventure [Full Uncut Interview]

If you’d like to practice with others and bring these ideas into your life, join our weekly meditation community with Scott.

A complete guided meditation session expanding your compassion, stabilizing concentration on the breath, and observing your thoughts.

Episode 3: Guided Meditation: Stabilizing the Mind and Watching Thoughts

If you’d like to practice with others and bring these ideas into your life, join our weekly meditation community with Scott.

Over the past few years meditation has become popular as a way to help reduce stress, be focused at work, sleep better, or simply relax. Yet meditation isn’t just a tool to improve focus or relax, but a way to strengthen the positive qualities we all naturally possess: compassion, kindness, generosity, patience, humor, and finding joy in everyday life.

This episode explores this higher purpose of meditation through the less familiar technique of analytic meditation that uses stories, thoughts, and emotions to steer our minds toward happiness, meaning, and benefiting others.

Episode 2: What Is Meditation?

If you’d like to practice with others and bring these ideas into your life, join our weekly meditation community with Scott.