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A Skeptic’s Path to Enlightenment brings the inner science of Buddhist philosophy and meditation to twenty-first century people hungry for happy, meaningful lives. In our weekly podcast, we share talks, guided meditations, and interviews exploring happiness, love, compassion, relationships, family, politics, technology, and work. Skeptic’s Path explores powerful "analytical meditation" techniques that use imagination, emotions, and critical inquiry to probe our inner and outer realities and ...
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A Skeptic's Path to Enlightenment
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Compassion with Ven. Sangye Khadro and Scott Snibbe
51:03
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Last year I had the privilege to participate in a dialogue on compassion with my teacher, Venerable Sangye Khadro who is also well known by her Western name Venerable Kathleen McDonald. Venerable Sangye Khadro is the author of How to Meditate and Awakening the Kind Heart. She's a very active Buddhist teacher and a fully ordained nun, which is the h…
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Free Will, Consciousness, & Reality with Dr. Anil Seth
1:07:12
1:07:12
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Dr. Anil Seth has written an extraordinary book called Being You — A New Science of Consciousness. I had a chance to talk to him recently in an event sponsored by Science & Wisdom Live. Dr. Seth is one of the world's foremost researchers on consciousness, and in our interview he touches on defining consciousness from a scientific perspective, wheth…
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The Interdependent Self - Guided Meditation
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43:12
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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. …
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Who Am I? Happiness, Selfishness, and Self-ness
36:15
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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 …
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Kim Stanley Robinson and Robert Thurman: Climate, Politics, and the Dalai Lama
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This is a very special episode in which I had the chance to introduce two of my heroes: Buddhist scholar Robert Thurman and science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson. They shared a lively conversation together that you now have the chance to eavesdrop on (with their permission). In their dialogue, they talk about when violence is legitimate in si…
The Buddhist understanding of how things exist, called emptiness, 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…
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Guided Meditation: Exploring the Texture of the Mind
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Buddhist teacher Emily Hsu leads an analytical meditation that explores the inner landscape—texture—of the mind and the differences between constructive and unconstructive mental states. Episode 127: Guided Meditation: Exploring the Texture of the Mind Support the showBy Scott Snibbe
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The Buddhist Understanding of the Mind with Emily Hsu
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I've known Emily Hsu since she first started teaching Buddhist philosophy and meditation at the Tse Chen Ling Center for Tibetan Buddhism 15 years ago in San Francisco. She's a lucid, humble, and kind teacher who speaks from both deep education and rich personal experience. Emily Hsu completed the seven year FPMT Masters Program at Institute Lama T…
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—b…
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How Things Exist: Emptiness, Dependent Origination, and your Smartphone
28:26
28:26
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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 th…
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Meditation on Equanimity for Parents and Teens
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Buddhist counselor Richard Prinz leads an analytical meditation on equanimity to develop compassion, introspection, love, and non-attachment for teenagers and their parents. Episode 125: Meditation on Equanimity for Parents and Teens with Richard Prinz Support the showBy Scott Snibbe, Richard Prinz
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Parenting Teens with Buddhist Family Counselor Richard Prinz
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Teenagers face a unique and overwhelming set of problems today, from climate change to social media to isolation induced by the pandemic. Richard Prinz is a marriage, child, and family counselor who has worked as a teen counselor in the Cupertino, California public schools for over 20 years. He's also a longtime Buddhist practitioner and a good fri…
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Universalizing our Problems and Pleasures - Guided Meditation
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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 Two years ago, we created A Skeptic’s Path to Enlightenment to share the rich tradition of Tibetan Buddhist ana…
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Universalizing: Transforming Pain and Pleasure into Love and Compassion
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23:54
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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 “universaliza…
Francesca Hampton leads a loving-kindness meditation suitable for both children and adults alike that helps the mind become calm, loving, and clear. Episode 123: Guided Meditation for Kids Support the showBy Scott Snibbe
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How to Teach Children Meditation — Francesca Hampton
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Francesca Hampton is a writer and lifelong Tibetan Buddhist practitioner who's written a wonderful new children's book on meditation for kids called Leo Learns to Meditate. As a parent myself, I've found it hard to find resources like these, so if you are a parent, I think you'll get a lot out of this episode. Even if you're not, I think you'll fin…
A 15-minute guided meditation on compassion: the wish to take away others’ suffering. Episode 29. Guided Compassion Meditation 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 episode…
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? Two years ago, we created A Skeptic’s Path to Enlighte…
As we enjoy the pleasures of our Thanksgiving meals in the U.S., this guided meditations shows how can we use pleasure in our meditation practice. Buddhism offers specific techniques for meditating on pleasure as a way to deepen our qualities of concentration, fearlessness, loving-kindness, and even our understanding of emptiness, the ultimate natu…
Professor Robert Thurman, who the New York Times calls “the leading American expert on Tibetan Buddhism” is back in this week's episode to talk about his wonderful new book Wisdom Is Bliss. Learn why the Buddha was an educator and scientist, not a religious prophet; and why Buddhism isn't a belief system, but a direct experience that reveals the pu…
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. In the language of Buddhism, metta or maitri. Episode 26. Guided Meditation on Love Two years ago, we created A Skeptic’s Path to Enlightenment to share the rich tradition o…
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? Two years ago, we created A Skept…
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Tantric Meditation on Compassion and Wisdom with Rob Preece
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Rob Preece leads a Buddhist tantra meditation on Green Tara. This powerful feminine figure is an emanation of our own potential for compassionate, wisdom energy. Episode 120: Tantric Meditation on Compassion and Wisdom Support the showBy Rob Preece, Scott Snibbe
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The Psychology of Buddhist Tantra with Rob Preece
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Author and pyschotherapist Rob Preece shares his extensive knowledge on the sensitive topic of Buddhist tantra, the importance of the body in Buddhist practice, how exercise and nature relate to tantric practices, the role of sex in Vajrayana Buddhism, and how we embrace our different dimensions of gender in meditation and everyday life. Rob Preece…
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Transforming Bias with Equanimity -- Guided Meditation
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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…
