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I had one of the most thrilling conversations of my life a couple months ago at New York’s Tibet House with artist and musician Laurie Anderson. I’ve known and admired Laurie for years, and you may remember the deeply personal interview she gave on our podcast a couple years ago, where she talked about grief, joy, and the freedoms and responsibilities of being an artist. More recently, we talked about my new book, How to Train a Happy Mind, and how the tools of analytical meditation have helped both of us cultivate lives of meaning and satisfaction, and also foster transformation and even joy through our lives’ tragedies.

For those of you unfamiliar with her work, Laurie Anderson is one of our greatest living artists. Her work includes spoken word and performance, top charting albums, music videos, digital art, film, virtual reality, and the invention of ingenious instruments like the tape bow violin and the talking stick. Laurie has won the Grammy Award and many other honors, and her artwork is regularly shown in major museums and galleries worldwide.

[00:02:18] Laurie Anderson: Scott, first of all, thank you for writing this incredibly beautiful book. This is my copy, and it’s filled with folded paper, I’m a folder, so I can read it a few different times, depending on where the folds are. It’s so full of practical things, and I’m so happy to be here.

When did we meet, Scott?

[00:02:41] Scott Snibbe: You may not even know, but the first time we met was at the Boston Film and Video Foundation when I was an intern studying video and animation in 1988. You came and gave one of your extraordinary talks. But then we got to know each other better when I was working at Interval Research, which is a wonderful kind of media, art technology lab. Then we got to spend more time because you were collaborating, making original music instruments, and other things.

[00:03:10] Laurie Anderson: I was just pretending to know more than I did because it was part of a big organization that was making a lot of things and you were very, busy doing, amazing work with haptics. Talk a little bit about that.

[00:03:29] Scott Snibbe: This is synthetic, artificial touch. This was a really fun place that I got to work. You tasted a lot of it because this is a job where they only checked in on you once a year. Also, you made your own criteria to decide how to evaluate yourself. It’s quite a free place. One of the things we figured out is that even though you have one dimension, music’s one dimensional—but not in that way.

Laurie Anderson: Not in that way, it’s too complicated a question.

Scott Snibbe: Anyway, as an analogy to music, we realized that touch was the same thing. You could have just one motor vibrating, but you could simulate that motor connected to anything. Inside you could feel, anything, a human body and so on.

[00:04:14] Laurie Anderson: I thought it was just so exciting that there could be another art form that would give you so many thoughts and feelings. Are there art forms like that? Fashion . . .

[00:04:33] Scott Snibbe: The art of massage. It’s pretty rare. I had a big sculptural piece, this big piece that amplifies your breath called Blow Up. As part of it, we went to visit high school students. It’s hard to engage high school students, so we’d start with a question and ask everybody, What is sculpture? One student said, It’s something you could touch if the guards would let you. Sculpture is tactile, but we’re not allowed to experience it that way.

[00:05:08] Laurie Anderson: That’s so absurd, isn’t it? That there isn’t a museum of touch that you can really use, begin to feel what that might be like. Now I’m trying to think of whether you address anything like that in your book. Seems like there’s a lot about other senses and ways to do it.

Also, I want to just say that I really hope there’s time for you to read one of these meditations because I don’t know why you’re here, but my motivation to coming to something like this would be to find to get something practical in a way. I think that living these days is just so awfully hard that I try to glean things from people. It can even just be one sentence.

Who am I?

[00:06:14] Scott Snibbe: Laurie asked me what would I like people to get out of this evening and I just thought about some of the times I’ve gotten something out of an evening or a book. Often it is just one sentence. I was thinking about the thing that really turned me on to Buddhism, was my brother kept sending me books. My brother became a Buddhist before me, and I was quite scared of it, because I thought if you become a Buddhist you lose yourself and your personality.

[00:06:40] Laurie Anderson: Did he lose himself?

[00:06:42] Scott Snibbe: Well, I was worried. He’s a punk rocker, skater, photojournalist, with a great sense of humor, so I was worried he’d lose those things. But he didn’t. I didn’t understand the first 20 books he sent me about Buddhism. But the 21st was a book by Thich Nhat Hanh, and there’s one sentence I remember from that book. I have it in the book, in one of the last chapters. What he said was, “you are only made of non-you elements.”

You are only made of non-you elements.

There are many kind of bad translations of Buddhist ideas. Emptiness is one of the worst translations, because it is the opposite; it means total and utter interdependence. So that sentence awakened me to that idea. Oh yeah, it’s two little cells of my parents, plus everything my mother ate and drank and everything I’ve eaten.

Emptiness is one of the worst translations, because it is the opposite; it means total and utter interdependence.

Then on your mind’s level, we won’t speak any words tonight that we made up. Everything we know and hear, we know from someone else. It’s very nice, especially right now, because there’s an awful lot of separateness we’re all feeling. This is the ultimate antidote from the Buddhist perspective. The earlier topics like impermanence, the preciousness of life, are seen as preliminaries to the ultimate topic that you’re not separate.

You’re not at all separate from anyone and everything, both materially and physically, in terms of thoughts, feelings, and ideas. When you realize that, you might feel much more comfortable in the world, and with yourself. You have a lot more compassion, even for the people you completely disagree with.

What do you think?

[00:08:24] Laurie Anderson: Reduced to a single sentence . . .

[00:08:27] Scott Snibbe: Well, you’re not limited.

We are good by nature

[00:08:29] Laurie Anderson: I do like really snappy, short things like that. Although, that’s a wonderful one that I would imagine doesn’t come as a flash for most people because it’s a very complicated idea that comes from a lot of living. But right off the bat, I think you said it as well, that you are by nature good. We are all by nature good.

We are all by nature good.

That’s kind of a mind-blowing thing, because most people hate themselves. You wake up in the morning going, Oh, me again, oh my god, this is torture. To try to find a way to, at the very least, just live with yourself, much less like yourself is an achievement. So when you hear something like “you are by nature good” that’s enough for me. To go through a bunch of time with that as a sort of slogan to fall back on.

[00:09:39] Scott Snibbe: A lot of people don’t know that most people when they hear about Buddhism the first and probably last thing they heard was life is suffering and they go, Okay, that’s not for me, I already know that. I don’t need someone to teach me that. That’s why I like to begin explaining Buddhism to someone who isn’t familiar with it. That’s what the first chapter is, the mind. I debated putting it in because it’s a little bit technical, this form of Buddhism looks at the mind.

But the juiciest part of that topic on the mind is that the mind is fundamentally good, and you are fundamentally good, and everyone’s fundamentally good, even Vladimir Putin, which we can get back to in a second. But the idea is that these things that bother us are called delusions. These are the things that make life miserable. There are three of them craving, anger, and ignorance, which is that feeling of separateness, that you’re disconnected from other people and the universe.

Even though those things can be very loud, as you mentioned, they seem to be shallow in our consciousness. Then when you dive beneath those levels of consciousness in meditation, primarily, you discover that it’s quite nice inside your mind, when you get rid of all the stimulation and self-criticism.

It’s quite deep, I don’t go into these levels, but they say there’s ordinary mind, subtle and very subtle. A very subtle aspect of mind that if you can get quiet enough and enough practice, it’s really nice to be with yourself. You can access that all the time, eventually. That’s why it’s nice to mention that topic in the beginning, that we’re fundamentally good and to try to see that in everybody.

Why “How to Train a Happy Mind?”

[00:11:42] Laurie Anderson: How to Train a Happy Mind, I was baffled by the title maybe you could talk a little bit about that.

[00:11:53] Scott Snibbe: Yeah, originally it was called A Skeptic’s Path to Enlightenment, which was the title of my podcast, which is kind of a koan. I wanted two words that you could never really quite figure out how they could go in the same sentence. But then when that translated to a book title, it didn’t make much sense. We actually got pushback from reviewers who said, We’re not going to review this book if it has this title.

[00:12:16] Laurie Anderson: That’s so snobby.

[00:12:18] Scott Snibbe: I know, I didn’t realize reviewers could change the title of your book. But actually it was quite good advice. Because it was other people too who had that reaction. Then we asked many people, and came up with a big list of ideas. My agent had a very blunt title of How to Have a Happy Mind, which is actually pretty good, but not that nuanced.

Then my editor was the one who tweaked it a little bit to How to Train a Happy Mind, which again, I like things that don’t totally resolve. Grammatically, this might make you think it’s for happy people who are already happy to train their mind. But it’s more like how you train a vine up a wall.

[00:12:58] Laurie Anderson: Like an energetic mind.

[00:13:00] Scott Snibbe: How to train your mind towards happiness.

[00:13:04] Laurie Anderson: It’s like playing around. I have to train it because my mind is not naturally happy. I want to train it to be happy.

[00:13:18] Scott Snibbe: What about the word happiness? How do you define happiness?

[00:13:26] Laurie Anderson: I just see that poster in this Berkeley studio from Bobby McFerrin’s song, Don’t Worry, Be Happy. That song actually, I think is weirdly inspiring. It’s so simple. What are you spending all your time worrying for?

[00:14:01] Scott Snibbe: Buddhism is very much against worrying. In the topic of renunciation—one of the chapters is the Red Pill of Renunciation—a lot of people think renunciation in Buddhism means we’re renouncing ice cream, making love to your partner, or nice things in life. But in Buddhism, renunciation is giving up your delusions and worries. One of my favorite books is The Gelug/Kagyu Tradition of Mahamudra. Not the catchiest title. He says it’s actually harder to give up worry than ice cream.

He says it’s actually harder to give up worry than ice cream.

[00:14:44] Laurie Anderson: Yes, it is.

[00:14:46] Scott Snibbe: That’s what we really need. It doesn’t mean you don’t care about things. Worrying doesn’t mean being a Pollyanna, but letting go of that disturbing emotion so you can more realistically analyze the situation.

Lamrim: Stages of the Path of Enlightenment

[00:14:59] Laurie Anderson: Yeah, there’s thinking, there’s planning, then there’s worrying. It would be amazing to be able to give up things like that that are an utter waste of time and are hurting you. To stop doing that is what you’re talking about in this book, really specifically too which is so helpful.

Talk about how it’s laid out because the stages are super.

[00:15:39] Scott Snibbe: I didn’t come up with them. This is a wonderful thousand-year-old tradition that was initiated by a teacher named Atisha Dipamkara, an Indian teacher who came to Tibet. And Tibet was confused, there were some debates. They had some debates that in the Vajrayana, like the Tantric Buddhism, that you could stop being ethical and do whatever you want. The sutra people were saying you have to give up the ice cream, that kind of thing. He came and resolved these conflicts with this easy nine step program called the lamrim, which means the stages of the path to enlightenment.

The Buddha lived a really long time and he gave 84,000 teachings. Many of them are contradictory because there are for people at different levels, different stages, different backgrounds. So he said, here’s the program; you take this nine step program from what is the mind to love, compassion, the ultimate nature of reality. If you do them in this particular order, it’s highly effective, and so they practiced for 500 years.

Then there was another genius named Lama Tsongkhapa, 500 years ago, during the same period as the Western Renaissance, they had one in Tibet which was a Renaissance of the Mind, and he revised this. That was really the last revision, adding some extraordinary clarifying aspects, especially about this interdependent nature of reality.

Then I was asked to start teaching meditation 18 years ago and to do this sequence, but right away at the center, they asked me to teach for people who aren’t Buddhist, but in the first topic, The Precious Life, you talk about things like karma, rebirth, other realms, in the same first sentence. That was when I thought, Okay, maybe this could use some revision.

[00:17:30] Laurie Anderson: It is a stumbling block for a lot of people who suddenly realize, Oh, this is a religion or something. We know that things have consequences, but that this one is tough for a lot of people.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama

[00:17:45] Scott Snibbe: It wasn’t my big idea. I think it would be kind of ridiculous if I independently had that idea to make the lamrim secular, but it was His Holiness the Dalai Lama, who wrote a book called Beyond Religion. It’s like a manifesto for people like myself, on the ground, trying to teach day-to-day, to adapt the teachings in a way that it is universally accessible, regardless of your religion.

He ended up writing a foreword to the book, emphasizing that there’s three aspects to Tibetan culture, and people mostly think about the religion, but there’s also a science, and most of the science is a science of the mind, and also philosophy. That’s why the Dalai Lama recommends How to Train a Happy Mind in this very short, foreword.

[00:18:33] Laurie Anderson: He felt that was more appealing to people that it had these other aspects.

[00:18:40] Scott Snibbe: Yeah, because when people think of religion today, they think of bias, being biased against people who don’t have the religion and supernatural belief, like believing things that can’t be proven. But I looked up religion in the dictionary recently and it just said a system of philosophy and rules for understanding the universe. It’s definition is quite nice, but the way people think of that word today can be quite unpleasant.

I think that’s why the Dalai Lama says “beyond religion” is like the conventional view of what religion is, that there is a way to practice these things and not be religious, not involved in belief and bias.

[00:19:30] Laurie Anderson: I think belief is the key thing here, because one of the things that always struck me about what he said about science was, If there’s a conflict between religion and science, I’ll go with science. Which seemed weird because science changes more than anything else. We thought the earth was flat, now it’s round.

It’s constantly changing, they’re finding new ways to express truth. But his curiosity and sense of being aware of things has very little to do with the fundamental beliefs of this thing because he’s questioning everything all the time.

[00:20:22] Scott Snibbe: Yeah, that’s what got me interested in Buddhism, because I saw the Dalai Lama and he said two things, Don’t become a Buddhist. He constantly tells people, Don’t become a Buddhist. Which is quite inviting, actually. You’re like, What? It’s like a sales technique. They call it “take it off the table.” It’s quite a compelling sales technique.

Don’t become a Buddhist.

Then he also said the Buddha was a skeptic himself and he invited everybody to be skeptical. There’s a famous way the Buddha teaches this. It says, treat everything I teach you like gold. In the old days, they had these different ways of testing gold. You bite it, scratch it, put some acid on it, all these things. He said, do all of those things, test everything I’m teaching you as thoroughly as you can. If it doesn’t make sense, set it aside.

Buddha was a skeptic himself and he invited everybody to be skeptical.

Buddhism in Western societies

[00:21:22] Laurie Anderson: This is what was initially the most thrilling thing to me about Buddhism, is no one’s in charge. There’s no one up there in charge. This is so great. For artists, especially, this is like crack, Whoa, no one’s in charge. That means you’re in charge and you’re creating this, as well as discovering it. That’s so deeply thrilling. That’s what definitely drew me towards it.

This is what was initially the most thrilling thing to me about Buddhism, is no one’s in charge.

[00:21:57] Scott Snibbe: When was that? When did you get introduced to Buddhism?

[00:22:00] Laurie Anderson: In ’75, because a lot of people were coming back from India and they had decided that they were going to try to spread the Dharma to America. It’s been amazing what has happened to how many people are learning about Buddhist traditions since then. It really has become pretty much a phenomenon and one that’s very successful in the United States, particularly, there’s something about Americans that they gravitate towards this.

[00:22:47] Scott Snibbe: It’s really thriving.

[00:22:49] Laurie Anderson: Yeah, why do you think?

[00:22:52] Scott Snibbe: There’s a word, Tasty, that some of my teachers use for Buddhist ideas. It’s actually Venerable Robina who uses that a lot. When you get exposed to the ideas, at least from a teacher for whom those ideas are really alive, it really is tasty. Some of the ideas we’ve touched on already, like the mind is fundamentally good or you’re only made of non-you elements. These are things you hear and you want to learn a lot more.

They’re quite compelling ideas and they’re empowering. Strangely, it does fit in well with an individualistic culture because it is an individual path and it has an unlimited arc because you can become enlightened. The perspective from the Buddhist view is that everybody has an unlimited potential for good, and there’s this North Star, it may or may not be reachable, you don’t have any more delusions, any more negativity, you’re happy and beneficial and compassionate, all the time, which strangely sounds kind of boring to a lot of people when you describe it. But traditionally, it’s quite a nice idea.

[00:24:01] Laurie Anderson: For me, and for a lot of artists, I think that it’s interesting that there’s only one thing that you really need to do, both as an artist and as a Buddhist, and it’s simply being aware. That’s it. That’s the only thing. That’s amazing, to be able to use your own mind and senses and feelings to understand what’s making this work.

Work is a a way I think about it. There’s a wonderful Swiss teacher, Weber, and one of the main methods of training your happy mind is to picture your mind as a clear blue sky and thoughts as clouds. I’m sure you’re all familiar with these methods of cloud comes by, you see it, let it go. Then here comes another one, let it go. This guy says, Picture your mind as a little Swiss lake, and the thoughts are little sailboats and they come and go. Don’t get attached to them.

Another one of them is some guy leaning against a wall going, I’m the last of my kind. I’m right over there, last of your kind, what do you mean? They’re always doing these kind of tricks to get you to get interested in them and not see your and not find that place where you’re way back there, still there, but not a person.

Anyway, he went on with this metaphor of the lake and the boats, saying, Now imagine, what is the wind that blows those boats? Is it a soft summer breeze, or is it a gentle breeze? Where do your thoughts come from? What are they? He has really wonderful ways of showing how to do that. I really think that these practical images are really important.

In your book, at the end of each chapter, you have a meditation and ways to put this into practice. Because as you were saying, it does you no good to just talk about meditating.

The purpose of meditation

[00:27:15] Scott Snibbe: In the book it says, studying these topics without meditating is kind of like sitting on a couch, watching an exercise video, it adds about that much benefit on your body. You actually have to practice it. No one can do it for you.

[00:27:30] Laurie Anderson: I know some couch potatoes who know more about football by just sitting on a couch, observing football, you don’t have to actually get out there and play. The mind is pretty amazing.

[00:27:44] Scott Snibbe: There are some practices you can do kicking back on the couch, though, like rejoicing. That’s often described as the laziest Buddhist practice. If you’re really tired at the end of the day, you don’t even want to cross your legs, you can just kick back on the couch, and you just rejoice in all the good things that everybody you know of did that day.

You can imagine the Dalai Lama, I’m sure he gave some talks and is just smiling at people, think about what great things he did. Then think of the good things you did in your day too, mostly good things, cooking for people, doing your work, just not punching people. As you go down the street, sometimes I thought it’s kind of amazing, as the Dalai Lama said “civilization is kindness,” which really may not sound believable right now, but that’s what he says, Civilization is kindness.

Civilization is kindness.

[00:28:39] Laurie Anderson: I was in part of a panel a few days ago in Bratislava, and there was a lot of people who were very involved in physics and stuff like that. I was sitting next to Jane Goodall, who had a little stuffed chimp, which she carries with her, just so endearing. One of the guys goes up and asks, Jane, you know chimps, how do they resolve their differences?

She said they just slug it out. They kill each other. They strangle each other. I’m looking down at this panel, there’s ten of us, and I’m thinking, It’s only been a couple million years, and look at us. We’re not punching each other out. We’re reasonably having this talk. Everyone has good ideas and they’re waiting for their turn to say them.

This happened to me once, when the Dalai Lama was speaking at Saint John the Divine. I’m not crazy, really, but I do sometimes see strange things. I was in the audience completely mesmerized, and I looked around and everyone in the audience had turned into a bear, a really sweet little bear, because he was talking about this incredible sweetness, how sweet everyone was, and how good everyone is. It was so convincing. He’s just one of the greatest speakers I’ve ever heard.

Have you ever hallucinated anything when meditating?

[00:30:33] Scott Snibbe: Lots of times. They call them visions. When you start Buddhism, some cool things happen in your meditation. You’re like, Oh wow. Like you hear a voice or you see a vision or something like that. When I and my friends have gone to our teachers and said, Oh man, I was in my tent and I heard Tara’s voice telling me, this and that, my teacher will always say, Well, how’s your relationship with your wife? How are you getting along with everybody? He’d say, Just keep practicing. It’s not really that impressive to have any special visions. It would be quite impressive if you can get along with everybody in your life and be kind to people.

It’s not really that impressive to have any special visions. It would be quite impressive if you can get along with everybody in your life and be kind to people.

Have you heard that kind of thing? Have you ever gone to a teacher with visions or experiences?

[00:31:32] Laurie Anderson: No, I haven’t really talked to them about that. I don’t think I would bother.

[00:31:39] Scott Snibbe: That’s the other thing about not bothering, a lot of people treat their Tibetan teachers kind of like a priest, because we’re used to that in Christian culture. I used to go to my Tibetan teacher, Geshe Dagpa, who’s my closest Tibetan teacher, and early on, I’d ask him questions like, Should I take this job? Should I get married? Should I go on this date? Should I do this? He always gave me the same answer, no matter what question I asked him. He’d say “It doesn’t matter.”

No matter what question. I stopped after like three or four years. It took some time. I was in my early thirties. Then I would just spend time with him. I realized it was best just to be with him. Just as good vibes. That was enough to spend time in his presence.

[00:32:37] Laurie Anderson: Was that frustrating to you, to hear it doesn’t matter for a while?

[00:32:41] Scott Snibbe: At first, but then I realized it didn’t matter. He was a good teacher. It took a couple years to settle in.

[00:32:49] Laurie Anderson: Yeah, what about reading one of these meditations? I loved them all.

Everyone Walks the Hero’s Journey

[00:33:17] Scott Snibbe: Let’s do, Everyone Walks the Hero’s Journey. This one is a way to look at people in everyday life. It’s a way to see the best in everybody.

Everyone walks the hero’s journey from Jesus Christ to Luke Skywalker. The hero’s journey is a universal structure for mythical tales of growth and adventure. But each of us is also the hero of our own life. We may rarely acknowledge it, but each of us was born, and every one of us will die. In between, we all experience our own struggles, conflicts, triumphs, and loves.

As you encounter people in your daily life, a powerful meditation on impermanence is to picture the moment each one of them was born. Imagine their mother’s pain. Her exhaustion and joy at creating a fragile new being whose life depends on her. Then, try to imagine how that person will eventually die. Alone, or surrounded by loved ones. Agitated, or at peace. This technique is especially helpful when you’re angry with someone, because it helps put your dispute in perspective.

Picture the end of that person’s life, in a hospital bed or at home. After a life that was long or short. A life of virtue or misbehavior. A life ending among friends or silently alone. Then try to imagine where that person is right now on their journey from cradle to grave. What dreams, goals, and disappointments they may have had.

Moments of loneliness and intimacy. Without this kind of reflection, the people around you can seem like video game characters, mere obstacles or aids to your life’s agenda. Such a rigid, self-centered view of the people around you is disconnecting and inaccurate. They are all constantly changing, and each of them treasures their precious lives just as much as you do yours. Each of them lives an epic hero’s journey.

It’s particularly useful in New York as you’re walking down the street to think about people that way.

[00:35:55] Laurie Anderson: I know some writers who have that kind of empathy, I think it’s a wonderful thing to try to cultivate. We try to imagine really what it is to be someone else. But also I like the general thing, not so much what we have in common as opposed to what differentiates everybody.

We wanted to save a little bit of time for people questions. Let’s do it.

Why doesn’t it matter?

[00:37:06] Scott Snibbe: The question was, why doesn’t it matter? How did you get to the point of accepting your teacher saying it doesn’t matter? I think as you get older in life—a good example is I was at that company, Interval Research, where I worked for four or five years. Then one day they just came in and they said, Okay, company’s closed. Everybody go home.

That was a good example because all of a sudden we were all thinking to ourselves, What did we just do for the last four years? How were these projects important? What was the whole point of that? Like everything, the lesson of Buddhism is that everything that begins ends. It’s impermanence. Nothing is lasting. Nothing in our lives. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t get married, have a great relationship. But just to understand it’s naturally impermanent.

The lesson of Buddhism is that everything that begins ends.

What’s more important is how you act moment to moment through those experiences, to have some presence of mind through whatever you’re doing, however miserable a divorce is, however delightful your honeymoon period is with your partner. We tend to externalize our happiness and think, “If I get that, I’ll be happy” or “If I get rid of that, I’ll be happy.” But what you learn from the Buddhist worldview is that happiness is primarily internal. That’s what it means that it doesn’t matter.

What you learn from the Buddhist worldview is that happiness is primarily internal.

The Buddha taught there are two arrows that strike you when something bad happens. The first is the thing that you can’t avoid. Then the second is the story you tell yourself. You start ruminating and complaining and getting very angry. We all know this in our personal relationships, especially with our parents or partners. For me with my father, I was mad at him for 47 years. Then I realized, Oh, wait a minute, that time is over and I don’t need to be angry at him. It’s that aspect of impermanence.

[00:39:02] Laurie Anderson: I can understand what you’re saying. Though, everything in terms of what we’ve been talking about in terms of karma, it does matter. What you do matters. This came up recently for me, which was really vivid. I had to give a commencement speech to some students, many of whom were protesting. Many of the parents were angry about the situation at the college.

It made me think about what matters, because I remember 56 years ago, being chained to the other students, in one of the same halls that these students were chained in, getting arrested, and thinking, I’m messing up my life. What good is this? What am I doing here? But I have the advantage of looking back over half a century and going, guess what? That movement that I was part of was the beginning of the civil rights movement in cities.

It was the beginning of the anti-war movement, which has gone through many phases, but it did matter. Many things do matter but also in terms of ethics, because there are ethics that other than just being aware, it is the Buddhist ethics of being kind to others. To yourself, number one, and everyone else. This is an ethical tenant.

[00:40:55] Scott Snibbe: It’s just a truth, right? You and I were talking about this before, the foundation, a lot of people get confused because they know about mindfulness, if you practice mindfulness, you become happy. But on the Buddhist path, ethics comes before mindfulness, you won’t have an effective mindfulness practice if you don’t live an ethical life.

[00:41:19] Laurie Anderson: Which includes right speech.

[00:41:21] Scott Snibbe: The first principle of Buddhist ethics is nonviolence, which is a real shocker. The second one is the one you mentioned, kindness. Also a bit of a shocker, today. Then the last one is to understand your mind. This is Buddhist ethics. You and I were talking about the three principles. Most people, if you ask them to define ethics, they wouldn’t come up with those three principles off the bat.

A lot of people today think of ethics as a nice-to-have, rather than a must-have. If it’s a study or someone like Gandhi, but maybe not for everybody in their daily lives.

Do our cultural and political problems stem from unhappiness?

[00:42:10] Audience: Simple question. Is it possible or do you believe that our cultural and political problems stem from too much unhappiness? If so, how can we fix things quickly?

[00:42:28] Laurie Anderson: Yes, I do think that it stems from unhappiness. Sharon Olds, the poet, said that she was very distressed that her students at NYU seemed to be so deeply depressed and suicidal. She tells them three things. Number one, Eat really good food. Number two, Get enough sleep. Three, Try not to hate yourself so much.

We hate ourselves. We’re unhappy. When we do that, we treat other people exactly the way we treat ourselves. So, yes, I think it’s from unhappiness. I’m sure there are much more sophisticated ways to say why we’re just taking out the guns and killing each other. Did you say how to fix it?

We hate ourselves. We’re unhappy. When we do that, we treat other people exactly the way we treat ourselves.

[00:43:48] Scott Snibbe: A lot of people get confused in Buddhism, like how can you love Vladimir Putin? What does that mean exactly? Buddhism has a different definition of love, which doesn’t mean thinking they’re a great person, but means wishing them happiness. Someone asked Matthew Ricard, who would you most like to spend a whole day with?

He said, Vladimir Putin, and they said, Why exactly? He said, Well, I would like him to be happier. I would like to teach him some of the causes of happiness, because if he was happier, he wouldn’t be killing people, invading people, stealing elections, and all of this. That’s the perspective of a solution. That’s why you wish your greatest enemy happiness because even selfishly, they’d stop bothering you and everyone else. But I’m not sure he’s going to get that.

[00:44:44] Laurie Anderson: I’d like to be a fly on that wall. Vladimir, you look very unhappy to me. What’s the problem? Tell me what’s really going on. What happened to your empire anyway? Aren’t you mad about that?

Who are your spiritual teachers?

[00:45:03] Audience: I’m curious about spiritual teachers, you mentioned that you have a teacher or a guru, Laurie speaks about your being in charge yourself. Do you each have a spiritual teacher that you refer to and follow and look towards?

[00:45:35] Scott Snibbe: Do you want to talk about your teacher ?

[00:45:37] Laurie Anderson: I’ve had many wonderful teachers and my main teacher now is Mingyur Rinpoche. He’s happy, it’s kind of amazing to see someone and be with someone who really genuinely is happy. Just to hang around him, hoping some of that will rub off. What about you? You have some wonderful teachers.

[00:46:08] Scott Snibbe: In our tradition, you’re supposed to keep track. I have 30 something teachers, but two main ones, a Tibetan teacher, and a Swiss teacher, who also teaches about lakes. The Dalai Lama was my first teacher, not club close, but that’s why I became a Buddhist, because I saw him and he went through a holocaust—a million Tibetans died—and yet I was so impressed by his nonviolence. He said, If we kill even one Chinese person, we make a hundred enemies, we have to be nonviolent.

He was so happy and cheery, yet effective. He wasn’t a Pollyanna. He didn’t have his head in the sand. I thought, I want to be like that. You don’t actually have to be very close to your teachers. It might be someone you only see once. But you have to have their memory alive in your mind, you keep thinking of them every day in their example.

It’s particularly amazing when you can be right in front of somebody, and you can see through their body, their posture, and of course what they teach. But there are living teachers everywhere, within a mile of here, if you start seeking them out, there are extraordinary living people who embody these qualities absolutely, and you just have to go find them and have the patience to sit through, sometimes in translation.

Is Buddhism intrinsically creative?

[00:47:28] Audience: Do either of you think of Buddhism as intrinsically creative practice per se? Where the question is coming from is I really enjoyed, and was struck by, the page you read Scott about envisioning every individual along their hero’s journey from birth to death. I process that as requiring some creative musculature.

[00:48:08] Scott Snibbe: Yeah, this is how I learned it from my teachers, is that this type of meditation, which is called analytical meditation, is a lot like jazz, in that you learn the outlines, you learn the scales, but then you have to improvise within your own life, culture, mind, and situation. You learn the structure of a meditation like impermanence, but then you apply it every day to a different situation in your own life.

That’s part of why I thought it’d be fun to talk to Laurie about this, because my teachers have taught that meditation is this fundamentally creative activity. In fact, Tibetan teachers in general, don’t even guide meditations to a group. They would just say individually, go and generally do this and then try it for like a year or two, come back and tell me your experience and I’ll guide you some more. From my perspective, it is quite a creative, juicy, individualistic, personal experience.

What about you?

[00:49:05] Laurie Anderson: Absolutely, there are no rules, so you kind of go, I don’t have to be stuck in this idea of how I relate to this person. What if I just did a completely different thing that was not in this book. It is jazz. You are applying it in wild ways in each situation that you’re in.

If you begin to see it as an opportunity, as opposed to just like, My god, I’m stuck in this whole thing. Just, this is the way it is. Then you realize where’s that rule book, you’re free to make that situation something entirely different. Go wild, this is a person who’s supposed to be your enemy, treat them like your dearest friend. Just experiment.

Just experiment.

It gives people, amazing opportunities to do things. It’s not just about being an artist or not. It’s the art of living. Of how you do things. How you get out of your ruts. How you kind of go, Whoa, I’m just going to break all those rules. Because I’m the one who made them. You just break them. It’s exhilarating, you’re not trotting along your path of your teacher and doing whatever they say. No, you’re inventing how to live your life. I can’t think of any other kind of thing that encourages people to do that.

[00:50:53] Scott Snibbe: Yeah, it’s beautiful. One of the greatest Buddhist teachings I ever heard is just one sentence. “Every moment is new.” That, I think so much when I’m stuck, like, Wait, is this really the same thing happening to me that I think it is? Or is there a chance for something different?

Every moment is new.

[00:51:16] Laurie Anderson: I think there’s time for one last one more question.

How to deal with grief

[00:51:20] Audience: Good evening. One of the reasons that I came tonight was because for the first time I’m dealing with consecutive grief. I’ve lost eight people in the past three months, some of them violently, some of them children, and I’ve been doing my best to hold space for my students and to go through this process.

I very much would like to train a happy mind, but something I am concerned about is the idea of teetering on toxic positivity of telling myself, manifesting a certain mindset without delving into the grief that catharsis brings when you embrace the loss of a child or a loved one. How do you know that you actually are going in the right way as opposed to an artificial way?

[00:52:30] Scott Snibbe: There is a term for that they call spiritual bypass. When you kind of go onto your cushion and it’s an escape. Just like going to a spa or something like that, trying to pretend like your problems don’t exist.

But Laurie, you talk really well about grief and about, this thing about feeling sad without being sad.

[00:52:51] Laurie Anderson: One of the great teachers on this subject is Bob Thurman. I would highly suggest that you check that out. Particularly a series that he did called Liberation Upon Hearing in the Between, which is the experience of moving through the Bardo.

I’ve personally only learned things in the worst times of my life. It’s not that I look forward to the worst times of my life now, but that is when I learned the most by far, when it’s just an absolute mess, everything has fallen apart and you can’t believe how bad it is. Then you realize, this is actually a chance to get beyond this. I encourage you to look into this particular teaching of the bardo because I think it could be a good moment for you to look at that.

I’ve personally only learned things in the worst times of my life.

[00:54:10] Scott Snibbe: In general, be very gentle with yourself. Tara Brach is excellent. She says, You may need to be angry for ten years, but it’s very toxic to have shame on top of anger, if you tell yourself you shouldn’t be angry or shouldn’t be feeling grief. So to feel that as much as you can.

Laurie put it to me in a beautiful way once about grief, that her teachers told her, you can feel sad without being sad. You can process these feelings, they can pass through you, but you don’t have to identify with them and become poisoned by them. You’re right, it is a tight rope. I went through it with my father, I was angry at him for 47 years for a variety of things. Then one day, it was the time. My friend sujatha baliga, who’s also an extraordinary teacher about forgiveness.

Be really gentle and allow yourself to feel and then have the tools ready when you are ready to then move to the next step. But you never want to feel shame about the legitimate feelings you’re having.

You never want to feel shame about the legitimate feelings you’re having.

[00:55:28] Laurie Anderson: How many people have read this book? The rest of you need to get this book. It’s just a wonderful book. I found this really, really a valuable book. Also, read it slowly. I did do that. I took each one at a step at a time. It really does take you through in a very logical, generous way. Even though you might be familiar with all types of meditation, this one will give you a kind of fresh way to look at each one of these steps.

Thank you so much for writing this beautiful book.

[00:56:17] Scott Snibbe: Thank you, Laurie. You’ve been a great inspiration in my life and so many spiritual and creative dimensions. It’s an honor to chat with you about it. Thank you.

[00:56:24] Laurie Anderson: Thanks, have a nice evening.

[00:56:47] Scott Snibbe: Thanks for joining us for my conversation with Laurie Anderson about my new book, How to Train a Happy Mind. The book, audiobook, and ebook are available to purchase anywhere you buy books. If you end up enjoying it, please leave a positive review at Amazon to help others discover it.

About Laurie Anderson

Laurie Anderson, a pioneering American artist known for her groundbreaking multimedia presentations, has been a central figure in the avant-garde art scene since the 1970s. As a young adult, Laurie studied painting at the Art Institute of Chicago and played with the Chicago Youth Symphony. She later became an influential force in New York City, gaining widespread recognition with her haunting single “O Superman” from her debut album, Big Science. In NYC, she continuously pushed the boundaries of storytelling as a filmmaker, multimedia artist, and musician.

Some of her most famous works include Heart of a Dog, Hidden Inside Mountains, Puppet Motel, United States Live, The End of the Moon (based on her artist-in-residence at NASA), Songs from the Bardo, Home of the Brave, the Talking Stick, Stories from the Nerve Bible: A Retrospective, Strange Angels, Sharkey’s Day (from the Mister Heartbreak album), Life on a String, Bright Red, Let X=X, Landfall, and Empty Places.

Over her career, Laurie has collaborated with an eclectic mix of artists, including Lou Reed, Peter Gabriel, William S. Burroughs, and Anohni, creating a unique tapestry of music and art that reflects her fascination with the human experience. Her new album, Amelia, released under Nonesuch Records and inspired by Amelia Earhart, continues her exploration of personal and collective narratives.

Anderson’s influence has grown from her homeland in America to Europe and beyond, with performances from Los Angeles to London to Montreal. From immersive installations for her non-retrospective at the Hirshhorn Museum to exhibitions at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, Laurie Anderson remains a luminary whose artistic vision continually reshapes our modern society.

Credits