Best Percent Happier Podcasts (2025)

1
Joanna Macy, In Memoriam — Beauty and Wisdom and Courage (and Rilke) to Sustain Us 50:57

27d ago50:57

50:57

This rich, gorgeous conversation will fill your soul. The singular and beloved Joanna Macy died at home at the age of 96 on July 20, 2025. She has left an immense legacy of beauty and wisdom and courage to sustain us. A Buddhist teacher, ecological philosopher, and Rilke translator, she taught and embodied a wild love for the world. What follows is…

1
Ross Gay — Hope Portal, Episode 7 10:19

1M ago10:19

10:19

Ross Gay is a poet, community gardener, and teacher who brings another way of wisdom to the conviction that we have to know what we love and what delights us. And that we have to tend to that as fiercely as to what is broken and what we’re called to make better, what we’re called to make more just. Knowing what we love and knowing how to take delig…

1
Joy Harjo — The Hope Portal Ep. 6 17:09

2M ago17:09

17:09

Our teacher this time is the extraordinary Joy Harjo. She is a musician, a visual artist, a member of the Muscogee Creek Nation, and she’s also former Poet Laureate of the United States. From the beginning of her life, from childhood and even before, she has carried and retained a sense of space and time and life that is so much vaster than present…

1
Joanna Macy — Hope Portal, Episode 5 12:03

2M ago12:03

12:03

Our teacher and inspiration for this session is Joanna Macy. What she embodies is a wild love for the world and a fierce hope that rises irrepressible from that. And she carries and lives an important reminder to us that when we love, we will also know pain, and we will know grief that can feel too awful to bear. When we talk about the muscle of ho…

1
Ocean Vuong — Hope Portal, Episode 4 11:29

2M ago11:29

11:29

If hope is to be defining and forceful in the world we have to remake ahead of us, we must also speak hope into being. Ocean Vuong is a fascinating and singular person. The sweep of his work is about bearing witness to the other side of violence and the possibility of joy while taking nothing away and continuing to bear witness to the fullness of w…

1
Naomi Shihab Nye — Hope Portal, Episode 3 9:15

2M ago9:15

9:15

In these next few sessions, we investigate some orientations and ways of being that are companions to hope. If hope is a muscle that can be exercised to become stronger and more supple, these qualities might be thought of as fascia, or the tendons — complementary ligaments that make the whole viable and sustainable. The wonderful poet Naomi Shihab …

1
Walter Brueggemann, In Memoriam - When the World We Have Trusted In Is Vanishing 1:06:25

2M ago1:06:25

1:06:25

The great Christian scholar of the biblical prophets died on June 5, 2025. Yet, in the lineage of the prophets who called humanity to face its hardest realities, this profound, warm, and timeless conversation is a stunning offering straight into our present. “The amazing contemporaneity of this material," Walter Brueggemann says to Krista in this c…

1
adrienne maree brown — Hope Portal, Episode 2 13:43

2M ago13:43

13:43

adrienne maree brown shines a light on an emerging ecosystem in our world over and against the drumbeat of what is fractured and breaking. She works with the complex fullness of reality to move towards a wholeness of living. In exploring the idea of hope — the meaning of it, the practice of it — it feels important to begin with someone who works to…

1
Krista Tippett — Hope Portal, Episode 1 13:58

3M ago13:58

13:58

Beginning today, and for the next six weeks in the On Being podcast feed and Substack, we’re opening a reflection/course experience curated by Krista and drawing upon her conversations with several visionary humans: adrienne maree brown, Naomi Shihab Nye, Ocean Vuong, Joy Harjo, Joanna Macy, and Ross Gay. Together, they extend rich and actionable i…

1
Roberta Bondi — What is Prayer and How to Begin 33:33

3M ago33:33

33:33

Buried treasure from the On Being archive! Krista writes of this conversation from the earliest pre-history of On Being: In the years in which I was on a whole new spiritual and intellectual adventure that changed the direction of my life — years which led to the creation of this show — I befriended a delightful, brilliant, straight-talking theolog…

1
Yochi Fisher and Loaay Wattad–On Seeing the Trauma of the Other 1:36:34

3M ago1:36:34

1:36:34

This episode emerged from a private gathering in The Hague in the fall of 2024 with a small group of people who live in Israel — both Jewish and Palestinian, Jews and Palestinians who continue to share life. We’re pleased to invite you now to overhear this particular conversation, with the permission of all involved. It centered around the matter o…

1
Jason Reynolds and Kessley Janvier — On Being Young In America 1:11:43

3M ago1:11:43

1:11:43

A heavy complexity is on the shoulders of the young of our species in these years — humans growing up in this time. At the same time, from the digital revolution and AI to the ecology and society, they have wisdom and instincts in their bones that will be essential if we are all to flourish and not merely survive this century. In November 2024, the…

1
David Bornstein — On Our Lives with the News 54:53

4M ago54:53

54:53

A calming and helpful conversation for making sense of the very story of our time, and how that is coming to us and being powerfully shaped through media and journalism. The theory of change of journalism as it came out of the 20th century, David Bornstein says, is that shining a light on what is going wrong — what is dangerous and dysfunctional, c…

1
Katsi Cook — "Women are the First Environment" 55:19

4M ago55:19

55:19

Katsi Cook is a beacon in an array of quiet powerful worlds — a magnetic, joyous, loving presence. The public conversation we offer up here was part of a gathering where a fantastic group of young people had come to be nourished, to explore the depths of what community can mean, to become more grounded and whole. They've taken to sitting at the fee…

1
Justin Vernon — Being Bon Iver 54:41

4M ago54:41

54:41

A sweet and searching conversation between Krista and the man behind Bon Iver at this year's On Air Fest, full of wisdom and revelation. He is a person who experiences deeply, who metabolizes creatively, and who just keeps growing. He opens up with Krista about the strangeness of being loved for how he put his broken heart to music. They venture in…

1
A New Season of On Being 2:24

4M ago2:24

2:24

On Being is back on April 16, with a special season tethered in the persistent beauty and courage of what it can mean to be human — six conversations Krista has had out in the world in recent months, followed by an experimental, seven-week reflection/action experience— Hope, Imagination, and Remaking the World — to undertake with others in your lif…

1
Remembering Nikki Giovanni - ‘We Go Forward With a Sanity and a Love’ 50:40

8M ago50:40

50:40

The delightful Nikki Giovanni died on Dec. 9. It is a joy and a solace to relisten to this beloved conversation she had with Krista in 2016 – to experience her signature mix of high seriousness, sweeping perspective, and insistent pleasure. Her words and her spirit feel, if anything, more necessary now. In the 1960s, she was a poet of the Black Art…

1
Joan Baez — "This Gift of a Voice" 57:54

9M ago57:54

57:54

She is known as the voice of a generation. The Queen of Folk. A legend. An icon, the one who sang “We Shall Overcome” alongside Martin Luther King Jr. at the 1963 March on Washington. As much as anyone, Joan Baez embodied the spirit of that decade of soaring dreams and songs and dramas set in motion that echo through this world of ours. Meanwhile, …

1
adrienne maree brown — On Radical Imagination and Moving Towards Life 1:20:13

1y ago1:20:13

1:20:13

The wonderful civil rights elder Vincent Harding liked to look around the world for what he called "live human signposts" — human beings who embody ways of seeing and becoming and who point the way forward to the world we want to inhabit. And adrienne maree brown, who has inspired worlds of social creativity with her notions of "pleasure activism" …

1
“The End of Poetry” by Ada Limón 1:43

1y ago1:43

1:43

An impassioned plea, a yearning for connection — the poem U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón wrote when she says all language failed her. Take in Ada's reading of her piece, “The End of Poetry” — and hear her read more of her work in the On Being episode, “To Be Made Whole.” Ada Limón is the 24th Poet Laureate of the United States. She’s written six book…

1
Atul Gawande — On Mortality and Meaning 1:02:48

1y ago1:02:48

1:02:48

We are strange creatures. It is hard for us to speak about, or let in, the reality of frailty and death — the elemental fact of mortality itself. In this century, western medicine has gradually moved away from its understanding of death as a failure — where care stops with a terminal diagnosis. Hospice has moved, from something rare to something ex…

1
“Ars Poetica #100: I Believe” by Elizabeth Alexander 1:17

1y ago1:17

1:17

Today, a poem with a poignant question to live: “...and are we not of interest to each other?” Carry Elizabeth Alexander’s reading of her poem “Ars Poetica #100: I Believe” with you — and hear Elizabeth read more of her poetry in the On Being episode, “Words That Shimmer.” Elizabeth Alexander is a poet, author, and educator. Since 2018, she has ser…

1
Luis Alberto Urrea — On Our Belonging to Each Other 59:10

1y ago59:10

59:10

We humans have this drive to erect barriers between ourselves and others, Luis Alberto Urrea says, and yet this makes us a little crazy. He is an exuberant, wise, and refreshing companion into the deep meaning and the problem of borders — what they are really about, what we do with them, and what they do to us. The Mexican-American border was as cl…

1
Ross Gay — On the Insistence of Joy 59:05

1y ago59:05

59:05

In our world of so much suffering, it can feel hard or wrong to invoke the word "joy." Yet joy has been one of the most insistent, recurrent rallying cries in almost every life-giving conversation that Krista has had across recent months and years, even and especially with people on the front lines of humanity's struggles. Ross Gay helps illuminate…

1
Janine Benyus and Azita Ardakani Walton — On Nature's Wisdom for Humanity 1:16:20

1y ago1:16:20

1:16:20

In this all-new episode, Krista engages biomimicry pioneer Janine Benyus in a second, urgent conversation, alongside creative biomimicry practitioner Azita Ardakani Walton. Together they trace precise guidance and applied wisdom from the natural world for the civilizational callings before us now. What does nature have to teach us about healing fro…

Podcasts Worth a Listen

Percent Happier Podcasts

Podcasts Worth a Listen

1
Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris | 5 minute podcast summaries

5 minute podcast summaries

1
More Than A Feeling

Ten Percent Happier

1
On Being with Krista Tippett

On Being Studios

1
Childproof

Ten Percent Happier

1
Joanna Macy, In Memoriam — Beauty and Wisdom and Courage (and Rilke) to Sustain Us 50:57

1
Ross Gay — Hope Portal, Episode 7 10:19

1
Joy Harjo — The Hope Portal Ep. 6 17:09

1
Joanna Macy — Hope Portal, Episode 5 12:03

1
Ocean Vuong — Hope Portal, Episode 4 11:29

1
Naomi Shihab Nye — Hope Portal, Episode 3 9:15

1
Walter Brueggemann, In Memoriam - When the World We Have Trusted In Is Vanishing 1:06:25

1
adrienne maree brown — Hope Portal, Episode 2 13:43

1
Krista Tippett — Hope Portal, Episode 1 13:58

1
Roberta Bondi — What is Prayer and How to Begin 33:33

1
Yochi Fisher and Loaay Wattad–On Seeing the Trauma of the Other 1:36:34

1
Jason Reynolds and Kessley Janvier — On Being Young In America 1:11:43

1
David Bornstein — On Our Lives with the News 54:53

1
Katsi Cook — "Women are the First Environment" 55:19

1
Justin Vernon — Being Bon Iver 54:41

1
A New Season of On Being 2:24

1
Remembering Nikki Giovanni - ‘We Go Forward With a Sanity and a Love’ 50:40

1
Joan Baez — "This Gift of a Voice" 57:54

1
adrienne maree brown — On Radical Imagination and Moving Towards Life 1:20:13

1
“The End of Poetry” by Ada Limón 1:43

1
Atul Gawande — On Mortality and Meaning 1:02:48

1
“Ars Poetica #100: I Believe” by Elizabeth Alexander 1:17

1
Luis Alberto Urrea — On Our Belonging to Each Other 59:10

1
Ross Gay — On the Insistence of Joy 59:05

1
Janine Benyus and Azita Ardakani Walton — On Nature's Wisdom for Humanity 1:16:20

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