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Lama rod owens middlebury1/6/2024 ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() “Radical” speaks to a sense of remembering and returning to a simple and basic way of being in the world, one that reduces the violence to oneself and others it honors one’s own passions and aspirations and relates to the world from a place of equanimity. In my experience, authenticity as a dharma teacher requires a kind of radical presence. We are an expression of a community of identities and influences that may not be apparent to those around us-or even to us. We are not just white or Black or gay or transgender. “Intersectionality” speaks to the reality that we are influenced by any number of identities, all of which are informed further still by our social and political locations. This approach drastically shifted my teaching style and my role as a teacher when I regrounded myself in my many identities, I came to embrace that I was teaching from a place of intersectionality. To heal, I needed to bring Rod back into center and place him in dialogue with Lama Rod. Meeting the dharma had furthered my personal and interpersonal transformation, but now I was trying to fit into the mold of being a lama, a role largely informed by tradition and by other people’s expectations of me. Rod was the person I had earned the right to be Rod had gone through years of working directly with self-hate, depression, and low self-esteem to emerge fierce, fabulous, edgy, and beautiful. I reached out to my dharma teachers, mentors, and other spiritual guides, and it quickly became clear that my identity as a lama and resident teacher had somehow choked my identity as a queer Black man. Live/In-Person | Every Wednesday in October.About a year after I finished the traditional three-year retreat program and had begun my work as a dharma teacher, I experienced a kind of breakdown, a severe sense of being stuck and uninspired. He offers talks, retreats and workshops in more than seven countries and is the co-founder of Bhumisparsha, a Buddhist tantric practice and study community. He holds a Master of Divinity degree in Buddhist Studies from Harvard Divinity School and is a co-author of Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love and Liberation. Lama Rod Owens is a Buddhist minister, author, activist, yoga instructor and authorized Lama, or Buddhist teacher, in the Kagyu School of Tibetan Buddhism and is considered one of the leaders of his generation of Buddhist teachers. By “sitting with our discomforts” about the state of things in the world, our families, and communities, we can confront the traumas that harm us and speak the truths to one another that lead to healing and liberation. In this talk, Lama Rod Owens reaches into his deep knowledge of Buddhist teachings and a lifetime of commitment to racial justice movements to help us think about compassion as a practice more intentional than simple gestures of benevolence or charity. If not now, when? If not through love, how? In a time when the politics of anger infuse every institutional and cultural sphere, metabolizing our rage into visions for a more just world feels urgent and necessary. Rather than waiting for compassion to appear as a “nice” feeling that suddenly overtakes us, a practice of radical care for one another can be forged out of sentiments of anger and frustration against injustice. ![]() COMPASSION: As a Tool for Liberation and Racial Justice ![]()
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