Episode 10: When the World Is Burning: Spiritual Practice, Grief, and Liberation with lama rod owens transcript

0:00:01

Harpinder Mann

Welcome back to the Liberating Yoga podcast. I can't even tell you how excited I am to have Lama Rod Owens on the podcast. Lama Owens, how are you doing today?

Lama Rod Owens

I'm good. It's wonderful to be here.

0:00:21

Harpinder Mann

Yeah, I your book Love and Rage has been I don't want to say the Bible, but it has been like the Bible to me where it's something I turn to so often. And the New Saints as well. I feel like the New Saints is required reading for these apocalyptic times that we are living in. So thank you for your work, for your voice. I have been opening up the season with the question of who is a figure or a being or a teacher who is inspiring you right now? Yeah, there are so many every day.

0:01:07

Lama Rod Owens

I feel really fortunate to to have this capacity to just to reach out, to open, to reflect on, to dream with. so many great change makers, both who have transitioned and as well as those who still are here embodied and living amongst us. So I'm narrowing everything down in my mind. But honestly, I just have to start with Harriet Tubman. You know, quite honestly, she's been so close to me really since the beginning of quarantine and COVID -19. when COVID happened, it really felt like a huge shift, right?

And it was really interesting because as COVID was happening, love and rage was being released. It was published, you know, June of 2020. And at the same time, Harriet Tubman kind of came in and started, like, really inspiring me to write The New Saints. So there's a really interesting convergence. But for me, Harriet represents what it means to embody a real ethic of love and liberation and what we have to do to bring about real freedom. right, the actions that we take.

It's not just about sitting still, you know, and just praying and wishing, you know, for change to happen, that you have to get involved, right? And no matter what's at risk, right, we still make these choices to get involved. From all the ways that she helped enslaved people escape, plantations, right, in slavery to even like joining the Civil War as a formerly enslaved black woman. and becoming really kind of a general, like rising to the rank of a general and leading male troops into operations, right? I mean, it's unheard of, right? She broke so many barriers, but she was like, I want my people to be free, and this is what I have to do, even if I have to join an army where I am not represented, where I don't see myself, I will do this.

Right, by any means necessary. And I just, I tried to embody that, that audacity, that courage, right, that deep, profound love, but also the the way that she embodied place. as well. Yes, it was serious, hard work, but she also played. She also had fun. Right.

And we know that just from accounts that have been recorded from people who knew her and lived with her, you know, and so forth. But yeah, so that's that's who's really inspiring me right now. But, you know, let me just add a second one really quickly, please. Another person who I talk a lot about is Andre Leon Talley, who was such an incredible icon, fashion icon, scholar, journalist, right? He transitioned, I think, in about 2022, I think. And he really, as another Black queer man, really inspired me to open to beauty, right.

To claim beauty for myself, right? Right. And to and to really like love life. Right. And to and to and his words, you know, as he was someone deeply influenced by French culture, French philosophy, particularly particularly Voltaire, right. The French Enlightenment, you know, where he really he he had this this whole thing around you have to cultivate your garden.

Right. You have to cultivate a garden and then offer this garden to the people that you love. Right. So beauty was something that was to be shared. Right. And it was something he used to create community and to practice intimacy with the people that he loved.

So those are the two people, figures there, who are different. inspiring me right now.

Harpinder Mann

Yeah, thank you so much for, I love in New Saints how you write about Harriet Tubman as mother Harriet Tubman. And I was also really so taken, and how do I pronounce the second person's name? Andre Leon Talley. Okay, Andre Leonteli.

I was so taken by how you wrote about how we need to have this beauty and joy and play in this work, while knowing that by any means necessary to get ourselves free and to get others free. One reason I was just so excited to speak with you is so many of my students and I felt it myself have this sense of, and you talk about this apocalypse is not that the world is ending, it's that these truths are being unveiled. And I know for myself and my students, there's sometimes a sense of like this hopelessness, this sense of like just so much grief and being with the trauma. What do you have to say to people or students who might be looking out at all of this genocides and wars and ice and feeling like the weight of it and feeling hopelessness? Yeah, what can what can we do? And we're really feeling the weight of all that is difficult and is and is really traumatic.

0:07:36

Lama Rod Owens

Yeah, you know, and I, and I tell people all the time that at some point, we have to let our hearts break. Right? And what that really means is that we have to feel the disappointment. And yeah, we can feel heavy, we can feel overwhelmed, but so much of that experience of feeling overwhelmed is actually resistance. So we're not even touching the heartbreak. We're actually lost in the resistance to the heartbreak.

And what has saved me in my practice was allowing my heart to break and just opening to that heartbreak. And at the same time, calling in. resources, you know, calling in the deep inspiration of people like Harriet Tubman and Andre Leon Talley and whomever feels resonant for you, right? But calling in your people to hold you in the heartbreak, like this moment is asking us to feel it, like not to like change anything, not to, you know, but to feel the heartbreak and feeling the heartbreak, it begins to change, right? Eventually, as we're moving through the heartbreak, we start having a feeling of groundedness or support. I call it touching the earth for the first time.

And what that really means is that we start touching the truth of things, not our resistance to the truth, but the truth. Again, because we're not actually experiencing the truth of things, we're experiencing our resistance to the truth. Right? So you have to cut through the resistance, open to the brokenheartedness, and the brokenheartedness begins to change. And I would say from my experience, that's when hope really begins. Right?

Because once you move through the heartbreak, you begin to have a deeper intuition. a more of a clarity, right? And at this point in my practice, having gone through these practices, I see so much potential and possibility. This is why I write in The New Saints that this is the new world, right? Right. And it's hard for us to see and experience this new world because we're still being so distracted by the chaos and the violence.

But the new world is here. Right. And so we have this incredible opportunity to start shaping the world. Right. That we want to see now. Right.

And which also means that things have to fall apart. You know, systems have to collapse. Right. There are things that we will not be able to stop and they will just need to happen. Right. And that's hard to hold, but this is a part of liberation work.

This is why I think about and practice with Harriet all the time. Like Harriet, you know, was born enslaved, escaped enslavement, right? And confronted this entrenched system of chattel slavery and did not give up. She was like, I don't know how I'm going to do this, but I will end this. Right. And that's the kind of attitude that we have to take on.

Like the world is not what I want to see. This is not what I want to choose. So what am I going to do to start bringing about a new world? Right. And again, you know, for young people, it's like this is why we have to study the lives of great changemakers. This is why, you know, as a queer man, I have to study, you know, historical events like Stonewall.

right? When folks were just like tired, right? And then they just fought back, but they didn't know that that night they would initiate, spark a global gay liberation movement, right? That would lead to so much, to so much like, silver rights, right? They had no idea. They were just pissed off and decided not to take it anymore.

So we never know what our choices will spark in the moment. We just have to do it. So we just hold on. We hold on to the real truth that things change. And things will especially change once we start getting active. Thank you so much.

0:12:36

Harpinder Mann

I was really touched into as you were talking about letting our heart break. Because there is I'm hearing when there is like the hopelessness and the overwhelm, how that comes from not accepting the reality of what's happening. Yeah. And when we really let ourselves, I think about one of my students a while ago that was like, I feel like if I start crying, I'm never going to stop. Right.

What are your thoughts to that? I feel like I've heard that a couple of times. And I feel like if I really let myself touch into it, like there is almost like no ground that will be underneath me. Yeah. But that is kind of like a trust fall. Right?

0:13:23

Lama Rod Owens

You know, so I hear that all the time. It's like, I can't do this because I won't stop crying. Right? But maybe you need to just cry for a while, right? And let go of wanting to end the crying, but just cry, just release. Let the brokenheartedness actually support you, take care of you, right?

Like we're afraid of grief as well, when in fact we will always be grieving something, right? And so we surrender ourselves to the grief and the brokenheartedness, right? And whatever happens, happens, right? In a lot of Western culture, there is such a resistance to the grieving process. Like we wanna hide away or cover grief up, right? And it's just not conducive to the kind of world that we need to see, we need to be openly grieving and openly supporting each other, right? That grief is welcomed, right? In relationships, in workspaces, in schools, right? But we just let ourselves cry. Like I don't, when I open to the brokenheartedness, like I know that I will be taken care of, right? Because when I allow myself to grieve, I am tending also to my heart.

Right. I'm letting things flow and open. I'm telling the truth about how I feel. Right. And that's the only practice that's going to get us free is telling the truth and experiencing the truth. But, you know, people are afraid of change as well.

And this will change you. You know, you will have to let go of the things that do not help us to experience freedom and liberation, including relationships, including people. right? Because, you know, honestly, not everyone's ready to do this work. You know, not everyone's ready to get free. Not everyone's ready to do this kind of emotional labor, right?

And that's disappointing, but that can't stop us, right? So we're gonna feel isolated and alone, absolutely. But realistically, we're not the only ones moving through this work, even though it can feel like that. Yeah, thank you so much for bringing in the acknowledgement of the grief. There is a piece in the New Saints where you talk about the Black and queer ancestors before you that didn't make it and the gratitude that you get to be here alive, but also mourning their lives. And I think there's that like holding of both like how do we hold the gratitude that here we are we get to be here to do this work and then also the grief there's so much to have grief about how does someone begin to form a relationship to their grief for that to be a part of like the experience of being human yeah well you know we always have to understand grief in relationship to joy right, that joy is important to cultivate to balance the grief, right?

So as I remember the lives of the black queer folks who didn't get to experience a quarter, right, of what I get to experience, right, that I am experiencing this because of what they survived and endured, right? So remembering that, then there's an obligation to live as fully as possible, right? And so when I do that, it's like everything that I do is honoring them. Every choice made in freedom and agency is honoring them, right? And there's joy in that. There's so much joy in being able to do this, that joy actually helps me to hold the grief.

Right. Reflecting on their lives. Yeah, it's not fair. Right. But it has to be OK. Right.

There is a place that we can get to that is a place of being OK with things like this happened. Right. But we continue moving on. Right. There's a deep kind of acceptance, not not agreeing with, not condoning. That's not what I mean by acceptance.

Acceptance, again, is just telling the truth. This happened. This is happening. Right. And I can respond to what's happening. I can respond to the truth by doing something that helps, that is a benefit.

And me living my life is what helps. Right. And even more so, like, you know, when we have this kind of attitude, right, we do connect to these beings. Right. And so they begin to live vicariously through us. Right.

So when they see us, practicing joy and experiencing lives that they never got a chance to experience. They feel a lot of happiness, right? And that happiness is actually healing them where they are, right? It helps them to understand that their lives weren't in vain, right? That their lives weren't in vain. and it contributed to you having the opportunity, the capacity to be happy and to be free and to be your most authentic self.

Right. That doesn't mean that like we we stop working. We continue to work because we are preparing the way for the descendants coming in the future in the same way our ancestors prepared the way for us. We do our part by living honestly, openly, joyfully, but also living in relationship to the brokenheartedness and telling the truth about it all. Right. And for me, that means just being human.

basically, like to be fully human, to be fully aware, right, and to make choices that help not choices that harm. Yeah, I felt goosebumps, like, as you were talking about, these beings get to live vicariously through us, like, I really felt the sense of like, how they are here with us that we are not alone. And that's such a beautiful intention that you spoke about in the new saints is like calling upon the ancestors, these beings as like support so we don't feel alone having to carry this all by ourselves. I think that's so tremendously beautiful. A question that I had as you were speaking is, And I think because of the work that I do, students will come to me and they're like, what is my work? How can I help?

And then when they put that question on me, I'm just like, Oh my goodness, I'm trying to figure out my own work. Yeah. How can I assist you also?

Harpinder Mann

In figuring out, and you spell work as W -E -R -K, which I love in the book. How does one determine what their work is in their own liberation and in collective liberation? I think that's a very meaningful question that folks have, but how does one figure it out?

0:21:30

Lama Rod Owen

Well, I mean, I think first, like, it's about figuring out what we need to be doing in order to get clear about who we are. You know, I think that becomes that comes before figuring out the work, I need to get clear about what I'm doing. and what my ethic is. So people come to me and they're like, what's my work? And I say, well, what's your ethic? In general, what are you hoping to do in general?

What are your values? What are your deepest beliefs about community and liberation? Like, get clear about that. Like, for me, my ethic, you know, in life is to get free and to help others get free, to reduce harm for myself and for others, and then generally to become the medicine that people need. Right? So that's my ethic.

And once I figured my ethic out, which I've had for a very long time, you know, that was just something that was very present with me, even at an early age. Like, I always just felt that. Right. So feeling that and moving through my teens, I just felt myself being led in different places, different kind of issue areas where I was just organizing, doing advocacy work, service work, activism. Right. Just going to the places where I thought I was needed.

And then over those years, like there was a refinement that happened. Right. And then my late 20s, it led me. Well, in my early 20s, I started being led to Buddhism. In my late 20s, I started my training to become a teacher.

And so in that transition to training, I was like, oh, this is my work. Like this is what I am going to specifically do, is to train in this tradition, to become a meditation teacher, to practice, you know, these really profound ancient practices, right? And tantric Buddhism and the practices of Southeast Asia, right? And I understood that my front line was that of the mind, right? right? Helping people work through the suffering of mind and spirit, right?

I have friends that, you know, they're like policy people, like they impact policies and government, you know, structures and so forth, right? Other people, there are people who cook. And the offering of food and food justice is how they're expressing their work. So it's really all so unique and different. But you go through a period where you're just exploring and feeling the passion for certain things and let the passion take you to your work. It will probably be very unique as well.

0:24:41

Harpinder Mann

Yeah. Thank you. I love in response to the question, what is my work? The question is, well, what are your ethics? What is it that you want to see? And I think that's such a helpful way to come into that question where it's like, well, who are you?

0:24:59

Lama Rod Owens

Yeah. And letting yourself sit with that question and contemplate, that's really important. Yeah. Well, it's also the dream. Like my ethic opens me up to my dream. So I often ask people when they're working with me in this capacity, I ask them to like talk about what the real liberated future looks like.

0:25:26

Harpinder Mann

Right? So once people get that vision, like it helps to guide them as well. Thank you. Yeah, thank you for bringing in that question. So I was like, wow, I feel like I used to really sit with that question quite often. And then it was like, It's really interesting how then like the answers and the guidance begins to come.

0:25:52

Lama Rod Owens

It doesn't have to be just me intellectually wrangling something together, where it's just like, no, I can sit with the question and inquiry and then really start to listen and let myself be guided. That's it. Let yourself be guided. You know, I feel like I have floated in and out of so many things. right? So many projects, so many visions and so forth.

And all of it was so necessary to get me to this point, to this moment of real clarity, knowing like, oh yeah, this is what I'm doing, right? This is what I'm called to do. In The New Saints, you talk about how sometimes our work and our labor is going to be unrecognized and unseen and letting that be okay. What about for those that feel like maybe the work that I'm doing isn't enough? It's not enough. to change all that is around us.

Yeah, what we might say to those folks. Yeah, you know, I think that so much of this work is about recognizing that I won't save everything. that I am one person who's very limited, right? Of course I can join with others and we can create collective work together, right? And movement work, which is really beautiful and wonderful and needed, right? But still, no matter how much I work, I won't see the world that I really want to see.

And that's okay, because what's important is that I do my part. Right? And I think sometimes we get into the habit of comparing ourselves to others. Like, I won't necessarily be able to do what Harriet did. Like that's a level of engagement that is difficult for me. That's okay because she did her work and her work inspired me to figure out my work.

And there's a lot of like, yes, there's a lot of comparisons and similarities, absolutely. But going back to grief, like our grief work is important because it helps us to hold the disappointment that not everything is gonna work out. I can try really, really, really hard, and there are things that just won't change. Several years ago, I was speaking with an elder who's in her 80s, and one of the elders who really deeply inspired my work as a young person. And she really admitted, she was like, I thought we had done all this work. in the 60s and the 70s.

And it feels like now we're just going right back to where we were, to where I started. Right. And listening to her, yeah, I felt that disappointment. Right. But I also felt like, and this is my work, is to keep pushing forward, is to see where, like, our elders left off. and to keep moving forward, picking up their work and moving on.

Right. And I may get, you know, to the end of my life, you know, and there may be a shift and I may say, oh, my God, I thought I'd handled that. Right. You know, years ago. But what happened? Right.

And it's easy to feel as if we can get discouraged. But in fact, it's just the recognition of how complex real collective change is that we all have to do our part. And then once you finish your part, right, once you are beginning to transition from this life, you say, you know what, I came here, I did what I could. And now I release this. Right. I let this go.

And I opened up the space for others to follow me and to pick up the work where I left off. Right. I think, again, it's so it's so important to emphasize that grief work is a part of collective liberation. It's intertwined because grief helps me to take care of all the disappointments. Right. It helps me to stay realistic and grounded.

Right. I am only one person with certain capacities and I do what I can and that's all we can do. Right. So if someone's like, oh, I should do more, then that becomes a conversation that becomes something that we are praying about and practicing with. What else can I do?

Right? And you have to ask this question in your practice, what else should I be doing? And we open to, to being guided and led. You know, and that's something again, I do all the time as well. What else? Right?

And I'm constantly being led. Right? Right. New Saints, I think, is a testament to what it looks like to constantly say yes to the change. Right. There is such a shift between Love and Rage and New Saints that people are really like tuning into.

It's a different. These are two different books because I was two different people writing it. Right. Like there was an evolution. Right. Even though there's such a connection between both books, right?

One book was starting as the other was being published, right? So, but New Saints is the testament to how I change and continue to change. And so the next book will be completely different, right? Because I'll be a different person, right? So I, you know, I would tell young people and students, right? It's like, Prepare to continue changing for the rest of your life.

If you're really committed to real collective liberation and social change, then you have to be constantly shifting, changing, evolving. Where you start in the work may be very different down the line, right? And that's okay, right? Yeah. I really appreciate the bringing it back to the grief work, the disappointment of I might. not, I'm one person, this is the capacity I have, this is the change I can enact.

And letting ourselves yet really honestly, like be with that. I just really appreciate how it keeps coming back to Yeah, the grief work. How would someone and I know I asked this a little bit in a different way. But what are the ways someone can work with their grief? How can someone tend to their heart? And I'm also really appreciating the question that you had asked around, like sitting down and practice and prayer and asking what else can I do?

0:33:31

Harpinder Mann

I think that's so important to sit down in that way. And I will go back to the same question. How does someone tend to their heart? How does someone work with their grief?

0:33:49

Lama Rod Owens

You know, there has to be first a really gentle approach. to the grief itself, right?

Even a kind of tenderness, right? When we're trying to understand that the grief is here to teach us, to show us something important about who we are. So the grief is a teacher, is a friend, right? So that mentality is really important to start with, right? And I encourage people to make space for grief every day, even if you don't feel as if you're grieving, like still open up space in a formal way to connect. to the grief, right?

And grief for me is often felt as a deep disappointment. There's a disappointment, right? How can I choose to feel that, right? And to offer it space. And then there is, you know, the natural world, right? The elements, the land, the trees and the waters, right?

I take my grief work to the natural world, right? To the earth, to the waters, right? I tell people to go and sit with water, right? And let the water hold our grief. Let the earth support us. Feel the winds, right?

And the air, like feel our breath, moving energy, right? in and out. Creating relationships with people who are themselves openly grieving is really important. It's hard to do this work if we feel like we're the only person in our community or friend group and so forth who's doing this. Find some support from other folks around you because that support really helps us to cut through these feelings of isolation. Right.

And that's not the case. Everyone is grieving, regardless of if they recognize that or not, they're still grieving. I can feel grief in everyone around me. Right. And I feel a closeness because of that to folks. Again, you know, going back to what we were discussing earlier about letting the heart break and having the courage to feel the heart break.

Right? What does your grief actually feel like physically, emotionally, mentally, right? Like, get curious about the experience. of grief. And let that grief, again, connect you to people, intimately. A closeness, like let your grief allow you to draw close to people.

I think that kind of drawing close really helps us to work with the feeling of distance. We can feel really, we can feel like the world is full of strangers if we don't have this kind of empathy, right? I don't feel like the world is full of strangers. I feel like the world is full of humans trying to figure out how to be happy and how to get free, right? I want to connect to that, right? And that helps me to see even strangers as well, potential friends or colleagues, right?

0:37:33

Harpinder Mann

On this path of getting free. I'm taking a moment to just pause and be with the wisdom that you're sharing. I think about these emotions of grief, of disappointment, of loneliness, I find what has been most helpful for me is when they arise to let myself feel them and then also to feel that others feel the same and let that be something that connects us instead of separates. And I'm really hearing that and what you're saying, especially like looking out and it's like not seeing strangers, but just seeing humans trying their best to, to make it in this world. And, and yeah, what a beautiful approach to, to, and yeah, that definitely, or you're like, understanding of grief as this deep disappointment.

0:38:40

Lama Rod Owens

And my goodness, I feel like there is so much, there is so much to be disappointed about as we look around. Absolutely. Right. And another thing that comes to mind, too, is that and this is what I really appreciate Buddhism for, which is helping people understand that, you know, suffering happens. Right. It's not extraordinary.

It's like this is what happens. This is what we're trying to get free from. Right. And so knowing that and particularly the teachings around the nature of the reality that we that we share, you know, like there's going to always be struggle. There's always going to be harm. Right.

You know, there's always going to be some type of conflict. Right. Or just a restriction of resources for people. Right. In some way. That's always going to happen.

Right. And so we can just acknowledge that and say, yeah, and this is why we're trying. to get free, both like politically and socially, but also ultimately spiritually. Right. And so there there has to be some willingness to witness and to be with suffering as well, which is key to the practice of Buddhism. Yeah, thank you for bringing that in.

0:40:13

Harpinder Mann

I was leading a meditation on Monday around equanimity and of the students was talking about, I feel like equanimity can be spiritual bypassing. And she talked about teachers she's worked with who have said in the face of everything going on, just love and light. And I was like, so many of these teachings have come as a result of suffering. They speak to suffering. They're results of, they're asking us And so it just makes me think about sometimes the hypocrisies like people might feel we're hearing these spiritual teachings and people might distort it for their own path and how that feels like, oh, but it's about the suffering and how do we get free?

0:41:05

Lama Rod Owens

Yeah, there's no going around it or bypassing it, right? It's about going through it and finding joy even through the struggle. of suffering, right? Joy can hold the suffering, right? Because joy is this expression of space, spaciousness, right? Space is always present, though we forget about it.

We can feel disconnected. But once we remember and open back to space, we realize that there's enough space to hold everything. And I don't have to be so active in that holding. I think we get into trouble more like, oh, I have to do this. No, actually, the teachings actually say you have to relax into this. You're not bypassing, you're not pushing away, you're allowing wherever arises to arise.

Only when you're able to do that, can you respond. If there are things that need to be changed after accepting it, then you change it. right but i think so many folks particularly spiritual teachers and guides like they haven't done the deeper work of accepting the truth of things. Because it will cut through, this kind of acceptance will cut through all of our narratives, all of our fantasies, all of our everything, all of our notions. It will get us to the truth.

And when we get to the truth, we'll change. We will become different people. And some of us are terrified of making that choice because we're so comfortable where we are, right? But where we are isn't necessarily our homes, nor is where we're at necessarily conducive to real experiences of liberation. Yeah, I think about in New Saints when you talk about it's as if we have been in this like dark closet and then someone like opens the door and it's like this light and this freedom you're like, oh, but I've gotten so used to like, even though it's uncomfortable, but it's like I've gotten used to it. And for some, it's like, how do we choose to be free?

And then I guess what I'm hearing is like, some don't want to be free. They're happy just as they are. Yeah. And we can acknowledge that, right? And we have to be careful about forcing people to get free who weren't ready. Because we all have to make our own choices to get free.

Right. As I often talk about, it's like, I have to rely on the choices that I'm making because when it's really hard, I don't want to blame anyone for anything. I don't want to say, oh, I just, everyone else was doing it and I did it. And like, this sucks. No, when it's hard, I remind myself, I chose this. And then I reflect back on it.

I chose it. I chose it because this was how I was going to get free. This is how I was going to suffer less by moving into this and telling the truth about it, experiencing the intensity of this, but also getting to the spaciousness that's holding everything. which begins to alleviate the intensity of suffering, right? There's so much space in my practice now that my suffering is so different than it was when I began my practice. But you have to trust the space.

Space as this experience, space as an element, but this reality that everything is already being held, I just have to trust that is being held. Yeah, there is such a difference. I think even somatically, when things feel constricted, versus when they feel spacious and letting ourselves like have an embodied sense of these ideas too is really important. Yeah. Well, you know, and what goes along with all of this too is our contemplation of death and dying and impermanence in general, right? There's so much resistance because we really haven't tended to the fact that we will die.

Right? This is another thing that I'm deeply appreciative to this this path for which is like taking me to death. Right? And saying, okay, what is death? Right? How do we practice with this?

Right? And how do you tend to death by choosing to live now? Right? Right? You know, over and over again, you know, you know, these questions, these inquiries, right, are really rooted in a resistance to death. Right?

We have to process that. We have to come back into relationship with death. We love birth so much, like we celebrate birth and everything is wonderful. But we forget that the conclusion to birth is death. As the Buddha taught, everything that is born must die. So I will die.

And I've gotten to a point in my practice where I'm okay with that. Right. And so because I'm OK with that, all this pressure kind of has has kind of dissipated. Right. So I'm not resisting my death. I have all this energy now to invest in the moment.

Right. So I can work. Right. I can do what I'm called to do. And I can say and I'll do this till I die. And that will be the end of this part of the work.

There's such an attachment to life. There's such an attachment to our bodies. Right. And we say, oh, I am my body, which is not the case. Our bodies are an experience like everything. Right.

But if we don't see everything, including our bodies are even living as an experience, then everything gets so dense and material. Right. And that materialism, that density, when it becomes too much, turns into hopelessness, turns into a real kind of like, yeah, like materialism, but also kind of a nihilism as well, you know, where we get to a point where we're like, oh, nothing matters, right? What's the point, right? That comes when everything gets so heavy.

And this is why we have to do the work that we've been talking about. We have to feel everything. We have to open to joy, open to space. We have to remember all those who came before us who faced really difficult situations, right? and relying on the support of communities and elders and teachers and guides and so forth. Right.

We're relying on our love as well, but also remembering that this is just one experience that we're having in this moment. As I often say, it's just a moment. Life is just a moment. But we have to be present to this moment and to prepare for the next moment, which is death, which is even saying that, you know, It's not as heavy for me as it may sound like death for me is not a thing. It's not a noun. It is a verb or a verb in terms of like, it is about moving transition, right?

0:49:18

Harpinder Mann

Not this destination, but just another experience that we move through to get to another experience. Yeah, thank you so much for bringing in death and dying as something that we know is going to happen. But I do find living in the West, or living in the US, it's something that we don't talk about. And I'm thankful to my teacher, And I think about Dr. Miles Neale, who I study with, and in a course called liberation on our hands, we will practice dying, we'll practice dying, we'll practice thinking about those that we love dying. And then it's like dying as this preparation of another lifetime, and then another lifetime.

And what that reminds me is like, how do we keep like a long view? So it's not only like, what am I doing in this lifetime for this lifetime, but in preparation for the next lifetime. And I appreciate how you're also talking about like our ancestors and our descendants. Like there's There's some level of like responsibility and connection there that feels reverent that like feels sacred instead of the nihilism of like, oh, let me just nothing matters. It's all pointless. And it's like, well, if you're saying like, No, this moment is is precious.

0:50:57

Lama Rod Owens

Yeah, yeah, we continue. Like, it's think of existence as a continuum. That consciousness is moving in and out of different shapes and forms, right? So we're in a form now. Death is the introduction to another form. Right?

Beyond this. And that's been so important for me, that I am more than this life and this body. That I was before, I am now, and I will continue to be. And everything is really based on how I show up and be present to this moment, to each moment that I get. What kind of love, what kind of care, what kind of awareness do I offer to this moment? That shapes what will happen.

And because I've done this in the past, it has shaped how I'm able to. do it right now in the moment. As I tell people, people are like, oh, who was I? What's going to happen in future lives? Well, I tell people to look at right now. What are you doing right now?

That will let you know where you've come from and it will let you know where you're headed. just by the quality of awareness and experiencing and love and care that you're embodying, it will tell you so much about who you are. Yeah. Thank you for bringing that in, that connection of, and I know I love, you talked about in the news saying how like, thinking about karma. And it's like, what a mystery, like trying to really understand it, like, like fully, and I definitely feel that and but I love, I feel like what you're describing right now is a little bit of karma, like what is your love and your life and your actions like right now. And there's a connection there with the past lives and the lives to come.

0:52:56

Harpinder Mann

That that feels very grounded. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that's it. A question that I had and I was like, I know this is such a big question, but I want to ask it. How does one know when they're free? How does one know that I am free?

0:53:14

Lama Rod Owens

I'm on the journey and I, yeah, like, how does someone know that? Well, oh, there are so many different ways to know that. But it really depends on what kind of freedom we're talking about, you know, because when we say freedom, it's a huge concept. There are different levels of freedom. Right. But in general, I often start with this, like, what is my experience of suffering right now?

And for me, that's an important question because I experienced far less suffering than I did before I started practicing in my 20s. It's night and day, actually. I could never have imagined this level of, I would use the word equanimity. And when I say equanimity, I'm also really talking about balance, like this level of balance that I can experience in this life, right? That is a level of freedom, right? But ultimately, freedom, ultimate freedom is the extinguishing, extinguishing of suffering.

And when suffering is extinguished, then what is left is the bliss, right? And you will know bliss. Right. Bliss will eradicate the sense of self. Right. So as long as we're referring to I and me, we're not ultimately free.

Right. Though as we move through these levels of freedom, the less we suffer, the more we're getting free. Right. And you know that there's a there's a kind of accountability practice because yeah, we can bypass right and say, okay, I'm happy, I'm free. But I'm talking about as you are authentically, deeply engaged with collective struggle, right? And you can feel that, that struggle and you're engaged in that struggle, but that struggle isn't engaging you, it's not consuming you.

That's a lot. of freedom, right? The more that we can hold chaos and awareness and non -reactivity is really us consuming the chaos. But when we find ourselves overreacting and overwhelmed and just consumed by chaos and feeling hopeless and full of despair, the chaos is consuming us. So I want to get to, which I am, in this place of really consuming the suffering, the chaos, the impermanence, which means that I choose to feel everything and to process everything. My grief is constant with me, but it's not overwhelming me. I feel grief all the time, but it's not the dominant experience because there's so much space.

I'm being held by space as I'm feeling the grief and the joy. as well as the outrage, right? And the disillusionments and the hopelessness. Yeah, that's all there, but it's not overwhelming, right? Yeah, thank you so much for speaking to it in that way. Because I was really like hearing the like letting ourselves really authentically engage with the collective struggle.

And like, as we collectively or as we authentically engage with it, it's like, we're gonna feel it, we're gonna maybe feel yours, like the despair and the grief and the disappointment. But instead of that, like bringing us down into collapse, instead of that consuming us, it's like there's enough space where that can exist and like action can exist and hopefulness can exist. Instead of it's like, that's the only reality.

0:57:11

Harpinder Mann

A question that came up for me is, what would be the difference between chaos consuming us and then letting our heart break? Is there a difference?

0:58:06

Lama Rod Owens

Allowing our hearts to break in a practice sense is actually just being aware of how We just allow the disappointment to be present. It's not a reaction. It's a response. It's a choice. Being consumed by the brokenheartedness is reactivity. It's a reaction to something that's already happening. We feel overwhelmed.

It's too much. And we start reacting. That reactivity actually builds layers of resistance. And therefore, deeper levels of suffering. and discomfort, right? But when I choose to let my heart break, I am choosing this in awareness.

I'm choosing it in love, actually for myself and for the collective. I am doing this in order to metabolize what is mine to metabolize instead of not doing this labor and work, which means I become work for other people. That means other people who are trying to do their work metabolizing has to hold space for me because I'm not doing this for myself. And we all are aware of that. We have a lot of experience with trying to support people who aren't doing their work. So we have to do a lot of emotional labor for folks.

Instead of them choosing to start this labor for themselves and then we can get together and support one another, which is what collective healing is. We're supporting one another in the work, right? But not just like showing up and just doing everyone's work for them. That's not going to get anyone free actually. And then you'll become really resentful over time. Yeah, thank you so much.

0:59:49

Harpinder Mann

I'm really hearing the difference between the reactivity and the responsiveness. And I feel like what I'm also hearing is like, taking intentional time every day to sit and be with whatever it is, instead of it's like, it's happening in the mind, it's just going and we're thinking, but it's like, we're not taking that intentional time to just like sit and practice or be with whatever it might be that like we can allows us to be with it, but how important that is exactly a process. Yeah, yeah, you know, it's choosing. the discomfort instead of the discomfort choosing us. And people, you know, I think people struggle with that teaching, you know, and I think people say, oh, I don't want to suffer more. Like, why am I choosing this?

1:00:41

Lama Rod Owens

And I say, we're suffering anyway. And there's a layer of resistance that is really adding to our discomfort. So let's cut through the resistance and say welcome. Like, I'm already struggling. Let's just say yes to the struggle. That's the consuming, right?

And let that struggle be present. And let's start getting curious about what it feels like, right? Because the struggle or the suffering is actually showing us all the ways in which we're perpetuating the suffering. So you start actually making choices to suffer less. You know, again, we're doing too much work for people. right?

Okay, let's just let's address that. Like, oh, I don't have strong enough boundaries. Okay, let's address that. I'm not spending enough time in the natural world on land with the waters with the trees. Okay, let's go out and take a hike. You know, let's be, let's be with the elements which can hold and support me.

Like the suffering will show you how to decrease it, but we have to get close enough to allow suffering to show us. Not keep this distance, this resistance. And yeah, it's scary, absolutely. But this is the only freedom. only way to get free. This is the only way I know how to get free and it's working for me.

1:02:09

Harpinder Mann

So I stick with it. Yes. Thank you. I have two more questions. As you were talking, I find an experience I will have, and sometimes my students will share, is looking out and feeling guilty, feeling guilty that there's so much suffering out there. And I am in comparison and relatively materially at least.

1:02:43

Lama Rod Owens

Well, yeah, which is wonderful. Right? Guess what, you think you have a kind of like, Privilege. Great. Then use that privilege to help others. That's the point.

You know, I tell people all the time, it's like, you know, we want to practice solidarity with communities and people who, you know, are struggling. Absolutely. But if I am someone who's struggling, I don't need you to show up with your, with your suffering and add it to mine. I need you to show up resourced to support me in my struggle. Right? And so that's part of my ethic.

It's like, I want to show up in the world as resourced as possible. This is why I practice and train in the way that I do. So I can show up with resources. I can show up with spaciousness. I can show up with deep understanding. I can show up with compassion.

I can show up with love. I can show up with whatever material resources that I have. Whatever materially I have to share, I can show up with it. And so if we are someone who, yeah, we may not be struggling a lot. We may have access to a lot of resources. Absolutely, that's wonderful, great.

Bring those resources to communities of struggle. and redistribute those resources. If you have money, redistribute your money. But it's also about sharing skills. If you're a healer, show up and heal people. If you're a great cook, cook for people, offer food.

If you're a great organizer, show up and organize. If you're a great meditation teacher, show up and offer space for people to connect to themselves so they can continue the work of getting free. Right, I think the guilt gets in the way. So many people's like liberation work, they just feel so guilty that I have so I have so much. Right? Well, if that's a struggle, give it away.