Love and Rage

The Path of Liberation Through Anger

By: Lama Rod Owens

Narrated by: Lama Rod Owens

A Los Angeles Times Best Seller

In the face of systemic racism and state-sanctioned violence, how can we metabolize our anger into a force for liberation?

White supremacy in the United States has long necessitated that Black rage be suppressed, repressed, or denied, often as a means of survival, a literal matter of life and death. In Love and Rage, Lama Rod Owens, coauthor of Radical Dharma, shows how this unmetabolized anger - and the grief, hurt, and transhistorical trauma beneath it - needs to be explored, respected, and fully embodied to heal from heartbreak and walk the path of liberation. This is not a book about bypassing anger to focus on happiness or a road map for using spirituality to transform the nature of rage into something else. Instead, it is one that offers a potent vision of anger that acknowledges and honors its power as a vehicle for radical social change and enduring spiritual transformation.

Love and Rage weaves the inimitable wisdom and lived experience of Lama Rod Owens with Buddhist philosophy, practical meditation exercises, mindfulness, tantra, pranayama, ancestor practices, energy work, and classical yoga. The result is a book that serves as both a balm and a blueprint for those seeking justice who can feel overwhelmed with anger - and yet who refuse to relent. It is a necessary text for these times.

©2020 Lama Rod Owens (P)2021 North Atlantic Books

Critic reviews

“Lama Rod Owens’s voice is a distinct coming together of streams of identity that pour forth an ocean of wisdom that is relevant to anyone that has ever experienced anger. He speaks with a rawness and candor that is both disarming and invitational, creating space for the whole of who you are to enter fully into - regardless of race, religion, sexual identity, body type or ability. Drawing equally on the endless suffering of peoples and bodies marginalized and oppressed, and the timeless wisdom that lies beyond identity and circumstance, he asks that we fiercely honor and hold the complexity of it all to heal ourselves to become the ancestors in training we are meant to be. His language draws from Buddhism, experience from Blackness, and he beckons toward a wide path of Love that has room for everyone.” (Rev. angel Kyodo williams, sensei, founder of Radical Dharma Movement Project, and coauthor of Radical Dharma)

“This work is personal, political, and practical. Lama Rod Owens is wildly generous in letting us see him wrestle his way through his own pain, rage, and arousal. He weaves us from his own story to ours, from his Blackness, gayness, his prophetic nature, to our collective need to feel, harness, and express anger. And then every other page offers practices, practical guidance on how to be in right relationship to anger, to understand the power and wholeness of rage. What a gift!” (adrienne maree brown, author of Emergent Strategy)

“Love and Rage is a deep dive into how we are shaped by our perceptions of anger in a culture marked by dividedness and contempt. Through the lens of mindfulness and compassion-based practices, Lama Rod Owens shows us how the power of rage can be transformed into a force of healing in our fractured world.” (Tara Brach, author of Radical Compassion)

Good pain medicine

This is a very healing scripture of Hope & restoration. I enjoyed the vulnerability & the lessons offered here so much. I want to listen to the last chapter of this book on repeat on hard days. So many thanks to the author and all contributions that led to this accumulation of wisdom & pouring out of love for others

Love and Rage

I have listened to this audiobook many times over including the guided meditations. Nourishment for my meditation practice and training my mind

Medicine for a weary soul

Thank you, Lama Rod, for writing this book for me. For us! It was more than what I needed it was required for me to move through the tenderness of my broken heart!

Wow! yes! black voices in Buddhism!

Just what the world needs. keep going! Wonderful! So shocked I haven't been introduced to this teacher before.

Love and Rage spoke to me

Love and rage don’t seem like very mindful topics to be grouped together, and they are two sides of the same coin. They both coexist. We need to see and be with our rage, with love, it’s trying to tell us something. Noticing and acknowledging our discomfort leads to change.

get your life

Great/hard listen. Honest, relatable, guiding and truthful. Thank you Lama Rod for your person insights, teachings and experiences. There so much here, I just ordered my paper copy too!

A must read for all.

A great book for mental health therapists. A healthy relationship with anger very well articulated.

Full of wisdom and realness

Appreciate the voice of the author, authenticity and insight throughout this experience. Definitely recommend. Will be purchasing physical copy!

POWERFUL & LIBERATING

Love and Rage opened my heart and mind in unexpected ways, giving me new insight into racial equity, spiritual growth, and my own intention to showing up for life with love and understanding. Lama Rod Owens is a brilliant teacher. He shares from the heart with wisdom and compassion that is articulate, honest, vulnerable, and inspiring. His commitment to doing the work of recognizing his own anger, giving it space, and caring for it helps show us a path to use our own anger and emotions skillfully. With powerful story telling, truth telling, and beautiful guided spiritual practices, he points us toward truth, towards awakening. "If we don't do our work, then we become work for other people ". I recommend Love and Rage wholeheartedly.

Excellent!!

Lama Rod emphasized compassionate action and talks about how to be motivated by compassion rather than anger. Lama Rod also discussed how to relate to your anger and recognize the wisdom in it. Lama Rod talks about his own experiences and discusses topics that are often ignored by other teachers in these traditions, such as queerness, sex, and historical trauma.