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Spiritual Activism and Abolition

IN PERSON

February 3, 10, 17 & 24
Tuesdays (6:00-8:30pm EST)

Saints, spiritual warriors, bodhisattvas, zaddikim — no matter how they are named in a given tradition, they all share a profound wish to free others from suffering. Saints are not beings of stained glass or carved stone. “Each of us can be a new saint,” says Lama Rod Owens. New Saints embody spiritual abolition which is the work of abolishing any system and institution that prevents people from experiencing full agency to determine the quality of their lives and restricting resources needed to experience joy and care. Spiritual abolition is more than a critique of power and how social systems work to grant and deny people resources that they need to survive. It is more than just abolishing the material carceral state with its prisons, police, and surveillance. Spiritual abolition is dreaming and then beginning to live beyond the violent indoctrination of the binary that enables people to express dominance over others. Spiritual abolitionism means that the entire ecology must be liberated, that we have to do the labor to get ourselves free, and that same labor we do for ourselves is the same labor we offer to our collectives, which include blood and chosen families, friends, communities, identity-based affinity groups, cities, and countries. This is the same labor we are doing for our entire unseen ecologies of ancestors and descendants. We abolish anything that prevents us from being in direct, honest, and compassionate relationships first with ourselves and then the communities we belong to.

Instructor Bio:

Lama Rod Owens is an author, activist, and authorized Lama (Buddhist Teacher) in the Kagyu School of Tibetan Buddhism. Lama Rod is the Guiding Teacher for the Radical Dharma Boston Collective, a teacher with Inward Bound Mindfulness Education (iBme), a visiting teacher with Natural Dharma Fellowship and the Brooklyn Zen Center. Lama Rod is a faculty member for the iBme’s Teacher Training program and is also a faculty member for the Harvard Graduate School of Education’s professional education program in mindfulness for educators and has served as a guest faculty member for the school’s course Mindfulness for Educators. He holds a Master of Divinity degree in Buddhist Studies from Harvard Divinity School where he focused on the intersection of social change, identity, and spiritual practice and was a recipient of the prestigious Hopkins Shareholder Award honoring his work in ministry. He is a co-author of Radical Dharma, Talking Race, Love, and Liberation, which explores race in the context of American Buddhist communities.

Lama Rod is a founding teacher for the Awaken meditation app that offers meditations and contemplations focused on social change. He has been published and featured in several publications including Buddhadharma, Lion’s Roar, Tricycle, The Harvard Divinity Bulletin, Spirit Magazine, and contributed the chapter on working with anger for the recent publication Real World Mindfulness for Beginners. He is a regular guest on SiriusXM’s Urban View hosted by journalist and publisher Karen Hunter. He has offered talks, retreats, and workshops for many organizations and universities including New York University, Yale University, Harvard University, Harvard Law School, Columbia Law School, Tufts University, University of Vermont, and Boston College. Lama Rod facilitates undoing patriarchy workshops for male identified practitioners in Brooklyn and Boston and his current writing projects include patriarchy in spiritual communities, sexuality and ethics, and fatness and spirituality.

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This course is offered on Friday 3/27, 1-6pm (EST) and Saturday 3/28, 9am-5pm (EST).

If you are a Union alum, contact lsimon@uts.columbia.edu for your discount code.

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