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Love and Rage: The Path of Liberation through Anger
A LOS ANGELES TIMES BESTSELLER
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.
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.
304 pages, Paperback
Published June 16, 2020
620 people are currently reading
6393 people want to read
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April 6, 2025
I picked this one up upon getting myself off the floor and dusting myself off, a few years ago - and trying vainly to recall the license plate number of the 18 wheeler that had flattened me during the violent political storms of the previous US Administration…
“This will have to be one review I’ll perpetually put off writing until the halcyon day arrives when I feel at last EQUAL to the task (I wrote then). But until that cloudless day arrives, at an unnameable time in the future tense, I’l keep trying to SUBLIMATE my own Towering Rage.
“Full review to follow… WHENEVER.”
So it goes. And some eighteen wheelers are better left uncommemorated. My neuroleptics tend to flatline all my more recent recollections anyway, which forgetfulness is to me a blessed anodyne.
All I remember during those otherwise ugly four years is the delight of discovering Goodreads, and starting to WRITE MY HEART OUT.
Now, I’m no meditation adept like Lama Owens, but a four year undergraduate slog at earning an English degree, stone by heavy stone, has taught my words to play out the contents of my heart - as a concert musician might do.
So I can tell you honestly that Owens’ book forced me to grab the live wire of my own howling rage during that long hiatus of all reason and decency that was the years 2016-2020.
And what I realized shocked me more than that electrical current did.
You’ll see the exact point of this book when the segue into pure classical Agon starts, in my Kindle notes. For our life can be worthless if it lacks the inner conflict of struggle.
Sleepers, awake.
That moment is the instant at which Owens sees that something far deeper lies beneath our rage. For naked to ourselves in our nightmares we can all be - if we’re not distracted or dozy with stimulants - a quivering mass of PTSD. That is the truth our polite social lives bury.
And that’s a result of living in a decaying world.
What we discover when we SEE our deeply interiorized PTSD - just as Saint Paul saw it on that lifesaving road to Damascus - is that, deep inside, our consciousness is as unprotected as a bowl of soggy cornflakes swimming aimlessly in warm milk.
Being basket cases like this now, even, we may sense - just like Paul did - that deep within our habitual stony breasts a Real, Live Human Heart is Starting to Beat Warmly… maybe not strongly at first, but love is there.
A feeling revealing something our senseless, robotic behaviour has obscured for years:
Resurrection Power.
And THAT is Owens’ message, folks. Some very good things happen in trying times.
That after the mighty conflagration that razes our soul down to blackened stumps -
The first green shoots of New Life -
Herald a New Hope for us all, even in this Age of Violence.
“This will have to be one review I’ll perpetually put off writing until the halcyon day arrives when I feel at last EQUAL to the task (I wrote then). But until that cloudless day arrives, at an unnameable time in the future tense, I’l keep trying to SUBLIMATE my own Towering Rage.
“Full review to follow… WHENEVER.”
So it goes. And some eighteen wheelers are better left uncommemorated. My neuroleptics tend to flatline all my more recent recollections anyway, which forgetfulness is to me a blessed anodyne.
All I remember during those otherwise ugly four years is the delight of discovering Goodreads, and starting to WRITE MY HEART OUT.
Now, I’m no meditation adept like Lama Owens, but a four year undergraduate slog at earning an English degree, stone by heavy stone, has taught my words to play out the contents of my heart - as a concert musician might do.
So I can tell you honestly that Owens’ book forced me to grab the live wire of my own howling rage during that long hiatus of all reason and decency that was the years 2016-2020.
And what I realized shocked me more than that electrical current did.
You’ll see the exact point of this book when the segue into pure classical Agon starts, in my Kindle notes. For our life can be worthless if it lacks the inner conflict of struggle.
Sleepers, awake.
That moment is the instant at which Owens sees that something far deeper lies beneath our rage. For naked to ourselves in our nightmares we can all be - if we’re not distracted or dozy with stimulants - a quivering mass of PTSD. That is the truth our polite social lives bury.
And that’s a result of living in a decaying world.
What we discover when we SEE our deeply interiorized PTSD - just as Saint Paul saw it on that lifesaving road to Damascus - is that, deep inside, our consciousness is as unprotected as a bowl of soggy cornflakes swimming aimlessly in warm milk.
Being basket cases like this now, even, we may sense - just like Paul did - that deep within our habitual stony breasts a Real, Live Human Heart is Starting to Beat Warmly… maybe not strongly at first, but love is there.
A feeling revealing something our senseless, robotic behaviour has obscured for years:
Resurrection Power.
And THAT is Owens’ message, folks. Some very good things happen in trying times.
That after the mighty conflagration that razes our soul down to blackened stumps -
The first green shoots of New Life -
Herald a New Hope for us all, even in this Age of Violence.
June 25, 2020
As a biracial American woman who practices Tibetan Buddhism, I've come to view Lama Rod as a teacher. Though I don't know him personally, I attend his online practice sessions weekly whenever possible. His powerful call to bring authenticity into how we in the west practice Vajrayana Buddhism has changed the way I relate to my personal practice. This is not a form of Buddhism that allows you to sit comfortably on your cushion, do your prostrations and chanting, and bypass all the uncomfortable feelings and truths you carry around with you trying not to see. It is a spiritual practice that invites you to look at your shit, acknowledge it in all its brilliance and ugliness, and level with it straight on. The first time I heard Lama Rod speak, it felt like what I'd been waiting to hear from a teacher for a long time now--someone deeply learned in the traditional form of the religion who also calls for us as Americans to look at ourselves with eyes wide open to our personal and societal baggage.
"Love and Rage" is, in keeping with Lama Rod's teachings, extremely personal, with Lama Rod laying himself bare. It was in these waters that I vacillated in how I received the book. On the one hand, I felt it to be both profound and radical that a teacher was placing himself on the same level as all the rest of us. He is refusing to sit high and holy on his dais, preaching to us as if he is above the struggles we all face every day. He is here in the muck of it all, doing his best to walk the talk, sharing what he has learned as a tool he has found helpful to confront his demons. That is both fucking deep and courageous, and my respect for him is boundless.
On the other hand, that same approach occasionally left me a bit tepid. The practice he shares in this book is a highly practical approach to spirituality, which is exactly what a religion should offer to its followers. Yet that very groundedness in the personal and everyday made me miss the dizzying heights of the transcendental. This isn't to say that the mystical doesn't lay inside the practices and stories that Lama Rod shares in this book. It is the difference of looking at the ground from up close, versus standing atop a mountain and viewing the entire range. We need this connection to the earth on which we stand, and to not get lost in the abstractions. We as a society will not confront injustice without our feet firmly planted in the everyday, and I will not deal with my bullshit while my head is in the clouds. Still, I missed the vistas.
All in all, this is a wonderful addition to mindfulness and Buddhist texts. Lama Rod has powerful medicine for American Buddhism, and his teachings are much needed at this time. Five stars on that alone.
"Love and Rage" is, in keeping with Lama Rod's teachings, extremely personal, with Lama Rod laying himself bare. It was in these waters that I vacillated in how I received the book. On the one hand, I felt it to be both profound and radical that a teacher was placing himself on the same level as all the rest of us. He is refusing to sit high and holy on his dais, preaching to us as if he is above the struggles we all face every day. He is here in the muck of it all, doing his best to walk the talk, sharing what he has learned as a tool he has found helpful to confront his demons. That is both fucking deep and courageous, and my respect for him is boundless.
On the other hand, that same approach occasionally left me a bit tepid. The practice he shares in this book is a highly practical approach to spirituality, which is exactly what a religion should offer to its followers. Yet that very groundedness in the personal and everyday made me miss the dizzying heights of the transcendental. This isn't to say that the mystical doesn't lay inside the practices and stories that Lama Rod shares in this book. It is the difference of looking at the ground from up close, versus standing atop a mountain and viewing the entire range. We need this connection to the earth on which we stand, and to not get lost in the abstractions. We as a society will not confront injustice without our feet firmly planted in the everyday, and I will not deal with my bullshit while my head is in the clouds. Still, I missed the vistas.
All in all, this is a wonderful addition to mindfulness and Buddhist texts. Lama Rod has powerful medicine for American Buddhism, and his teachings are much needed at this time. Five stars on that alone.
July 4, 2020
I would recommend this book to all (especially people of color) who pursue social justice fueled by their anger and see being agitated, dissociated, and burnt out all the time as a necessary outcome of the work. Lama Rod Owens shows a path where anger is not the fuel, but an informant for all the work that needs to be done. Instead of automatically reacting to anger, he encourages that readers take time notice the hurt in our bodies driving that anger and create love for ourselves around that. When we do that act of love, we can pursue our activism as ardently as we want but have the capacity to better account for our own self-preservation when challenging systemic violence against our bodies.
Reading this book was healing for me, as someone whose locus for action has always been anger and whose mental health has suffered greatly for it. I’ve never felt more calm and connected to my body, as well as inspired to advocate for policies that center the same principles of non-violence and love that I am cultivating for myself.
Reading this book was healing for me, as someone whose locus for action has always been anger and whose mental health has suffered greatly for it. I’ve never felt more calm and connected to my body, as well as inspired to advocate for policies that center the same principles of non-violence and love that I am cultivating for myself.
May 17, 2021
This book came right on time for me, especially the pieces around learning to embrace our anger, how repressed anger can become harm toward ourselves or others, and disembodiment as a state where internalized oppression can thrive. I really appreciated the race analysis and specifically the acknowledgment that Black people's anger is policed and punished. Most of all, I enjoyed Lama Rod Owens' writing and honesty about his own personal experiences, in large part because I could relate so much with his experience of slowly rebuilding a relationship with anger. I've been able to put some of his exercises and lessons into practice even in just the past week while reading this book to better understand the source of my anger and identify my needs, which equips me to set boundaries.
There are some pieces in here that didn't really resonate with me, but I appreciated that Owens wrote from the first person rather than writing in generalizations.
Some favorite lines:
"The practice is to stay with what I am feeling in my body and mind while trying to articulate what I need, first to myself, and then to the person I am in interaction with."
"Without agency of the body, we have no agency over emotions and thus we lose a vital tool not just for the disruption of oppressive systems, but we lose a strategy that can support our mental health."
"Boundary setting is born directly from our ability to consider ourselves worth being cared for. When we value care for ourselves, we can understand what forms of emotional labor are appropriate for us in a given moment."
"I noticed in my practice that internalized oppression continued as long as I remained disembodied. The work of embodiment was the work of reclaiming my body, healing and managing my trauma, and embracing agency over my own body."
There are some pieces in here that didn't really resonate with me, but I appreciated that Owens wrote from the first person rather than writing in generalizations.
Some favorite lines:
"The practice is to stay with what I am feeling in my body and mind while trying to articulate what I need, first to myself, and then to the person I am in interaction with."
"Without agency of the body, we have no agency over emotions and thus we lose a vital tool not just for the disruption of oppressive systems, but we lose a strategy that can support our mental health."
"Boundary setting is born directly from our ability to consider ourselves worth being cared for. When we value care for ourselves, we can understand what forms of emotional labor are appropriate for us in a given moment."
"I noticed in my practice that internalized oppression continued as long as I remained disembodied. The work of embodiment was the work of reclaiming my body, healing and managing my trauma, and embracing agency over my own body."
September 2, 2020
When it comes to Buddhism / activism I’ve always found the two to be somewhat contradictory. Why are westerners / white cis folks telling my friends and allies to live a life of peace and non-reactivity when the world is pivoted against us? How can I engage thoughtfully but also live a life of activism mixed with compassion, generosity, and kindness? What does thoughtful anger and rage actually look like in the contemporary world? I didn’t get *all* the answers, but I got a few that I felt was resounding. One was that our anger points to where we are hurting, and where we are hurting is actually where the work needs to be done. Highlights are shared which encapsulates many of my thoughts!
March 21, 2021
love and rage book review
What are the main ideas?
* anger is actually about heartbreak. if we can use meditation to tend to the heartbreak that underlies most if not all anger, we can use anger as a powerful and non-destructive fuel for our work towards liberation.
* there is a tendency in some buddhist communities to attempt to bypass anger. this is problematic and has a disproportionate impact on oppressed people.
* practices are the core of working with anger effectively. (and in a very show-dont-tell way, the single longest chapter of the book is the practices chapter). we must have practices to allow the energy of anger to rise, be felt, and dissolve into nothing, just as we do with all feelings.
* americans live in a sex saturated and (unfortunately) not a sex positive culture. this is a source of much frustration, anger, and rage (particularly among men and most especially cis-gender heterosexual men).
If I implemented one idea from this book right now, which one would it be?
* if we don't make space to be with and consume our anger, it will consume us. avoid it at your peril, suppress it to the peril of others.
* if i had to pick a second idea, i'd say that my ability to sit with and consume anger can be helpful to people around me, including those i don't know. my capacity to work with my own anger can help me consume and then ground the anger of others. all of this is instructional and illuminating.
How would I describe the book to a friend?
* a beautiful, wide-ranging set of essays (full of snark) describing how anger, love, meditation, and practice fit together to make anger & rage not only acceptable but necessary elements on the pathway to liberation.
What are the main ideas?
* anger is actually about heartbreak. if we can use meditation to tend to the heartbreak that underlies most if not all anger, we can use anger as a powerful and non-destructive fuel for our work towards liberation.
* there is a tendency in some buddhist communities to attempt to bypass anger. this is problematic and has a disproportionate impact on oppressed people.
* practices are the core of working with anger effectively. (and in a very show-dont-tell way, the single longest chapter of the book is the practices chapter). we must have practices to allow the energy of anger to rise, be felt, and dissolve into nothing, just as we do with all feelings.
* americans live in a sex saturated and (unfortunately) not a sex positive culture. this is a source of much frustration, anger, and rage (particularly among men and most especially cis-gender heterosexual men).
If I implemented one idea from this book right now, which one would it be?
* if we don't make space to be with and consume our anger, it will consume us. avoid it at your peril, suppress it to the peril of others.
* if i had to pick a second idea, i'd say that my ability to sit with and consume anger can be helpful to people around me, including those i don't know. my capacity to work with my own anger can help me consume and then ground the anger of others. all of this is instructional and illuminating.
How would I describe the book to a friend?
* a beautiful, wide-ranging set of essays (full of snark) describing how anger, love, meditation, and practice fit together to make anger & rage not only acceptable but necessary elements on the pathway to liberation.
March 23, 2021
2021 reads, #4. This is the big hot book among leftist hipsters right now (it literally took months for my reserve of it at the library to come up), in reality just another general guide to Zen Buddhism, specifically focusing in on the sensation of anger and how Buddhism teaches you to transform that sensation into something productive; but the gimmick here is that author Rod Owens looks at that anger specifically through the lens of social justice activism, asking for example how we can properly honor the very much legitimate rage we feel over something like the deliberate police murder of George Floyd while still transforming that rage into something healthier and more productive in our lives. Spoiler alert: It's through meditation, gratitude, compassion, and the other building blocks of a mindfulness-based Buddhist practice, and so this makes the book an almost perfect choice for those who know little about Buddhism and have always wanted to learn more, while also worrying about learning more because they feel that righteous fury over injustice is not something that should be dismissed or discounted.
That said, I've read probably 50 books about Buddhism over the last several years, and have been engaging in secular mindfulness-based meditation daily for the last half-decade, and this book still provided several new insights about the practice I had never thought about before (for example, that one of the biggest benefits of having friends is that they regularly remind you of your better qualities, while spending too much time alone encourages you to obsessively focus on every worst trait of your personality, which a year into the pandemic I would know nothing about whatsoever); and so unlike a lot of books about mindfulness that are good for beginners, this is simultaneously a great read for veterans of the practice too, from a smart and engaging contemporary writer who dispenses with a lot of the supernatural woo-woo that's often found in these kinds of books, which as an atheist I really appreciated. It's destined to be eventually considered a classic in the field of Western guides to Eastern philosophies, and there's a very good reason it's been flying off the shelves these days. It comes with perhaps my strongest general recommendation I've given a book in the last year.
That said, I've read probably 50 books about Buddhism over the last several years, and have been engaging in secular mindfulness-based meditation daily for the last half-decade, and this book still provided several new insights about the practice I had never thought about before (for example, that one of the biggest benefits of having friends is that they regularly remind you of your better qualities, while spending too much time alone encourages you to obsessively focus on every worst trait of your personality, which a year into the pandemic I would know nothing about whatsoever); and so unlike a lot of books about mindfulness that are good for beginners, this is simultaneously a great read for veterans of the practice too, from a smart and engaging contemporary writer who dispenses with a lot of the supernatural woo-woo that's often found in these kinds of books, which as an atheist I really appreciated. It's destined to be eventually considered a classic in the field of Western guides to Eastern philosophies, and there's a very good reason it's been flying off the shelves these days. It comes with perhaps my strongest general recommendation I've given a book in the last year.
June 19, 2024
100% recommend. Such an important perspective. How can we reclaim our emotions and free ourselves and in that process free all.
April 1, 2021
this had so much in it - rooted in Buddhism, it discusses racism and white supremacy and other social justice issues. it looks at anger and how we can work with it and how to practice self-care. i really appreciated this book.
September 11, 2020
So many useful tidbits, practices. Many illuminating quotes. I really appreciated the continual invitation to be with what is, over and over, as well as expanding the "what is" to include many, many experiences both within and outside of my body, a more diverse assembly than I can often access myself.
I also really appreciated how open, honest, vulnerable he was showing his truth from the position of being a teacher. He shares inner struggles, shames, pains, stories from his own life that are raw. It feels not like the book of a person who has attained some (to me) unreachable state of enlightenment or something, but like the book of someone whose experience of internal tension and growth can be a teacher to me, someone who is deeply committed to the messiness of the world, and himself, as they really are. As a person with very different identity experience from his (white, afab), I was also profoundly grateful to get to hear and internalize the experiences he shared from his own life in a Black male body.
Mostly, I wish he had stuck more with the stories and had spent less time in the more didactic tone of "this is what is," or "do this to achieve that result." The more teach-y content became repetitive, and the wordiness made it hard to follow in places. It also was less relatable, and I don't remember it (just the feeling of being disconnected.) Sometimes, especially when describing the practices he uses, I could glean empowerment from his own journey, feeling like, "oh, if he could come up with this mish mash of practices that work for him from all the lineages he is connected to, then maybe it is ok for me to do that for myself, too."
I guess I just wanted something a little more polished. Thinking about it now, I realize how white that is. What I am asking for, in a sense, is for him to do the emotional labor of making what he says more palatable, easier to digest. Perhaps repetition is helpful ("allow and be with the anger" has definitely stuck). Maybe everything cannot be tied into nice bows. It could be that the effort it took me to understand his sometimes snarly sentences helped me to internalize things better. Linearity, sequential patterns, clean lines, they are all a life, ultimately. All of those things are true, and I still wanted a book that would knock my socks off, flow in the way Emergent Strategy does, sing like Starhawk, punch like James Baldwin. And the thing is, Lama Rod does knock my socks off live. Perhaps it's just that what I have experienced as his greatest gifts guiding and altering consciousness don't translate as well to the typed page.
Reflecting now is helping me to articulate my own vision and experience of transformation through pedagogy, some of which Lama Rod models, and some of which he lacks. What do I want from teachers? I want not didactic "this is how it works," but support and guidance to develop the self-confidence and intuition to reveal truth by my own path. I want to be pushed both deeply into the past of my own lineage, deeply into the future of the world I want to co-create, and deeply into the present of my own experience in the now. I want stories from their lives, especially their own processes of coming to be the person they are today (through the stuck places and pitfalls especially), and the process of coming more fully into the practices they engage in. Where did they find support, courage, self-trust, inspiration? And perhaps more importantly, why and how did they make the choices they made?
It's also helping me think about what I want in a book, and perhaps what I love about Emergent Strategy that I'm still trying to find elsewhere. I love lots of different modalities of word (essays, poems, interviews, personal histories, 'fictional' narratives, facts, metaphors, practices, footnotes, meta-level reflections, hyperlinks, asides, quotes, anecdotes). I love books that read like meditations, where practice is embedded in the flow itself instead of separated out. I love audiobooks.
The book is imperfect, which feels like a fitting parallel to the many times within it that Lama Rod shares vulnerably about his own struggles and missteps. And also like those stories, it is a gift that I receive gratefully, that the world is better for. This is a book made to be read now, and then expanded upon in community, and I recommend it, not as the ultimate culmination of everything, but as a broad, versatile foothold from which to keep climbing upwards together.
I also really appreciated how open, honest, vulnerable he was showing his truth from the position of being a teacher. He shares inner struggles, shames, pains, stories from his own life that are raw. It feels not like the book of a person who has attained some (to me) unreachable state of enlightenment or something, but like the book of someone whose experience of internal tension and growth can be a teacher to me, someone who is deeply committed to the messiness of the world, and himself, as they really are. As a person with very different identity experience from his (white, afab), I was also profoundly grateful to get to hear and internalize the experiences he shared from his own life in a Black male body.
Mostly, I wish he had stuck more with the stories and had spent less time in the more didactic tone of "this is what is," or "do this to achieve that result." The more teach-y content became repetitive, and the wordiness made it hard to follow in places. It also was less relatable, and I don't remember it (just the feeling of being disconnected.) Sometimes, especially when describing the practices he uses, I could glean empowerment from his own journey, feeling like, "oh, if he could come up with this mish mash of practices that work for him from all the lineages he is connected to, then maybe it is ok for me to do that for myself, too."
I guess I just wanted something a little more polished. Thinking about it now, I realize how white that is. What I am asking for, in a sense, is for him to do the emotional labor of making what he says more palatable, easier to digest. Perhaps repetition is helpful ("allow and be with the anger" has definitely stuck). Maybe everything cannot be tied into nice bows. It could be that the effort it took me to understand his sometimes snarly sentences helped me to internalize things better. Linearity, sequential patterns, clean lines, they are all a life, ultimately. All of those things are true, and I still wanted a book that would knock my socks off, flow in the way Emergent Strategy does, sing like Starhawk, punch like James Baldwin. And the thing is, Lama Rod does knock my socks off live. Perhaps it's just that what I have experienced as his greatest gifts guiding and altering consciousness don't translate as well to the typed page.
Reflecting now is helping me to articulate my own vision and experience of transformation through pedagogy, some of which Lama Rod models, and some of which he lacks. What do I want from teachers? I want not didactic "this is how it works," but support and guidance to develop the self-confidence and intuition to reveal truth by my own path. I want to be pushed both deeply into the past of my own lineage, deeply into the future of the world I want to co-create, and deeply into the present of my own experience in the now. I want stories from their lives, especially their own processes of coming to be the person they are today (through the stuck places and pitfalls especially), and the process of coming more fully into the practices they engage in. Where did they find support, courage, self-trust, inspiration? And perhaps more importantly, why and how did they make the choices they made?
It's also helping me think about what I want in a book, and perhaps what I love about Emergent Strategy that I'm still trying to find elsewhere. I love lots of different modalities of word (essays, poems, interviews, personal histories, 'fictional' narratives, facts, metaphors, practices, footnotes, meta-level reflections, hyperlinks, asides, quotes, anecdotes). I love books that read like meditations, where practice is embedded in the flow itself instead of separated out. I love audiobooks.
The book is imperfect, which feels like a fitting parallel to the many times within it that Lama Rod shares vulnerably about his own struggles and missteps. And also like those stories, it is a gift that I receive gratefully, that the world is better for. This is a book made to be read now, and then expanded upon in community, and I recommend it, not as the ultimate culmination of everything, but as a broad, versatile foothold from which to keep climbing upwards together.
Read
December 23, 2025Als Ganzes könnte man das bestimmt "ein wichtiges Buch" nennen (vll. auch, zwischen den Zeilen lesend, im Kontext der religiösen Gemeinschaft, aus der es kommt) und es hat mir gut gefallen. Ich habe nicht so viel persönlichen Bezug zu Buddhismus als Religion und den tiefen Einblick den das Buch bietet in das Leben einer Person, die in der Religion lebt und lehrt, fand ich spannend. Viele Sachen die der Autor zu Wut schreibt waren für mich erhellend und berührend und die Geschichten aus dem eigenen Leben und die politischen Bezüge dazu sehr wertvoll. Mit anderen Sachen (Böse Geister gibt es echt!) konnte ich nicht ganz so viel anfangen, aber finde das irgendwie auch okay, dass mich nicht alles abholt. Ich hätte mir gewünscht, dass die "Practice" Abschnitte ausführlicher beschrieben werden. Manchmal steht wirklich nur ein Name der Practice und eine kurze Beschreibung von 2-3 Sätzen, ich hätte dazu gerne noch mehr Information gehabt.
September 26, 2020
Without question, this is the single most important and helpful book I have read so far this year.
January 9, 2024
There was some really good stuff in here, and some stuff that didn't particularly speak to me. But it's definitely going on the shelf of books to have handy as a recommendation for the right person. In particular, a dharma book by a queer black man that explicitly speaks to that experience as it relates to the practice of meditation and spiritual practice and Buddhism - that's an important book to exist in the world, and worth the read.
August 12, 2022
I've read and reviewed this book three times now, but every time I re-read it Goodreads erases my previous records.
It's a great book. My bible.
It's a great book. My bible.
July 18, 2025
Really great conversation on understanding anger and how it is as important an emotion as any other. I felt it was a bit longer than it needed to be and went too much into the authors personal stories for it being a self-help book.
August 26, 2021
Lama Rod is one of my favorite teachers. I love the way he swears. The way he uses words sparingly. And cuts right to the heart of it. I love the seven homecomings practice he created and shared in this book. He’s one of my Buddha guides that I bring into my circle of care when I sit. If all this sounds like I’ve gone off the deep end, I hope it makes you curious enough to pick this book up. Or at least listen to him interviewed on the 10% happier podcast. He never disappoints. This book is not always an easy read. He speaks heartbreaking truths. But the overall effect is like being wrapped in a warm knowing hug, having been reminded of your worthiness. The way you are divine love manifested in a body.
September 16, 2020
Life changing. A completely new way to view and work with our anger, rage, self and others. If you struggle with boundaries, let Lama Rod introduce you.
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January 22, 2021Although I skimmed the portions of this book that had instructions for meditation practice (partially because I was unaware going in that there was a practice/"self-help" component to this book, and partially because it makes sense to read them in more detail if I actually attempt the methods), I appreciated this very much. Reading it gave me an unexpected sense of peace, which was, perhaps one if its aims, to create spaciousness around anger and rage so that love and compassion can coexist with them. Lama Rod Owens manages to communicate complex feelings and concepts about anger, hurt, transhistorical trauma, suffering, and other related topics in a way that is deceptively clear and simple. I'm grateful Owens chose to share his experience and wisdom in the hopes of helping others despite the fact that this is an incredibly vulnerable book.
Of the many takeaways in the book, a few that impacted me (both new thoughts and revisted ones are the following):
Where there is anger, look for the woundedness that it is protecting.
Marginalized people take on emotional labor for greater society by being free, by being their authentic free selves in a society that is not built for them to thrive.
Self-care is not self-indulgence if self-care is what is done to ensure that one can continue the work of reducing the suffering in one's community.
It is important to learn to live an embodied existence, including trusting and being mindful of what the body is communicating, even if it is pain.
Of the many takeaways in the book, a few that impacted me (both new thoughts and revisted ones are the following):
Where there is anger, look for the woundedness that it is protecting.
Marginalized people take on emotional labor for greater society by being free, by being their authentic free selves in a society that is not built for them to thrive.
Self-care is not self-indulgence if self-care is what is done to ensure that one can continue the work of reducing the suffering in one's community.
It is important to learn to live an embodied existence, including trusting and being mindful of what the body is communicating, even if it is pain.
July 23, 2024
Finishing this while at his retreat. Reading this was a nice complement to understand his approach for these journeys (he's big on silence and connecting to land).
I enjoyed his interview on anger and when violence is necessary - to protect his and his loved ones' bodies after reaching community consensus. There's a lot of vulnerability in this book and I appreciated his stories around paradoxes e.g., teachers. His definition of love was different from what I'm used to and provided me with spaciousness and a reminder that I can love everyone (wanting them to be free) without liking them.
To understand an emotion: SNOELL - see it, name it, own it, experience it, let it go, and let it float. That last one really resonated with me because I don't think my anger/rage will ever go away and that's ok! I move anyway.
My biggest takeaway is practice using the 7 homecomings: these are things that ground us and can bring insight to actually get free. Very practical. He has many versions of practices with these but they consist of:
1. Guides (buddha) - mentors, teachers, coaches...
2. Wisdom texts (dharma) - books, movies, art, music...
3. Community (sangha) - you go to where you are loved and can love back...
4. Ancestors (blood-related and not) - Asking for help and being specific about how you want them to show up is a start...
5. Earth
6. Silence
7. Ourselves
I enjoyed his interview on anger and when violence is necessary - to protect his and his loved ones' bodies after reaching community consensus. There's a lot of vulnerability in this book and I appreciated his stories around paradoxes e.g., teachers. His definition of love was different from what I'm used to and provided me with spaciousness and a reminder that I can love everyone (wanting them to be free) without liking them.
To understand an emotion: SNOELL - see it, name it, own it, experience it, let it go, and let it float. That last one really resonated with me because I don't think my anger/rage will ever go away and that's ok! I move anyway.
My biggest takeaway is practice using the 7 homecomings: these are things that ground us and can bring insight to actually get free. Very practical. He has many versions of practices with these but they consist of:
1. Guides (buddha) - mentors, teachers, coaches...
2. Wisdom texts (dharma) - books, movies, art, music...
3. Community (sangha) - you go to where you are loved and can love back...
4. Ancestors (blood-related and not) - Asking for help and being specific about how you want them to show up is a start...
5. Earth
6. Silence
7. Ourselves
February 9, 2021
Language was so obscure and mystical. I felt like he was trying to sound deep and wise even though it didn't make sense and no one would know what he was talking about unless they were themselves Buddhist. Additionally, I didn't appreciate the loose use of vulgar language being thrown around. It was distracting and unnecessary.
One place Lama Rod Owens tries a redefintion of terms and I feel like it was too far stretched, as if he was just trying to be different (See Chapter 6 on Happiness). He tried to redefine happiness and joy and I felt like it was to no purpose.
One place Lama Rod Owens tries a redefintion of terms and I feel like it was too far stretched, as if he was just trying to be different (See Chapter 6 on Happiness). He tried to redefine happiness and joy and I felt like it was to no purpose.
May 8, 2022
Holy smokes this book was both therapy and meditation. Most of us have never been taught how to move through big feelings like anger and grief, and so they can get stuck in our bodies and minds and then infiltrate our relationships. This book talked about all that and more.
I listened to it which was great (author read it), and since I definitely want to go back to certain sections of the book and spend more time with the guided meditations, I’m going to get a physical copy too.
I listened to it which was great (author read it), and since I definitely want to go back to certain sections of the book and spend more time with the guided meditations, I’m going to get a physical copy too.
February 20, 2024
I picked this book at the exact right time. A beautiful, and hard reflection of the intersection and complexities of love and rage with practical practices to learn to love that rage and sit with difficult feelings.
“If we don’t do our work, then we become work for other people.”
“If we don’t do our work, then we become work for other people.”
November 1, 2020
I saw another review that said, “If I could quit my job and do nothing except read this book, I would.” That’s pretty much how I feel.
November 24, 2023
“This book is a love song to my anger.” p159 Boom.
December 4, 2020
Honest look at anger, which is bypassed and looked down on in Euro-American Buddhist literature. Inspiring. Enters into relative reality to find spacious and care.
December 20, 2020
Captured my feelings since the 2016 election.
If you need support channeling your rage at the unresolved racial issues in the US this is your book. Self care for BIPOC queers and others. 💕
If you need support channeling your rage at the unresolved racial issues in the US this is your book. Self care for BIPOC queers and others. 💕
December 26, 2020
This is the kind of richly thoughtful book that I read very slowly, re-reading passages, setting it down to process the truth & choices it contains, or suggests. If I had the paper book, I'd leave it in the bathroom & take several months to absorb it. I had the ebook, which is perfect because I love to highlight & return to strong talk. On this "reading," I only had time to read half the book & I'm waiting for it to come back to me. What I got out of half the book was so heavy (positive, intimate, radiant) that it counts as a book for me & I trust the second half will too.
June 25, 2023
This book is a love letter I’ll return to more than once.
February 15, 2024
This is a life-changing book. I would recommend the audio book to any of my friends on Goodreads. There are a few beautiful guided meditations interspersed throughout. Thank you, Lama Rod Owens.
February 27, 2023
I picked up this book with the goal of experiencing and transforming my anger into some healthy activity, and this book gave me a lot to think about. I'm not a Buddhist, but so much of what the author discusses here is just good sense.
Quotes:
"What would it look like if we formed our activist communities around joy, not the suffering or the anger, as a basis for our change work?"
"...if we don't do our work, then we become work for other people."
"Any being who is not about the reduction of suffering and violence is not welcomed around me."
"You need space around anger and all of your emotions in order to be free. Instead of saying 'I am angry', you can say instead, 'I am experiencing anger'. When you identify an experience, you are allowing there to be space, because you know an experience is not inherently who you are."
"...disembodiment is the primary strategy through which oppression is maintained."
"To be a spiritual person means to be always willing to be in communication with things as they are, not as we wish them to be."
"When I am speaking out against serious issues in my community that so many others are silent about, I feel the weight of the labor I am doing for so many others. This is the risk we take when standing up against systems that others feel so dis-empowered against. It seems we are both fighting the system while shouldering the emotional needs of others we are doing labor for."
"I have to let myself be sick in order to have the space to start working toward being well."
"When I am loving, I am practicing acceptance; and when I am being loved, I am being accepted."
"Loving my anger means that I allow it to be there without judgment and without shame. I accept it. Moreover, loving anger disrupts its power over me and allows space for me to be in power over my anger."
"...it is within our discomfort that we're being taught how to make different choices about how to take care of ourselves."
"I have often experienced the relationship between trauma and anger as the tension between feeling wounded and needing to take care of myself, and how frustration as anger arises out of that tension and gets stronger when I do not know how to care for myself."
"Our complexity never excuses harm."
"People think becoming a renunciate is somehow avoiding the world, along with our instincts, appetites, and desires. That's not the case. You're actually moving deeper into the nature of these instincts and desires."
"To be free, everything must be loved, even what is unlovable. If we are really serious about freedom, we must learn to love both our pleasure as well as our displeasure."
"When I say I am sex positive, I mean that we have a right to do with our bodies what we will, but we also have an ethical responsibility to limit the harm, to decrease harm that we do against ourselves and others."
"With all this apocalypse talk, people think it's about the end of the world. It's not about the end of the world - it's about the end of a way of thinking, a way of believing, and that's painful to let go of."
"There is great violence when we avoid our pain, because we become trapped in reacting to it as we target others as the reason for our hurt. This is why our anger and rage are dangerous. It is not the experience of anger itself, but our intense reaction to it."
"The path of healing is the practice of embodiment, to return home to all of our bodies and to do the very hard work of loving the trauma, and in loving it beginning to set it free from our bodies."
"I often say that the violence we experience is highly ritualized. If that is the case, then our self-care has to be even more ritualized and methodical to meet this violence."
"I learned to understand love as the wish for others to be happy and free, and I want to bring that to my romantic loving."
"We want to be in power with each other, not having power over or not having power under, but be in power with."
Quotes:
"What would it look like if we formed our activist communities around joy, not the suffering or the anger, as a basis for our change work?"
"...if we don't do our work, then we become work for other people."
"Any being who is not about the reduction of suffering and violence is not welcomed around me."
"You need space around anger and all of your emotions in order to be free. Instead of saying 'I am angry', you can say instead, 'I am experiencing anger'. When you identify an experience, you are allowing there to be space, because you know an experience is not inherently who you are."
"...disembodiment is the primary strategy through which oppression is maintained."
"To be a spiritual person means to be always willing to be in communication with things as they are, not as we wish them to be."
"When I am speaking out against serious issues in my community that so many others are silent about, I feel the weight of the labor I am doing for so many others. This is the risk we take when standing up against systems that others feel so dis-empowered against. It seems we are both fighting the system while shouldering the emotional needs of others we are doing labor for."
"I have to let myself be sick in order to have the space to start working toward being well."
"When I am loving, I am practicing acceptance; and when I am being loved, I am being accepted."
"Loving my anger means that I allow it to be there without judgment and without shame. I accept it. Moreover, loving anger disrupts its power over me and allows space for me to be in power over my anger."
"...it is within our discomfort that we're being taught how to make different choices about how to take care of ourselves."
"I have often experienced the relationship between trauma and anger as the tension between feeling wounded and needing to take care of myself, and how frustration as anger arises out of that tension and gets stronger when I do not know how to care for myself."
"Our complexity never excuses harm."
"People think becoming a renunciate is somehow avoiding the world, along with our instincts, appetites, and desires. That's not the case. You're actually moving deeper into the nature of these instincts and desires."
"To be free, everything must be loved, even what is unlovable. If we are really serious about freedom, we must learn to love both our pleasure as well as our displeasure."
"When I say I am sex positive, I mean that we have a right to do with our bodies what we will, but we also have an ethical responsibility to limit the harm, to decrease harm that we do against ourselves and others."
"With all this apocalypse talk, people think it's about the end of the world. It's not about the end of the world - it's about the end of a way of thinking, a way of believing, and that's painful to let go of."
"There is great violence when we avoid our pain, because we become trapped in reacting to it as we target others as the reason for our hurt. This is why our anger and rage are dangerous. It is not the experience of anger itself, but our intense reaction to it."
"The path of healing is the practice of embodiment, to return home to all of our bodies and to do the very hard work of loving the trauma, and in loving it beginning to set it free from our bodies."
"I often say that the violence we experience is highly ritualized. If that is the case, then our self-care has to be even more ritualized and methodical to meet this violence."
"I learned to understand love as the wish for others to be happy and free, and I want to bring that to my romantic loving."
"We want to be in power with each other, not having power over or not having power under, but be in power with."
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