Redefining sainthood as a deep care for ourselves and others, Lama Rod Owens and Raghu discuss reclaiming our sacredness and our identity.

Check out Lama Rod’s book, The New Saints, to learn more about becoming a spiritual warrior.

Within this episode, Raghu and Lama Rod discuss:

• Healing through music and other mystical experiences
• Lama Rod Owens’ college experience and getting into activism
• Re-framing our relationship to religion
• The freedom to be our most authentic selves
• Owning our own identity and sacredness
• Community and collective as the hero we all need
• The apocalypse as an unveiling of the truth
• Creating a culture of care and prioritizing well-being
• Disrupting habitual reactivity and transforming our responsiveness
• Loneliness on the spiritual path

About Lama Rod Owens:

Lama Rod Owens is a Black Buddhist Southern Queen. An international influencer with a Master of Divinity degree in Buddhist Studies from Harvard Divinity School with a focus on the intersection of social change, identity, and spiritual practice. Author of Love and Rage: The Path of Liberation through Anger and co-author of Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love and Liberation, his teachings center on freedom, self-expression, and radical self-care. Highly sought after for talks, retreats, and workshops, his mission is showing you how to heal and free yourself. A leading voice in a new generation of Buddhist teachers with over 11 years of experience, Lama Rod is highly respected among his peers and the communities that he serves. From these intersections, he creates a platform that’s very natural, engaging, and inclusive. Check out Lama Rod’s most recent publication, The New Saints and his podcast on the Be Here Now Network, The Spirit Underground.

For current offerings and programs, click here.

“I think that the most important spiritual practice is care, compassion love; I think that’s the common expression across many paths. A saint is defined by the depth of their care for others.” – Lama Rod Owens

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Noah and Raghu Markus catch up with Joseph Goldstein to talk about poetry, imposter syndrome, trust, and more.

Grab a copy of Joseph’s poems and reflections HERE

In this episode, Raghu, Joseph, and Noah connect through these topics:

• How Joseph revitalized his poetic spirit while traveling in Spain
• Revision as the most important process of writing
• Struggling with imposter syndrome
• How poetry overlaps the meditative space
• Silence as an integral precursor to creativity
• The beauty within very ordinary experiences
• How aversion traps us just as much as desire
• Compassion as the activity of emptiness
• Loneliness and the myth of intimacy
• Building trust and self-confidence
• Artistic versus scientific ways of understanding
• Anger as a messenger and using wise discernment

Be sure to check out this talk on quantum mechanics, as suggested by Joseph in today’s episode.

About Joseph Goldstein:

Joseph Goldstein has been leading insight and loving-kindness meditation retreats worldwide since 1974. He is a co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, where he is one of the organization’s guiding teachers. In 1989, together with several other teachers and students of insight meditation, he helped establish the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies.

“A lot of creativity comes out of the silence because then it’s more intuitive rather than thinking through something. It’s that overlap that I really love. I can be in a quiet space and a very ordinary perception of something takes on more meaning because I’m not just rushing through it, I’m actually there in it.” – Joseph Goldstein

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Trauma-focused psychotherapist Ralph De La Rosa links with Raghu to explain how radical self-compassion can outshine our deepest wounds.

Eager to learn more? Grab your own copy of Ralph’s new book, Outshining Trauma.

In this episode, Raghu and Ralph have a conversation about:

• Ralph’s casual brush with death and the divine play of the universe
• Healing our afflictions and uncovering our awakened state
• How we all tend to dissociate and distract ourselves
• Inspiration from Buddhism in Ralph’s own life and his therapy practice
• Befriending all of the different parts of our psyche
• Connecting the heart of compassion to the difficulties we experience
• Utilizing the tools of Internal Family Systems
• Working with the breath and other meditation techniques
• Getting intimate with our afflictions
• The concept of taking refuge
• Considering what a healthy love/relationship looks like
• How to respond to self-judgment and drop our armor

About Ralph De La Rosa

Ralph De La Rosa (he/they) is a teacher of human spirituality, an internationally published author and a trauma-focused psychotherapist. Ralph works in private practice and is a seasoned meditation teacher known for his radically open and humorous teaching style. He is personally mentored by Richard Schwartz, founder and developer of Internal Family Systems. Check out Ralph’s new book, published in November 2024, focusing on trauma and radical self-compassion, Outshining Trauma. You can keep up with Ralph on his website.

“Our hearts can really break open for our own struggle. That, for me, is the nature of what I would call radical self-compassion, when you start to behold your own struggle and are willing to get intimate with your afflictions rather than run from them.” – Ralph De La Rosa

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