UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT: The following transcript may contain typographical errors or other mistakes due to inconsistencies in audio quality, background noise, or other factors. We cannot guarantee its precision or completeness. We encourage you to use this as a supplement to your own notes and recollection of the session.
Tami Simon: Hello, friends. Welcome. Welcome to this Sounds True One Special: “Steady Breath, Steady Heart.” That inner steadiness, I think something many of us are wanting and needing support in and aspiring to offer to others right now. And I’m so pleased and honored to be able to host this dialogue between two steady breathing, steady hearted, teaching humans, people I love and respect: Lama Rod Owens and Seane Corn. Let me tell you to begin just a little bit about Lama Rod. He describes himself as a Black Buddhist Southern Queen. He has a master’s of divinity degree in Buddhist studies from Harvard Divinity School with a focus on the intersection of social change, identity, and spiritual practice. He’s the author of the book with Sounds True, The New Saints: From Broken Hearts to Spiritual Warriors, and a previous book, highly acclaimed, called Love and Rage: The Path of Liberation Through Anger.
Seane Corn is an internationally acclaimed yoga teacher, author, and public speaker. She’s been at the forefront of yoga, activism, and community service for more than 30 years. With Sounds True, Seane Corn’s the author of the book Revolution of the Soul: Awakening to Love Through Raw Truth, Radical Healing, and Conscious Action. Seane and Lama Rod, welcome. Welcome, friends.
Seane Corn: Thank you so much, Tami. It’s great to be here.
Lama Rod Owens: That’s wonderful. Right here.
Tami Simon: Yeah. Right here at the beginning. If it’s okay. What I would love for both of you to begin, I think many of us are trying, and I’ll speak for myself, I’m trying to orient myself to find a GPS, if you will, internally at this particular time of so much accelerated change in our world. And I’d love to know from each of you how you’re orienting yourself specifically in this time that we’re in. Lama, do you want to go first?
LRO: Sure. I am so used to change, right? And to upheaval. I came into spiritual practice because of so much change happening in my life, and so I just expect change always, you know? Um, but even beyond that, that kind of expectation, you know, I do the basics, right? It’s returning back to the earth. Like, I need to find a way to ground, I need to find a way to root, right? I think when you get a little, like disrupt it, like it’s easy to panic and it’s easy to react to, like, the panic and to the crisis, the lack of safety that maybe many of us are perceiving. Right? And so in order to really hold that, I have to return back to touching the earth, like feeling the groundedness, the density of the earth, the, the weight of my body, right? I have to feel something rising to hold me. And when I reconnect like that, then I’m able to feel grounded enough to open up, to begin to explore, to get curious about what’s happening around me, right?
You know? But I think ultimately, I think in moments like this, not only do we feel disrupted, but our sense of self is also super disrupted. Like, who am I? You know, this is who I thought I was, but now things have changed. Who am I? Right. And for me, I think it goes again back to the sense of like, okay, I want to feel grounded.
I want to feel held right. I often tell people to, to call in the resources that they need, their communities beloveds. Right. You know, places where we feel safe and taken care of. Right. Including connecting to the earth as well. Right. And that stabilization is incredibly important for us to move forward with a sense of clarity, you know, as to how to respond to what’s happening. Not just react, but to respond in a clear, caring way for not just for ourselves, but for everyone.
SC: I think what I’m hearing from that question ultimately is like, how are we, which is a question I appreciate because as being a teacher and a leader in the community, I find myself often checking in with other people and saying, how are you? How’s your family? How’s your life? How’s your health and wellness?
How are you practicing self-care? What’s going on in your world? And it’s often more rare, and I’m often taken by surprise, pleasantly surprised when someone looks me in the eye and just says like, so how are you doing? And so when you first approach that, you didn’t say the words, but that’s what I heard.
Like, how are you? Hmm. And I’m always struck by that because as a teacher, one of the privileges of teaching is the bypass that can come from actually having to avoid that answer. I can deflect really quickly and not put the attention on myself and make sure I’m tending to others, but that avoidance I know is really problematic.
So I’m going to take a moment just to answer that question. How am I, big-scheme of things? I am doing very, very well. Big scheme. The, since the pandemic I. Which I don’t believe the lockdown and the pandemic, I don’t believe that we have yet culturally healed from the trauma of the misinformation, the division, the loss, the death, the grief, the overwhelm, the loss of identity, the loss of first kisses, of burying your parents of weddings.
There’s so much shift and change that happened during that time that was beyond really any of our lived experience. We were all kind of in it together and fighting in some cases for life. And I’m still deep in a process of integrating what happened and is still happening, the impact of that trauma and how so many really good and dedicated people had to internalize their own big feelings just because they had to take care of their children or figure out how to pay the bills.
And so. The rage, the fear, the grief just went underground and, and, Lama Rod, in your book, you talk a little bit about that internalization and about how it breeds reactivity. And that’s what I see, not just in the people around me, but within myself. So when you ask me how I am, I notice that there’s an internal dialogue that I have the skills to say what needs to be said.
But my internal dialogue is way more reactive, critical, judgmental, and exhausted than it had been in the past. And my commitment to the deep inner work has been amplified. But in my, in my trauma work, in my past, my personal trauma work, I always knew that. There’s control, which is the safety mechanism of anybody who’s experienced trauma.
And then there’s liberation over here. And the space between control and liberation is surrender. But anyone who’s experienced trauma, that surrender equals death, that surrender can lead you into a spin out. Mm-hmm. And so for the first time in my real adult years as a 58-year-old postmenopausal woman who’s been doing this work a long time, I’m back to control.
My body is focused, grounded, hanging on, but my nervous system is in control. I know where I need to go, but that space in between, that surrender, that’s the part I’m struggling with right now. Only because the circumstances that exist externally, the politics, the people determining our safety and our Li Liberty, my nervous system, does not trust, cannot trust.
And so it’s a deep practice of self-trust, of dismantling that control once again, and trusting that as always, God has me, I’m good. I’ve got the tools and the resources as long as I apply them. And so that’s where I’m at. I’m doing the work. I’m focused, but internally, I’m outraged. I’m disgusted, I’m scared, I’m confused.
And in deep, deep grief. I know these tools work and so I will continue to apply them and support others not to bypass these big feelings, to acknowledge them, to be present with them, to scream into this, this void that we’re living in right now, so that they can find peace within. ’cause that’s the only way we’re going to be able to find peace within all. So that’s kind of the answer to “how am I?” I think it’s complex, but I’m here and I’m present and I’m grateful.
TS: One thing I wanted to underscore if it’s okay, because you know, Lama Rod, I noticed when you first started talking and you said, you know, back to the basics, this grounding in the earth, that resonated and I felt myself becoming kind of weightier and connected and more present when you said it.
But I also had the thought, I wonder if some people are like, what exactly does he mean? Like I don’t, I don’t have a reference inside for what he’s talking about. Exactly. And I wonder if you could share more about that. ’cause I think it can be so helpful.
LRO: Yeah, absolutely. And I, I deeply appreciate the framing of the question that Seane you offered as well. Like, how am I, right? You know? ’cause I think that’s like such a profound way of offering care. To community, to our beloveds is, is being curious. Like, how are you right now? Right. And so, and then even going back, Tami, to your question, you know, when I talk about the Earth, I’m also talking about the natural world. The natural world is in an order that is always inviting me back into, and I think systems of harm, systems of violence have succeeded in disconnecting many of us from the wisdom, right? And the energy and the simplicity of the natural world of, of, of the lands, of the elements of our plant allies. Right?
You know, and so when I say returning back to the earth, I’m meaning, I am trying to remember that I am a reflection of this natural order, right? There’s a kind of, I don’t want to say perfection, but there’s a kind of cycle here. In the natural world that I am in my practice always trying to reintegrate like natural cycles of seasons, natural cycles of birth and death, right?
The natural cycles of storms and, and clear skies, right? Beginning to remember that, like, things change and that I have this capacity to meet that change. And I think as Seane, you were saying too, like what I was hearing from your later party for sharing is that we can have this capacity to show up and say yes.
Even though, like, managing and holding what we’re saying yes to is a little tricky, right? But like the natural world, the earth with this groundedness, with this simplicity, with this directness is offering me this support to show up and to say yes. Like yes. The world is collapsing, or my version, my, my understanding of the world is collapsing and the earth is still rising to hold me and I’m still breathing and the sun is still shining and water is still flowing.
But another big piece of this too, when I talk about the land, you know, I’m also talking about our experiences of indigeneity. Like how do we return back to who and what we really are, instead of just participating and performing in these roles that these systems of violence have laid out for us, you know, to participate in patriarchy and misogyny, capitalism, right?
Like, these are roles that these systems have forced us into playing, and now we need to say no, right? And when we say no, when we start resisting the conditioning of the system, then the earth is right there to catch us. When we start disrupting, dismantling these identities right, to return to the earth, to allow the earth to hold the grief and the death of what we have to move through, we have to die in a real way. This old sense of self has to die in order to be, to be reborn back in this more indigenous self.
TS: And I also want to just bring forward for a moment and highlight, Seane, your gift of, as part of the subtitle of Revolution of the Soul: Raw Truth. The Power of Raw Truth. You are so gifted as a raw truth teller, and in being one, you give us all permission.
Permission to share how we are and the raw truth of how we are. And so two of the things you pointed to, I want us to talk about because I think they’re so important. And I really think, Lama Rod and Seane, you’re two of the best people I know to talk about these two ways we are, which is heartbroken, grieving, I’ll call that one and outraged. And I think these are two challenging emotional experiences that people are working with. And I want to learn from you both about both of these. My heartbreak and my outrage and how to be skillful. That’s for me, that’s what I want. I want to be skillful. So help me.
SC: Well, before I go there, I do want to take one moment ’cause I didn’t have a chance to say this to you, Lama Rod, but I really want to acknowledge your book, and this really does connect us back to heartbreak. And also, I’m having such a kind of a full circle, karmic moment. I often talk about within my own spiritual practice, a man when I was very young, who introduced me to God, as an atheist, as a young person.
I worked in a gay sex club in New York City back in the ’80s called Heaven. And this part of the story is insignificant, but the man was a queer black man, bald with a goatee, wore glasses, who died of AIDS. But he was the man who took me by the hand and helped me to understand God in the light and in the shadow, in the heartbreak, and in the loss and in the glory, in the sex that was happening all around us at all times and in the people protesting on the streets and in the saints and the sages. And it helped me break away from a paranoid, superstitious relationship with the divine and experience spirit in all aspects of life. Billy is someone who is very important to me, even though he is, he’s gone.
And so seeing your face, when you came on the camera, when I, when we first popped on, and even on the cover of your book, I was really struck by this full circle moment. I’m the age now that Billy was when I met him, 58, and you’re a little bit younger and. It makes me think, I think of him as an ancestor and how incredibly proud he would be that you get to be a voice in a way that he could not be at that time because of the stigmas and the prejudices and the biases that exist for, for queer men, and men with AIDS.
And so my heart breaks for what couldn’t have been for Billy, but is broken open for people like you who come forward and bring books like this to the world. And I think that the idea, The New Saints, and that was something that Billy was trying to help me to understand back then that you didn’t have to give up your grit and your rawness and your life and your love and sex to be holy; that holy was within everything. So I read your book when I was in India post the election, it sat next to the bed. I brought it with me. And after the election, which was both a shock and not a surprise at the same time, but my heart broke once again. And that heartbreak is cumulative. It’s not just broken in the moment.
It’s broken for the years and the years and the years of oppression and white supremacy, culture and trauma and all of it. And I reached over for your, to your book, and I didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t really have a lot of thought to it. And the very first, your very first line, which was, I am a New Saint, which I liked right away because look at, I was like, look at him. He’s just declaring it. No apology; period at the end of the sentence. But then I am also a queen, however, that may be subject matter for another book. And I thought, I’m going to like this. I’m going to like this book a lot because I know you’re going to tell the truth and my experience of your book.
And I hope everyone who’s listening takes this to heart. We are in a new time, a progressive time and a time that should not be performative or apologetic. That requires skills and humanity. And humanity is complex and you acknowledge those complexities, not as if there’s something to transcend, but there’s something to be in relationship to.
And that until we can take accountability for our own humanity, including our shadow self, including our own racism, bigotry, internalized white supremacy, beliefs, all of that, we cannot initiate change. And so. I got so much from this book and I’m going to continue reading it. I underlined a bunch of parts, which maybe at some point I can get you to talk about a little bit.
But it’s books like this and authors like you and people who live in whose lived experiences are on the margins, who, because of the systems that exist, you have to work tirelessly to find the words and the courage so that people like me and many other people who can’t necessarily articulate it in the same way because of our own lived experience, have a resource that can help move us forward.
So yes, my heart is broken for a thousand reasons. I see the direction that this world will go in, especially for people of color, for queer people, trans people, young women. This is a rollback. It is a step backwards. It is. Shockingly predictable in white supremacy culture. I cannot believe that we as a society are still in this place of fear of difference and other, and I also recognize that there are more and more people doing yoga, practicing meditation, praying to God, reading good books, being in community and doing their deep inner work.
So as dark as this world can get. There are average and ordinary people who are becoming lightworkers, the New Saints as you put it. And the more and more of these New Saints that come forward, perhaps this dismantling has to happen in order for something new to be emerged. I just pray to God. I mean, I, I know people are going to die.
I know people are going to suffer terribly. That is the reality that we are in. I just hope that the sacrifice that their lives make can for generations that follow us be a manifestation of the world that we all deserve. One that is liberatory and loving, but it requires each individual.
So I am hope heartbroken, and I’m also hopeful I have to be, because if I wasn’t, I wouldn’t get outta bed.
LRO: Can I just want to say first. Seane, thank you so much. I am so moved because you, you’re recognizing something that a lot of folks don’t recognize and which is that I am so rooted in the AIDS epidemic and with the lives of the men who died. Right. And so many of them have been with me my whole life, right. And they’re, they’re so much a part of the fire that I’m relying on, right? To do the real work, not just of getting free, but the real work of living. Like they remind me that, that I am supposed to live right in all of this complexity.
All of the violence and everything that we have to struggle with. I am to live with a loving heart, a courageous heart with a joyful heart, right? And their wisdom has been with me, and I’ve been channeling their wisdom so much in this work, particularly in The New Saints, right? So, hearing that, I just feel, I feel so deeply validated.
I just feel so much of my life is to remember, to honor and to live on behalf of so many of those men, right. Who, whose lives were so disrupted, right. And to offer medicine to, to many and, and the generation like you who endured, who, who witnessed, who grieved so much. Right? So I just really deeply appreciate that, you know, that reflection.
Absolutely, and just to echo, like, the hopefulness, I am so hopeful. Right. And this is completely different than I was in 2016. Believe me. I was not terribly hopeful. Right. And then I just started working, you know, I started working and organizing and doing what I could. And so getting to this point, eight years later, I’m like, no, this, this is, I I, we are meant for this time.
I am here. I chose this time to be in. Yes. And this is difficult, right? We will lose people. Not everyone’s ready for this really hard work, but enough of us are. And enough of us are getting ready now, right? So yes, my heart is broken. There is anger there. There’s a deep disappointment with people who don’t understand what freedom really is and who get in the way of many of us trying to get free, not just for ourselves, but for them as well. Right? There’s a lot of judgment, right? But there’s also this deep love, right? This is this deep love of deep understanding that says, yeah, and this is hard, right?
And this has taken extraordinary effort to get so clear. And I want to be an agent of change and an agent of inspiration for people who, who aren’t, who aren’t thinking real liberation, but who are, who may be ready. And I want to show up in a loving, direct kind way to offer, to offer invitation. You know?
Like, are you ready to get free from this? Let’s do it together, right? But yeah. Yeah. Like the ways in which I think we have to tune into the inspiration of so many people who have struggled before us. Right? And this is why my ancestry is really important for me. I lean back into the lives of my ancestors who, you know, survived chattel slavery, Jim Crow years, you know? Whom we still continue to survive anti-blackness, you know?
And I just, I remember that I come from people who survived, right? Who endured not just for ourselves, but for everyone, right? Black liberation is about all of us getting free, right? And that’s what I’m really, I’m being really held in that right now. Like, this is, this is, I know how to do this. I know how to show up and continue to say yes and continue to love, continue to rage when I need to, to continue to let my heartbreak and I know how to like, submit myself to the care of community, right?
And I think this is something that many of us are learning, again, like community, right? Not, not the government taking care of us, you know, but community, our neighbors, our beloveds, our families, and so forth. Like, I think that’s the, I think we’re at this stage of the dawning of a, of a re-understanding of real community right now, and I’m excited about that.
TS: I want to pick up on a thread, Seane, when you shared in the beginning about your own internal process and this notion of control, or we could say kind of this contracted and the journey and possibility and vision of a liberatory fluid and flow in flow way of being. My, my words for that, when it comes to something like heartbreak, I think sometimes people have this like, well, a little but not that much.
And I’m going to kind of contract around that because that is too effing terrible. Like, no way. So I’m just going to break a little and then I’m going to wall off and control and, you know, just shut armor up. Really. It’s too much. I can’t take it. And I, I’d love to hear more in a practical way about moving through. Into this greater expanse through heartbreak instead of bouncing kind of off.
SC: What I can tell you about that, Tami, is it’s going to be different for every single person depending on their ability to titrate their nervous system around what’s underneath that heartbreak. And so for some people, they might be able to put their big toe in the water and that’s enough.
And their nervous system has to integrate, settle, feel safe, and then maybe it could take a week. It could take 10 years when their nervous system feels available. Maybe they can put the whole foot in. And so it’s important not to superimpose a process on any individual as a one-size-fits-all when it comes to trauma, heartbreak, and loss.
I can tell you that on a physiological level, trauma is anything that overwhelms our capacity to cope and leaves us feeling helpless, hopeless, out of control, or unable to respond. That when we experience something that is traumatic, that can lead to heartbreak or loss or devastation, there are chemicals that release from our brain into our body as a way to create an environment of safety. Hormones like adrenaline and cortisol, stress hormones release. And in that moment certain parts of our body shut down certain systems and others amp up. But our body contracts in the unconscious, it knows that it’s unsafe. It knows that it needs to survive. So the body is going to do something quite primal and contract in itself in the practice of yoga.
We understand in that moment that trauma is now a samskara that lives within the body as a lived experience and as a perception, but that some samskaras can also be understood as tension and tension has a sensation. So when we experience something overwhelming, our body contracts, our subconscious thinks that that contraction is safety. And so going forward, anytime that body gets into a situation that reminds them of that original assault or insult or heartbreak or loss, the body, out of preparation, is going to contract. And that contraction is cumulative each time. Whether it’s the loss of a pet or a child going off to college, or a loss of a job, or racial terrorism.
Cumulative. Cumulative, cumulative. Until we’re so bound with this tension that it feels normal, the sensation feels so familiar that we get addicted to that. What doesn’t feel familiar? What feels unsafe? Is the release of that tension. So we’ve got the control. Now, as yogis, as practitioners, we know that control is fear.
That control is disease, that control is alcoholism, it’s drug abuse, it’s domestic violence. All the ways in which we will anesthetize ourselves so that we don’t have to feel what’s underneath that control. But we’re on a liberated, liberated path. We have to get to this side, but here, no one can do this for you.
To get from here to here, you can be guided, you can be inspired, you can use great resources and books, but only each individual has to put their toe in the water and take that deep breath and rage the rage of their ancestors and their lifetime and process what’s happened and discharge the energy, but it’s scary when you don’t have support or community or a mirror that tells you this is freedom.
And so that from my own experience as someone who’s experienced trauma, who suffered, who struggled with anxiety, who was addicted to control, slowly, it took years to chip away at the tension that this body required to survive. And it required so many different kinds of teachers that showed up at different times who were saying all the same thing, but in different ways that my nervous system at that time could be begin to slowly let go and I found that the water was safe.
Now, there’s still moments my body will contract, but the rate in which I stay in that contraction gets shorter and shorter and shorter. I don’t crave the sensation even though the familiarity is somehow soothing. But that contraction is reactivity. That contraction is judgment, isolation, otherizing, this is love, is compassion, is empathy.
It’s unification, but this part is what requires teachers and support and elders and prayer and faith and practice, because it’ll feel like dying. And it is, to your point, Lama Rod, it is a death, a death of an ego, a death of identity, a death of attachment. Who am I if I’m not in control?
And the practices of yoga give you the practical skills to help you to titrate your nervous system over the course of many, many years where suddenly the sensation of control feels toxic and the sensation of liberation feels familiar and welcoming. And so that’s my, that’s my response to that, that question. I hope I answered it.
TS: Extraordinarily helpful, Seane, thank you. I wanted to follow up with something because Seane, gorgeously talked about opening up The New Saints and reading that first sentence, I am a New Saint, and I thought to myself, I wonder if there are people who are joining us who are saying, what does it mean to be a New Saint anyway? What is that? What’s he talking about?
LRO: Well, on the surface level, it’s just a little gimmick that I’m putting out there, you know? ’cause we all need a gimmick. But no, it was more than just a gimmick. You know? I think for me, you know, and New Saints is rooted in during quarantine in 2020, after the, the killing, the murder of George Floyd.
Right. When I was just really, you know, just in the media and just like trying to, you know, to just provide a perspective. Right. You know, I was the Buddhist showing up talking about how we needed to act up and resist, which is probably not why they were calling me to do anything. You know, they were probably asking me to talk about being calm and being subtle and I was like, I’m just not that kind of Buddhist.
But I kept finding myself in these interviews and these positions, and I said, oh, this is pointing me towards something, a new reiteration of something that I have been deeply moved by, which is rooted in the tradition of Buddhism, which is the spiritual saint, the spiritual warrior, the person or the being who comes and says, I will. I will be an agent of liberation for all beings and I will go to places that are difficult and try to help. And I will continue to make that choice over and over and over again till everyone’s free. Right? And that’s just kind of the overview of the bodhisattva tradition. And then I said, okay, there needs to be something a little more practical, right?
Because that seems really grand and really lofty. And my experience of the bodhisattva tradition is this really hard work of showing up to the complexity of my body, the complexity of my trauma, to the complexity of being in a relationship with other complex beings, right? And I kept asking myself, what does this look like for people right now as the world is shifting? Right?
And then that’s where the phrase New Saints, like we have to reclaim this idea of sainthood, but to reclaim it, to make it practical. Not like grand romantic and too spiritual, right? But a New Saint is someone, first and foremost, who gives a shit. And I think that it is apparent that a lot of people don’t give a shit, right? And not just give a shit about themselves, but give a shit about everyone. We need people who care about the wellbeing and the safety of everyone, right? So first and foremost, to reclaim that sainthood, you have to start caring. And then after that caring, we have to figure out what our work is like, what is my work, right?
What is my work as a cisgender black queer man, Buddhist teacher, and all these other intersections, what am I supposed to be doing? Right? Opposed to someone else with different identity locations. So how do I go to my frontlines and do what I’m supposed to do? Right? And then how do I keep showing up and doing that, right?
Like over and over and over again. I think that’s really hard because I think we want something sexier and grander, you know, and more exciting. But real liberation work is kind of monotonous, right? It’s showing up over and over and over and over again, saying yes, responding to what needs to be responded to, offering care to what needs to be offered care to, right?
And to make this idea of sainthood a lived experience rooted in the body, rooted in relationships, rooted in, you know, just like face-to-face, one-on-one interactions and relationships. Like, not trying to bypass anything but trying to come into the truth of what it means to struggle together, to get free from both systemic harm and also to get free from suffering and to get free ultimately from delusion and this understanding of what we are right.
And that, you know, it is, it is practical or you know, it’s just a practical embodiment of a tradition that many of us have felt disconnected from. Right? Sainthood. Let’s just make it practical, like basic. Let’s make it just, this is about caring and doing work to get free, period.
SC: Well, Lama Rod, I’ll say that when I read that after the election results came out, and I felt that in my body, just like, you know what? Fuck it, I’m done. I’m just done. I’m not doing this anymore. I’m going to check out for the next four years. I’m going to stay in India with my family. You know? I’m just done. I’m exhausted. My body hurts. I feel defeated, disgusted. If this is the way America wants to be, fine, have at it. You know, let us know how this all goes down.
And now someone like myself in the body that I live in as a white woman, a white woman of privilege, it’s easy for me to say that because in the big picture of things, my life’s not going to change too much in the next four years. When I picked up your book and I saw The New Saints, and I started to read the first, second, third, then the fourth about what a New Saint is, the fourth being the New Saint embraces rather than bypasses the complexities of identity, the New Saint uses their identities as a way for other beings to connect with them as a way to build trust in liberation work identity becomes an expression of the sacred. And, and you go on and on. But I remember reading this shortly after I had the, you know, fuck it. I give up, you know? My life’s not going to change too much.
LRO: Yeah.
SC: And, but I always have to remember my, my trans friends and my black friends and family, and the people that I know who are younger, who are going to be dealing with reproductive care in a way that is not on my radar in the same way any longer. These are people I love, not in a romantic way. They’re in my community. They will suffer every day. They will walk out every day and wonder if today is the day they’re going to get jumped in a bathroom, beaten up, thrown in jail, incarcerated. And I remember them often saying to me that the biggest challenge when you become an activist is falling in love with those who are perceived as other.
Because once you fall in love, then you have skin in the game. And it becomes the responsibility of you as a friend, as a family member to show up. And to your point, not. Apologize for the identities that you take on as if they’re somehow shameful or wrong. Where else should I be than speaking to other white people in a mainstream yoga community based on my understanding of white supremacy culture and the ways in which we have benefited continue to benefit, and how do we deal with that internalized trauma and shame? And, and it’s in your book too, when you get to the place of SNOELL is, I’m not sure if that’s how you’re pronouncing it, but—.
LRO: SNOELL.
SC: —is ownership is not, I’m not going to apologize for my whiteness. I’m going to own it and acknowledge. The places within myself where I am complicit to the suffering of others because I am, it’s just inbred within my whiteness. It’s not my fault; it’s systemic; it’s cellular. But once we can come to a place where we can acknowledge this, we can begin to transcend and do the deep work. Your book, not necessarily in the way that I just framed it, but when I was reading it, I was like, yep, I am a New Saint and so are so many of my friends who would never, ever be comfortable using that terminology.
But it reaffirmed for me, I was like, yeah, fuck this. I am a New Saint and I’m going to show up and I’m going to do my work. And you also have a whole point part in here after you talk about the Yoga of the New Saint. But what really struck me is the seven sorrows of the New Saint. And if you don’t mind, I’m going to read them out, ’cause I think it’s really important. This is why people don’t do the work. This is why we don’t show up. We will leave people behind. Much of our labor will go unseen. We will be misunderstood. We will have to figure out what we need. We will disappoint people. We will always embody the potential for violence.
We will make mistakes. No one wants to do any of that. And yet it is a part of the gift and the privilege of collective liberation to acknowledge that these sorrows exist, these challenges exist, and we do the work anyway. So your book gave me an opportunity to remember my dharma, my commitment to that dharma, the complexities of that dharma and that it’s messy and that I will mess up, but my practice with ahimsa, to avoid violence, means I also have to confront complicity because if I am turning my back on the suffering of others, that I am complicit to that suffering. Therefore, I am causing violence. And so by inaction is complicity. So in that moment of, fuck it, I’m not doing anything. I leaned into white supremacy culture. I leaned into a body that doesn’t have to do anything and comfortably for, you know, about 15 minutes until I picked up your book, was surrendered to it because it felt familiar contraction. It felt familiar. And your book reminded me of my role in my mainstream world, my identity. And it gave very practical skills on how to show up.
It was very affirming. So I just wanted to, to jump on your point, that there’s practical pieces in this, and that I celebrate. And I don’t think the title The New Saints is a gimmick. I will wear it proudly. Proudly. I don’t think it’s arrogant in any way. I think it’s a reclaiming of who we always have been. If saints are love, if saints are compassionate, if they’re empathetic and if they care about the collective freedom of all, then count me in. I’ll take that. I’ll tattoo that on my heart.
LRO: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you so much for that. And then, then the other piece here too is. When we take on this identity as a saint, then we are having to elevate our sense of self, our, our self validation.
Like we, you have to, you have to really have a deep care for yourself in order to choose freedom. Yeah. Like you have to love yourself to want to be free. And I think the reason for kind of coming up with this phrase, and you were saying, that I wanted people to move through that discomfort of elevation. Like, you have to care for yourself enough in order to do this. And I think so many people need that uplifting. It’s like, no, you’re a saint! Like, no matter how many mistakes you’ve made and continue to make, you—there’s a divinity here. Right? And we need to start reclaiming that because we will never make it through this.
TS: Mm-hmm.
LRO: Like, you’ll never be able to meet the intensity of this moment if you just think you’re just shit.
TS: Yep.
LRO: You know? And then the sorrows are ways for us just to be clear about, yeah, and this is what’s going to happen. Like, this isn’t just like a walk in the park in a parade, you know? You don’t just say yes and the red carpet rolls out. You will be negotiating these experiences over and over again. Because quite frankly, like, when you’re someone who begins to really choose real liberation work, you will be misunderstood by people who are not making that same choice. And it will cost you. Right? You know, and I want people to be prepared for that. Right? You know? Yeah.
Yeah. You know, it’s not a gimmick, right? Absolutely not. It’s not a gimmick. But I just, this one last piece that I’ll just put out there too is that like, one of the things that I committed to doing when I was writing this book was one, telling the truth. Like, I will tell the truth even though it hurts.
And, you know, I get into that later in the book, like, what this has caused me physically, emotionally, to tell the truth like this, to move the truth through my body, right? And another commitment that I made was that, like, I will not tell you to do something or advise you to do something that I am not being transparent about in my own practice. I will never tell you to do something that I have not done. And I will put the proof—I will put everything on the page. Like, if you think this is hard, okay, let me tell you the story about how hard it was for me so you can trust this, you know? And I think spiritual teachers like us, like, we’re moving to the stage where we have to be willing to put ourselves on the line in a different way.
We don’t need spiritual teachers hiding behind dharma and teaching the saying, well, ideally this is what you should be doing. We need to be saying, listen, like, this is what the struggle looks like. And you may not think that I’m well put together. You think I may be falling apart or really messy, but this is what the struggle looks like right now. And you may lose faith, you may lose hope in the teachings, that’s fine. But I can’t condone lying to you or communicating this false narrative that, like, living is easy even for a spiritual teacher. Like, you need to see this, but you need to know what you’re getting into.
SC: Yeah.
LRO: Right. And this is so, it’s a messy book in that way. Like it’s just like, it’s not a neat book on purpose. I don’t tie up everything really nice and neatly. Like it doesn’t end on this really hopeful, like optimistic; it’s like, no, the work continues. Right? And join me. Right? Join me and many others who have made this choice, become New Saints.
TS: I think one thing I want to highlight here is this notion of, you used the word, Lama Rod, in your writing, of “consenting,” and I think that’s what we’re talking about here in broad strokes, consenting to the work of the bodhisattva, the life of the bodhisattva, the New Saint, being a New Saint. And what I want to share truthfully from my heart is I notice all the time, every day, practically the small ways that I’m holding back from 100% consent. I’m at 75% today, 85. But then there are these little holdbacks in different ways and they’re patterns. Patterns of inner orientation that want, that don’t want my heart to break all the way, that don’t want to suffer those seven sorrows and other ones as well. And I just want to talk about that space and what you both know about working with yourself. ‘Cause, Seane, even as you told the story of being in India, it was kind of like there was the effort to the, okay, I consent, but I want to talk about that middle zone, the gray zones where there are these subtle holdbacks.
LRO: Yeah, well it’s fear, right? It’s the fear. And for me, when I experience fear, it points me to this experience of not having enough trust in the process as I should. So when I’m holding back, it’s really a matter of trust, you know? And so I can note that I can pay attention to that and feel really often where that’s showing up in my physical body, right? But then in that moment, it’s like I have to reflect on everyone who came before me who made this choice, right? Who confronted the fear. And because they confronted the fear and they moved through the fear, they did something which altered history, right? You know, I think about the queens at Stonewall, who that June of 1969 was like, fuck it. You know, like what wealth is left? Like we need to start fighting back. Right? And because of that, look at where we are. Look at what we have, right? I don’t know. I just get so much inspiration from remembering, you know, just the great activists who themselves were full of fear, which is part of the New Saints tradition, right?
It’s like the New Saint is full of fear, but that’s okay because we’re learning how to have a different relationship to fear. Fear to inform us, not to keep us back, but to show us where we need to do more work. Right? And people are relying on us at the end of the day, like my fear may actually, or my hesitation around fear, may actually put other people’s lives in danger in ways that are complex or in ways that are very simple. But, like, I’m sensitive to that, that people are relying on me to embody a kind of fearlessness and a fierceness right now as a guiding light, as an inspiration. So if they don’t see me making these choices, then that impacts their willingness to make these choices for themselves and for their beloveds.
TS: Thank you. Here, as we come to an end of this tremendously inspiring, I feel tremendously inspired, loving, and liberatory exploration together. Steady breath, steady heart. I wonder if as a gift you would each offer all of those who are listening, a brief, breathing based, heart steadying practice of some kind that we can use and reference in our own life. Who, whoever wants to go first?
SC: How many minutes? A few minutes. Okay. Lama Rod, do you mind if I?
LRO: Absolutely.
SC: Alright. So first, everyone who’s listening, I want to thank you all so much for just being willing to pay attention to this kind of a conversation. I recognize that when we speak in this way, it can elicit feelings of affirmation and enthusiasm, excitement, and terror, fear, or inadequacy. And so the first thing I want to invite everyone is to sit up tall and just take a very, your deep breath in, whatever that feels like for you. So inhale through the nose and exhale through the mouth. Then one more time. Do that again. Deep breath in. Exhale through the mouth.
And now keeping your eyes closed or slightly open, staring at a spot on the floor. If that feels more comfortable or safe for you. I want to invite you to feel whatever is touching the earth. Maybe you’re sitting on a chair and it’s the soles of the feet, or perhaps you’re in a cross-legged position and certain parts of your anatomy are making contact with the floor beneath you, your sit bones, one thigh, one knee, both ankles. And bring your awareness down to the base of your body. And notice there any sensation. Any feelings of being disconnected from your body? From this conversation? Noticing if you have felt present in your body or if you found your body dissociating, fantasizing, thinking. Moving in and out at present time. See if you can name the sensation of your body connecting to the earth. Does it feel comfortable, soft, hard? Is there discomfort?
Take another very deep breath down into the base of your body, anchoring you in the here and in the now and in your mind’s eye, say to yourself, I am here. And as you ground down, elongate your spine. As you elongate your spine, bring the energy all the way up to your third eye center, to the Ajna chakra at the center of your brow, and turn your eyeballs straight up to that center point. Allowing that space to expand that point of intuition and understanding and thoughts and ideas.
Intuition is not a gift; it’s a skill. It’s one in which we develop as we call our power back, as we reframe our narratives, as we begin to understand the attachments that we have to our social masks and our identities. And as we begin to dismantle and understand ourselves and this world through a new lens, the inner guidance that speaks to us and through us will never steer us wrong.
And our work is to say yes to that guidance, to trust its capacity, and to know that you are held. So take a very deep breath and pull that energy straight into your third eye center, allowing it once again to expand and in your mind’s eye. Say, I see.
And then bring your awareness to the very top of your head to the Saada chakra, that connected point between your physical body and cosmic consciousness where we warehouse our prophetic thoughts and our dreams, where we develop a rapport with the divine, far beyond ordinary human consciousness, and allow that space to expand where there is unity, where there is infinity, where there is no other.
Where there is universal truth, light, love, authenticity, and grace. Allow your whole being to receive that light. And in your mind’s eye, say, I know for I have always known. Take another deep breath in, exhale it out through the mouth, and then Lama Rod, I’ll pass it to you to take from there.
LRO: Thank you. And we’ll, we’ll continue, you know, just moving into again, just a little bit of grounding, just touching the seat, noticing the seat rising to hold you. Continuing to, from this grounding expand into this beautiful space Seane has opened for us. And as this space is opening, I really invite you to engage in a practice that I am working with often, which is the practice of just simply calling in the energies, the resources that we need right now. And particularly I invite you in this moment to, to call into this energetic space, the presence, the energy, the consciousness of the great change makers, the great medicine holders, the great activists who have come before us.
People, beings who have made these really powerful choices to not just care for themselves, but to care for all of us and the actions that they chose. To get all of us free, pulling in these great beings and just filling their presence, just awakening around you, inside of you. And you may not know who or what some of these beings are, but that’s okay.
As we open, we’re just inviting any being who can be a source of inspiration, beings who have made difficult choices for the benefit of other beings before. Just inviting ’em in and just beginning to feel not just their care and love, but also their courage. Knowing that they have been where we have been before, where we are in this moment, opening our hearts, opening our minds to just receive.
The energy, the medicine of their courage, of their wisdom, of their joy, along with their deep care and love for all beings.
Just feeling yourself filled with this energy, this courage, all of which is freely offered by these beings, and just staying in this space for just a few more seconds.
And again, opening, allowing yourself to deeply drink from this offering of courage and care from these beings who are now our benefactors.
Let this courage inspire you. Let this courage motivate you. Let this courage remind you that we are not alone, that we will never be alone when we choose to show up and to say yes. We are amongst and belong to an expansive, boundless community of beings working to get free from suffering.
And as we begin to transition out of the practice, I invite you just to offer one last aspiration or prayer into this space, offering this prayer for yourself, for our communities, for this country, for the world.
And I often just simply pray. May we all be free. May, whatever I’m doing in this moment, in this practice may deeply contribute to the liberation of all beings from cycles of violence and harm, so that we may remember our innate, awakened, liberated natures. May this be so as quickly as possible,
and when you’re ready again, shifting your attention back to the seats, to the weight of your body, noticing the floor as an expression of the land and the earth rising under you, filling the groundedness. Slowly beginning to reawaken your bodies through simple movements,
through a few deep cleansing breaths as we breathe deeply into the nose and out of the mouth on the exhale, allowing the sea to really rise to hold us and coming back into the space gently opening our eyes if our eyes were closed.
And I deeply thank you for your practice. Thank you for joining us.
SC: Thank you all so much, truly.
TS: And thank you to Lama Rod Owens, author of The New Saints, Seane Corn, Revolution of the Soul. Having you both together like this has been a huge source of nourishment. For me, and I know the people that have joined us. Thank you so much.
SC: Thank you, Tami, always for giving us opportunities to speak these truths. And Lama Rod, this was a joy to be able to speak to you. Thank you for reaffirming my own commitment to this deep liberatory work. I’m grateful for you on this path and I look forward to when our path will cross. I hope in person; be prepared for the biggest bear hug you’ve ever gotten.
LRO: Absolutely. I’m going to return it right back to you. Thank you so much for your light and your dedication.
TS: Thank you very much.
LRO: Yeah. This has been such metta.
TS: Thanks, friends.
