A Conversation on Love and Rage with Lama Rod Owens and Buddhist Teacher Kate Johnson
Lama Rod Owens: I would say anger was really the first material I had to work with, that began my practice. Actually, there were senior practitioners that I was around who were coming to me initially, before I really had a practice. They were coming to me saying, “Rod, I think you have a problem with anger.” I couldn’t see it; it was so normalized for me. People would come and sit me down, and they would be like, This is what I’m seeing. I would be like, Fuck you, and I couldn’t see that reaction as an expression of anger. Kate Johnson: That reaction to being told you were angry. LRO: Yeah, it was so ingrained, like anger was so much a part of my life, and I was heavily in activism so it was really fueling something for me. But as I moved out of my early twenties, I began to see what people were talking about, and for me, clinical severe depression was really the first time that I began to understand …
