Lama Rod Owens to Teach at Heartwood Center in Evanston

Lama Rod Owens will offer teachings and guidance at the Heartwood Center on April 1 from noon to 2:00pm. This is his first teaching visit in the Chicago area. Owens will be teaching on “Tantric Practices for the Apocalypse.” Heartwood is located at 1818 Dempster Street.

“We are living through an apocalypse,” Owens said, “struggling to learn lessons through a pervasive pandemic, economic instability, political unrest, climate change, and various other forms of systematic violence. As a result, both our individual and collective grief and trauma can sometimes seem overwhelming.”
According to Owens, “Tantric practices are necessary to support us as we move through this challenging period.” Tantra is an ancient system of Buddhist practices that engage directly with the phenomenal world and its very essence is liberation from suffering, Owens said.

An author, activist, and authorized teacher in the Kagyu tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, Owens calls himself a “Black Buddhist Southern Queen.” He is the co-founder of Bhumisparsha, a Buddhist tantric practice and study community that is helping shape a new and vibrant American Vajrayana Buddhism. Lama is an honorific used for qualified Buddhist teachers.

Owens said he will teach contemporary tantric practices that incorporate new, profound and accessible approaches to breaking free from suffering like the Seven Homecomings, as well as other earth-based practices, and will link these practices with current justice movements.

Owens holds a Master of Divinity in Buddhist Studies from Harvard Divinity School where he focused on the intersection of social change, identity, and spiritual practice. He is the author of Love and Rage: The Path of Liberation Through Anger, and a co-author of Radical Dharma, Talking Race, Love, and Liberation, which explores race in the context of American Buddhist communities. His new book entitled New Saints is coming out in the fall.

Owens will teach at Heartwood in conjunction with a visit and talk at Northwestern University organized by Dr. Sarah Jacoby and funded by the Khyentse Foundation.