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Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love, and Liberation Paperback – Illustrated, June 14, 2016
Lama Rod Owens
(Author)
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Print length248 pages
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LanguageEnglish
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PublisherNorth Atlantic Books
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Publication dateJune 14, 2016
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Dimensions5.5 x 0.5 x 8 inches
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ISBN-101623170982
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ISBN-13978-1623170981
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New Dharma, Radical Dharma
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Why this book? Why now?
From Rev. angel Kyodo williams: Radical Dharma is insurgence rooted in love, and all that love of self and others implies. It takes self-liberation to its necessary end by moving beyond personal transformation to transcend dominant social norms and deliver us into collective freedom.
If you’re like me, aware of the urgency of the moment—that is to say it has always been urgent, but we are increasingly aware of it—there will be something both strikingly hopeful and terribly dissatisfying about this book. I think that’s the right place to be.

Radical Dharma: There is no neutral.
At this time when the Dharma is needed more acutely than ever—a time when our very existence is threatened as a result of our socially embedded greed, hatred, and ignorance—its expansive potential to liberate us from suffering is in danger of being rendered impotent because it is held in subjugation to the very systems that it must thoroughly examine.
...We are at a critical moment in the history of the nation, as well as within the Buddhist teaching and tradition in America. This is the “back of the bus” moment of our time. Fifty years after civil rights laws were laid down, it is clear that they were enshrined within a structure that continues to profit from anti-Black racism. The necessary bias that the system requires in order to be perpetuated has permeated our sanghas—our spiritual communities—and in this very moment, we are called to put aside business as usual. If you have ever wondered how you would have shown up in the face of the challenge put before white America when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat, upending the accepted social order, now is the time you will find out.
Editorial Reviews
Review
—Krista Tippett, On Being, from her interview with Rev. angel
“Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love, and Liberation is the book for right now.”
—Autostraddle.com
“It is rather astonishing that the Black tradition of continuous and endless enlightenment in this country produces its prophets as if bad laws, discrimination, horrors of financial inequality and so on, do not exist to blight the way. No wonder one often imagines the ancestors laughing. This is a book to grow on, to deepen over, to partner with. We are on a magnificent journey of liberation, every moment we are alive in this odd place that has yet to awaken to itself. And we are always, generation to generation, ready to travel. How cool is this?”
—Alice Walker, American novelist and poet
“Radical Dharma is both radical … and courageous. The authors build upon the growing understanding of the connection between personal and societal liberation. Radical Dharma unflinchingly turns this lens to this most challenging and critical nexus of racism and white supremacy. We whites on a spiritual path are lovingly challenged to get our butts off the mat, understanding that our personal liberation is impossible while we unconsciously enjoy the privileges of our skin color. Those in pain and enraged from the brutalities of oppression are lovingly challenged to get that we will never create a liberated society without attending to our own liberation. This is not an ‘easy’ book. Just like a Zen koan, Radical Dharma asks provocative questions rather than prescriptive answers, questions that unsettle, questions that challenge some of our most precious assumptions. Through personal stories and dialogue, we are invited on a powerful journey of spiritual and political awakening. Take the invitation!”
—Robert Gass, EdD, cofounder, Rockwood Leadership Institute and Social Transformation Project
“Radical Dharma is a powerful and vulnerable circle held by three Dharma practitioners who are people of color. It is a beautiful and rare invitation to listen to how each transformed their pain. Some of this is familiar: no one sees me because of my weight. And some of this, for white people, will be new: What does it look like to truly sit with the pain caused by racism in your body? Radical Dharma demands that we step into the circle and ask: How do we restore our humanity? How do we transform ourselves and the world? In this book, Rev. angel Kyodo williams has created a powerful circle of truth around race and reconciliation. Sit, participate, and be broken open and transformed. Understand how the system of racism has traumatized all of us and how we need to heal individually and collectively.”
—Marianne Manilov, cofounder, Engage Network
"African-American and queer Buddhist teachers Rev. angel Kyodo williams and Lama Rod Owens, with Professor Jasmine Syedullah, have brought their brilliant minds and courageous hearts together in their book Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love, and Liberation (North Atlantic Books). They have also included the voices of other liberation-minded Buddhist practitioners, engaging them in conversations about what it should mean to practice Buddhism while bearing witness to police killings and mass incarcerations of Black people in the U.S. This combination of intersecting identities, talking in trialogue and in face-to-face conversations with complete strangers, makes Radical Dharma an unusual and fierce read."
—Lion’s Roar
About the Author
In 2011, Lama Rod Owens was authorized as a lama in the Kagyu School of Tibetan Buddhism. He then moved to DC and ran his own center for over two years. Later, he returned to Boston to begin his divinity degree in Buddhist studies at Harvard Divinity School.
Jasmine Syedullah holds a PhD in politics with a designated emphasis in feminist studies and history of consciousness from University of California, Santa Cruz, and a BA from Brown University in religious studies with a focus in Buddhist philosophy. Syedullah is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of Sociology at Vassar College.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Yet, at this time when the Dharma is needed more acutely than ever—a time when our very existence is threatened as a result of our socially embedded greed, hatred, and ignorance— its expansive potential to liberate us from suffering is in danger of being rendered impotent because it is held in subjugation to the very systems that it must thoroughly examine.
Thrust into the Western socioeconomic framework that puts profit above all and coupled with a desire to perpetuate institutional existence at the expense of illuminating reality and revealing deeper truths, the Dharma has become beholden to commodification as inescapable and de rigueur. Authenticity and integrity are thus compromised.
Much of what is being taught is the acceptance of a “kinder, gentler suffering” that does not question the unwholesome roots of systemic suffering and the structures that hold it in place. What is required is a new Dharma, a radical Dharma that deconstructs rather than amplifies the systems of suffering, that starves rather than fertilizes the soil of the conditions that the deep roots of societal suffering grow in. A new Dharma is one that insists we investigate not only the unsatisfactoriness of our own minds but also prepares us for the discomfort of confronting the obscurations of the society we are individual expressions of. It recognizes that the delusions of systemic oppression are not solely the domain of the individual. By design, they are seated within and reinforced by society.
We must wake up and cut through not only individual but also social ego. This is not only our potential, but we now each have it as our collective responsibility. As dharma communities—this includes people belonging to white-led, Western communities of convert Buddhists, but also next-generation yogis, Advaitins, Sikhs, and adopters of other Eastern traditions—we must also do so strategically, and with great haste.
There is No Neutral
We are at a critical moment in the history of the nation, as well as within the Buddhist teaching and tradition in America. This is the “back of the bus” moment of our time. Fifty years after civil rights laws were laid down, it is clear that they were enshrined within a structure that continues to profit from anti-Black racism. The necessary bias that the system requires in order to be perpetuated has permeated our sanghas—our spiritual communities—and in this very moment, we are called to put aside business as usual. If you have ever wondered how you would have shown up in the face of the challenge put before white America when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat, upending the accepted social order, now is the time you will find out. For Western-convert Buddhist America, this is the time when we will actually embody our practice and teachings, or not.
Our inability as a nation to honor the theft of these lands and the building of wealth, power, and privilege on the countless backs and graves of Black people is our most significant obstacle to being at peace with ourselves, thus with the world. The Buddhist community is a mirror image of this deep internal conflict that arises out of a persistent resistance to playing its appropriate societal role even as we have available to us rigorous teachings to the contrary. This is a clarifying moment about who we are as individuals but also who we have been thus far as a collective of people laying claim to the teachings of the Buddha, waving the flag of wisdom and compassion all the while.
As demographics shift, ushering in increasingly racially diverse pools of seekers, this reluctance promises to be our undoing. We simply cannot engage with either the ills or promises of society if we continue to turn a blind eye to the egregious and willful ignorance that enables us to still not “get it” in so many ways. It is by no means our making, but given the culture we are emerging from and immersed in, we are responsible.
White folks’ particular reluctance to acknowledge impact as a collective while continuing to benefit from the construct of the collective leaves a wound intact without a dressing. The air needed to breathe through forgiveness is smothered. Healing is suspended for all. Truth is necessary for reconciliation.
Will we express the promise of and commitment to liberation for all beings, or will we instead continue a hyper-individualized salvation model—the myth of meritocracy—that is the foundation of this country’s untruth?
The work being done in Dharma communities is the same work being done by the America that wants to live up to its promise of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Collectively, we must kick the habit of racism, cultural dominance, and the upholding of oppressive systems. More poignantly, our challenge, our responsibility, our deep resounding call is to be at the forefront of this overdue evolutionary thrust forward. Why? Because we choose to position ourselves as the standard-bearers of an ethical high ground. And we have the tools and teachings to do so.
There is no neutral.
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Product details
- Publisher : North Atlantic Books; Illustrated edition (June 14, 2016)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 248 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1623170982
- ISBN-13 : 978-1623170981
- Item Weight : 11.6 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.5 x 0.5 x 8 inches
-
Best Sellers Rank:
#19,017 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #7 in Buddhist History (Books)
- #18 in LGBTQ+ Demographic Studies
- #170 in Black & African American Biographies
- Customer Reviews:
Customer reviews
Top reviews from the United States
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Respectfully, James, I feel you may have missed the point of the book. Maybe I’m wrong, but my felt sense about this book is, that it is an ON RAMP to beginning to have open discussions about what white people can do. It is up to white folks, like me, to DO THE WORK to UN LEARN our white supremacist ways.
I understand this book to be urging that it is MY responsibility to begin the honest inner work on how my own racism affects me and the people I come in contact with. This racism that I, and I believe EVERY white person has is not by choice, I don't believe racism is inherent. Racism is so because of the social/political/economic white persons America that we live in. It is and has been easier for white folks to pretend like racism doesn’t even exist, it is easier for a white person to follow that story-line. But that story-line HAS to stop, for the sake of a healthy and sane environment.
Out of respect for humanity, and out of respect for ourselves, it is the responsibility of all white folks to DO THE WORK! Figure out your own racist bias, and talk about it out loud with others! None of this is easy, and there are no easy answers. But the book is asking folks to take the first steps towards liberating ourselves from our own racist ties... the same ties that keep up bound in fear, and far from love and understanding.
There aren’t solid “answers”… this is about a REVOLUTION of UNLEARNING decades of white supremacy. That doesn’t happen overnight, but it HAS to start somewhere! I believe that people of color are exhausted with trying to explain this to white folks who have no way of understanding their felt experience.
A bunch of white folks made up the rules to disenfranchise and disengage people of color. Even if we weren’t part of making those rules, we have followed them blindly and have benefited from the comfort they offer. Finding solutions to changing attitudes and beliefs is up to white folks like me. I just don’t think this too should be put on the back of folks who are exhausted.
To think that our sangha’s, and the way they have been and are organized don’t have everything to do with how people of color might not feel welcome in a predominantly white space is not realistic. The amazing authors of this book are Buddhists, sharing their most intimate selves as people of color in the world and in their own Buddhist communities.
Buddhism in the West is part of a systematically deeply rooted white supremacist society. Buddhism doesn’t just get a “pass” because our lineages teach us about basic goodness in ALL sentient beings.
I understand that you believe even your “whitest” sangha doesn’t try to exclude people of color, and in fact puts effort into being welcoming. I guess I am wondering how your white sangha KNOWS they are being welcoming to people of color? Has your group sat down and had disturbingly honest conversations with the folks of color you are welcoming? I’m guessing not, only because so very few people are having open dialog about race.
To me, this is what this book is about. It is about disrupting the deeply rooted racist structures that keep people who are living as neighbors in a community where there are groups of “them” and “us” and “other.” To me, this book is about encouraging white folks to come into the reality of their privilege, to talk about their racism out loud with other white folks.
The hatred, fear and violence isn’t going to stop until white folks, like me, stop being comfortable and start getting real. It is going to take 3million small steps by a couple million white people before we get to some kind of noticeable social justice for our neighbors who were not born into this privilege.
You can start to take those steps RIGHT NOW! First by just making a commitment to respect yourself and other sentient beings enough to become educated on the United States TRUE history. Next step? Maybe go out of your comfort zone and sign up to take an Undoing Racism Workshop.
This book has inspired and overwhelmed me. But this book made it clear to me that it is MY responsibility to figure this out. For me first, and with my other friends of privilege. It has also shown me that I can’t look for anyone to give me a point by point rule book, instead I’ll find my answers in my own felt experience of love.
In Kindness,
Mandi M. Miller
Madison, WI
Top reviews from other countries

Written from a Zen Buddhist point of view, but the Zen Buddhism is not at all overpowering or intrusive.
Essential reading for any contemporary thinking person.


