Spring Washam and Lama Rod Owens – The Spirit Underground Podcast – Ep. 1 – Modern Abolition & The Spiritual Path

Welcome to The Spirit Underground Podcast with Dharma teachers Spring Washam and Lama Rod Owens.

Together they talk about their unique approach to inner and outer liberation that incorporates Buddhist-based meditation practices, healing with plant-based medicine and Indigenous wisdom, Liberation Theology, and reconnecting to our ancestral knowledge. Learn what it means to be a spiritual abolitionist and discover the tools for disrupting internalized oppression and accelerating our personal and collective evolution.

“We have so much that we want to share each episode about getting into the real practices, the theology, the mindset and how to help people do this work of liberation. For people do this work of liberation for people who are like, ‘Ok, give me a map – give me the how-to.’ We want to offer these practices that have helped us.” – Spring Washam

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About Spring Washam:

Spring Washam is a well-known teacher, author, and visionary leader based in Oakland, California. She is the author of A Fierce Heart: Finding Strength, Courage and Wisdom in Any Moment and her newest book, The Spirit of Harriet Tubman: Awakening from the Underground. Spring is considered a pioneer in bringing mindfulness-based meditation practices to diverse communities. She is one of the founding teachers at the East Bay Meditation Center, located in downtown Oakland, CA. She has practiced and studied Buddhist philosophy in both the Theravada and Tibetan schools of Buddhism since 1999. She is a member of the teacher’s council at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in northern California where she was trained for over a decade.

In addition to being a teacher, she is also a shamanic practitioner and has studied indigenous healing practices since 2008. She is the founder of Lotus Vine Journeys, a one-of-a-kind organization that blends indigenous healing practices with Buddhist wisdom in South America. Her writings and dharma teachings have appeared in many online journals and publications. She currently teaches meditation retreats and leads workshops, and classes worldwide.

Spring currently teaches meditation retreats and leads workshops, and classes worldwide: springwasham.com

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.

Lama Rod co-founded Bhumisparsha in 2018, a spiritual community with a mission of making tantra accessible and inclusive for North American practitioners while serving as a catalyst for transformative social change. He also co-founded Dharma Queens, a series of conversations on Instagram Live with @sistersadada, to help people get freer faster. Prior engagements from the Buddhist minister, author, activist, yoga instructor and authorized Lama in the Kagyu School of Tibetan Buddhism include talks, retreats, and workshops for organizations, businesses and universities, including Calm, NYU, Yale, Harvard, Google, Columbia University, University of Vermont, Boston College.

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