The New Saints

From Broken Hearts to Spiritual Warriors

By: Lama Rod Owens

Narrated by: Rod Owens

A Buddhist Lama and intersectional thought leader shares a guide for those who would dream a more just, ethical world into being.

Saints, spiritual warriors, bodhisattvas, tzaddik—no matter how they are named in a given tradition, they all share a profound wish to free others from suffering. Saints are not unattainable beings of stained glass or carved stone. “Saints are ordinary and human, doing things any person can learn to do,” teaches Lama Rod Owens. “Our era calls for saints who are from this time and place, who speak the language of this moment, and who integrate both social and spiritual liberation. I believe we all can and must become New Saints.”

With The New Saints, Lama Rod shares a guidebook for becoming an effective agent of justice, peace, and change. Combining personal stories, traditional teachings, and instructions for contemplative and somatic practices, he shares inspiring resources for self-exploration and wise action. Each chapter reinforces the truth of our interdependency—allowing us to be of service to the collective well-being, access the unseen realms of divine guidance and strength, and call on the support of the countless beings who share our struggles and hopes.

The status quo of our society is crumbling, and rightly so. But what future will emerge to replace it? “There’s nothing like crisis to wake us up and force us to get serious about change,” says Lama Rod. “Ancient, powerful magic is returning. With the end of the lies of the old world comes the awakening of truth.” For those who have the willingness to allow our hearts to break, disrupt systems of violence, and let deep, authentic care guide our actions instead of fear and hate, here is a clarion call for becoming a spiritual warrior—a human refreshed, serving a vision of a world shaped by love.

©2023 Rod Owens (P)2023 Sounds True

Critic reviews

“The New Saints will challenge your current understanding and offer fresh inspiration about ways, together, we can bring healing to our beautiful and broken world. This is a bold and powerful offering—one that attunes to our times with great lucidity, wisdom, and heart.”—Tara Brach, author of Radical Acceptance and Radical Compassion

“The New Saints is Lama Rod Owens’s literary embodiment of his compassionately brave, authentic, loving, and fierce essence. Opening our broken hearts is not easy, but disrupting the reigning terror is necessary without becoming the entities we seek to eradicate. Lama Rod’s compelling storytelling and sacred teachings remind and teach us that it is through acknowledging and facing our pain, our trauma, and, yes, the often-complex contradictions in our lives that we will create opportunities to cultivate compassion for ourselves and all beings everywhere without exception.”—Aishah Shahidah Simmons, editor of Love WITH Accountability, producer and director of NO! The Rape Documentary

“In The New Saints, Lama Rod Owens offers revelation. The loving support demonstrated in this important book provides a model of liberated spiritual practice that helps us through the accidental feedback loops of confirmation bias and spiritual bypassing so that we can step into becoming a deeply embodied New Saint. The New Saints, like Lama Rod himself, exists for these times—and the world, and all of us, are so much better off because of this.”—Lama Justin von Bujdoss, author of Modern Tantric Buddhism

Moving, thoughtful, heartbreaking

Lama Rod’s honesty, poetry and concrete tools combine in this inspired and epic work. Reading through is literally important work for the reader, each section a reckoning offering challenge, invitation and guidance.

I’ve already re-read several sections, shared quotes and the whole book with folks I love who it would sing to in their current moment. I would recommend this book to everyone; To anyone trying hard to figure out how to be in the world.

As always, Lama Rod show up. He sits with conflicting emotions and realities and finds truth that can hold them all.

BIPOC Dharma

Practicing the dharma reveals the truth of our collective suffering and the path to freedom

Vulnerable open hearted wisdom

This book is beautiful, true , and feels honest in his vulnerability. The path of liberation must be traveled with the body and heart, not despite.

This is the werk!

This book is poignant, prayerful, grounded in love, compassion and truth, direct, explicit, wild and wonderful. As a fat, black, pagan, hoodoo practicing Buddhist - I approve. Just finished and can’t wait to read it a second time with my journal and pen. And probably a third time with “awakened care” given to the exercises he recommends. Thank you Lama Rod for another fabulous and inspiring piece of written werk. ❤️

Real. Modern.

I am so grateful for this book and Lama Rod’s expression of what it means to be human and to live free.

meditations

After reading Love and Rage I had to continue reading all his books.

very grateful

Good book, more like a personal diary

I bought this book because I liked Lama Rod Owens approach to Buddhism when listening to him talk on podcasts.
This book to me feels like a diary of his personal journey with bits of Buddhism and meditations.
There was a part of the book where he speaks of his admiration to a Vogue Magazine fashion editor and how he considers him a saint and above many Lamas he met that bothered me a bit.
It's very normal for people to admire other people but it bothered me that he would compair a luxury fashion environment and values to Buddhism.
Luxury fashion maybe one of the most dehumanizing and materialistic environments in the world, and the message it brings to people is for the most driven to consumerism and segregation.