Hi there, I'm Jason Gatz and you're listening to Think Again, a Big Think podcast.

Like Mick Jagger, the Indian prince we know as the Buddha, taught that we can't get no satisfaction from this world,

though we try and we try and we try and we try. Buddha means awakened one, awake to the fact that the world is impermanent and we suffer

and cause suffering to one another because of that.

Woke is a newer word for something similar, waking up to pervasive social injustice,

to racism, economic disparity, homophobia, and other forces that poison and destroy people's

lives and relationships. In other words, suffering people caused by clinging onto impermanent

things, in this case power. The intersection of these two kinds of awakening is at the heart

of the work of my guest today, Lama Rod Owens. An ordained Lama in a Tibetan Buddhist lineage, he grew

up a queer black male within the black Christian church in the American South. Navigating

all of these intersecting, evolving identities has led him to a life's work based on compassion

for self and others and on trying to help people wake up in all senses of the word.

Welcome to think again.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So great to be here.

That was a wonderful intro.

Oh, thank you.

Yeah, the Mick Jagger quote.

Like, we'll be stealing that now.

Yeah, feel free.

I'd be honored.

...