Dharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick Lenz

I am a seeker of what I call perfect moments. I'm not going to define that because, why? There are all kinds. Perfect moments are moments when we, as I said, go beyond ourselves and we touch something immortal. And there are many ways to do it. They involve pretty much the same structural approach, though. These moments don't occur particularly rhapsodically. They occur from a lot of discipline, a lot of pragmatic approach, through building up our power. And if you know how to do it in one place, you can apply that structural knowledge to doing it in any place. In other words, it really isn't a certain thing that brings us those moments. It isn't mountain climbing. It isn't hang gliding. It isn't bungee jumping. It isn't meditation. It isn't business. It isn't athletics. It's an approach whereby we use something to catapult ourselves into infinity. And once we've done it, the tendency is to want to repeat exactly what we did again and again. We've baked a great cake, so now we're going to write down the recipe. But it doesn't work that way. It has to be new. It has to be uncertain. If there's no uncertainty, your power doesn't rise. Please visit http://fredericklenzfoundation.org for more information.

I am a seeker of what I call perfect moments. I'm not going to define that because, why? There are all kinds. Perfect moments are moments when we, as I said, go beyond ourselves and we touch something immortal. And there are many ways to do it. They involve pretty much the same structural approach, though. These moments don't occur particularly rhapsodically. They occur from a lot of discipline, a lot of pragmatic approach, through building up our power. And if you know how to do it in one place, you can apply that structural knowledge to doing it in any place. In other words, it really isn't a certain thing that brings us those moments. It isn't mountain climbing. It isn't hang gliding. It isn't bungee jumping. It isn't meditation. It isn't business. It isn't athletics. It's an approach whereby we use something to catapult ourselves into infinity. And once we've done it, the tendency is to want to repeat exactly what we did again and again. We've baked a great cake, so now we're going to write down the recipe. But it doesn't work that way. It has to be new. It has to be uncertain. If there's no uncertainty, your power doesn't rise. Please visit http://fredericklenzfoundation.org for more information.

Meditation is different. It has nothing to do with reincarnation. Meditation is when we go beyond incarnation, beyond all cycles, to immortality, to something that is not transient, to that which is eternal. When we meditate we stop our thought. When your thought stops, the mind is perfect. There is no transience. No thought, no transience. That's what is eternal -- when there is no thought, no sense of self and no impressions. That's eternity -- what you feel, that reality that you are. That's eternal. That's beyond transience. That's what we really are, of course. Yet, surprise -- we get to have two bodies, a transient body and an eternal body. We forget about the eternal body when we're real caught up in the transient body, and things appear very frightening from the transient body's point of view because it knows it's going to die, it knows it's going to dissolve and it's afraid of that. But if we switch to the eternal body, if we bring up and wake up our eternal awareness, then there's nothing very frightening about being transient because we realize it's only a part of us that is transient. Please visit http://fredericklenzfoundation.org for more information.

Meditation is different. It has nothing to do with reincarnation. Meditation is when we go beyond incarnation, beyond all cycles, to immortality, to something that is not transient, to that which is eternal. When we meditate we stop our thought. When your thought stops, the mind is perfect. There is no transience. No thought, no transience. That's what is eternal -- when there is no thought, no sense of self and no impressions. That's eternity -- what you feel, that reality that you are. That's eternal. That's beyond transience. That's what we really are, of course. Yet, surprise -- we get to have two bodies, a transient body and an eternal body. We forget about the eternal body when we're real caught up in the transient body, and things appear very frightening from the transient body's point of view because it knows it's going to die, it knows it's going to dissolve and it's afraid of that. But if we switch to the eternal body, if we bring up and wake up our eternal awareness, then there's nothing very frightening about being transient because we realize it's only a part of us that is transient. Please visit http://fredericklenzfoundation.org for more information.

The path of negation is the path of understanding. The path of affirmation, which is the first portion of the self-discovery path, is a path in which we don't seek to understand, we seek to escape. We want to escape the pain of life, the pain of our minds, the pain of our bodies, the pain of the world. We don't really want to ask a lot of questions; we just want to know a way out-and the way out is through avoidance. We don't eat meat, we don't have sex, we don't deal with money, we don't deal with things that we know have caused us pain. The great teachers explain why these things cause us pain-attachment, desire, having a self, you know, all the different things. But-we just escape. We don't really care. You go to the doctor and you hurt. You're not really interested in knowing how the medicine works, you just want it to. But the path of negation, which is the esoteric or more advanced part of the enlightenment process, is the path of understanding. It's the path of knowledge. Please visit http://fredericklenzfoundation.org for more information.

The path of negation is the path of understanding. The path of affirmation, which is the first portion of the self-discovery path, is a path in which we don't seek to understand, we seek to escape. We want to escape the pain of life, the pain of our minds, the pain of our bodies, the pain of the world. We don't really want to ask a lot of questions; we just want to know a way out-and the way out is through avoidance. We don't eat meat, we don't have sex, we don't deal with money, we don't deal with things that we know have caused us pain. The great teachers explain why these things cause us pain-attachment, desire, having a self, you know, all the different things. But-we just escape. We don't really care. You go to the doctor and you hurt. You're not really interested in knowing how the medicine works, you just want it to. But the path of negation, which is the esoteric or more advanced part of the enlightenment process, is the path of understanding. It's the path of knowledge. Please visit http://fredericklenzfoundation.org for more information.

The essence of Buddhism is simply that the mind is forever. And that there are endless states of mind. And that we are always experiencing different states of mind in one form or another, in one body or another, in one life or another, forever. And that there are states of mind that are painful and unpleasant, there are states of mind that are wonderful and ecstatic. But there are only endless states of mind -- viewpoints, plateaus of seeing life.. Most people exist in very clouded states of mind. That is to say, their minds are very clouded. It's sort of like when you're underwater in a big swimming pool and you open your eyes, and you can't see very far and everything you see is distorted. That's how most people perceive reality. They're under a great deal of water and everything is very distorted. They assume that is what life is, that what they perceive is real. But of course, there are states of mind that are not clouded at all, that are perfect, immaculate, vacuous and clear. Void of illusions. Void of things that make those states of mind cloudy and make them antithetical to reality, to the clear seeing of reality. Please visit http://fredericklenzfoundation.org for more information.

The essence of Buddhism is simply that the mind is forever. And that there are endless states of mind. And that we are always experiencing different states of mind in one form or another, in one body or another, in one life or another, forever. And that there are states of mind that are painful and unpleasant, there are states of mind that are wonderful and ecstatic. But there are only endless states of mind -- viewpoints, plateaus of seeing life.. Most people exist in very clouded states of mind. That is to say, their minds are very clouded. It's sort of like when you're underwater in a big swimming pool and you open your eyes, and you can't see very far and everything you see is distorted. That's how most people perceive reality. They're under a great deal of water and everything is very distorted. They assume that is what life is, that what they perceive is real. But of course, there are states of mind that are not clouded at all, that are perfect, immaculate, vacuous and clear. Void of illusions. Void of things that make those states of mind cloudy and make them antithetical to reality, to the clear seeing of reality. Please visit http://fredericklenzfoundation.org for more information.

In the Bhagavad Gita is a discussion-conversation between enlightenment and that which unknowingly seeks enlightenment. Enlightenment is represented by Sri Krishna who is said to be an avatar, which is a human way of trying to define 'very big.' That is to say that Sri Krishna is not from the local area network, but he has come from a world that is different because his mind is different. He glows. He doesn't experience the normal round of circumstances inwardly that most people do. He doesn't experience depression. He doesn't really experience elation as human beings would know it. He doesn't experience the kind of grayness and deadness of the human condition. Instead he lives in a perpetual sunrise. He's self-effulgent. The light that he seeks is not external. He doesn't have to turn to the sun for light, or towards another being or towards a God, because he is self-effulgent radiance. Arjuna, who is the fearless warrior in the story, on the other hand is a very worldly individual, we assume with high past lives, who's engaged in a battle, a kind of a civil war, the battle of Kurukshetra. And a conversation, a dialogue, ensues in the middle of a battlefield, symbolizing the battlefield of life in which we are fighting through our illusions. Please visit http://fredericklenzfoundation.org for more information.

In the Bhagavad Gita is a discussion-conversation between enlightenment and that which unknowingly seeks enlightenment. Enlightenment is represented by Sri Krishna who is said to be an avatar, which is a human way of trying to define 'very big.' That is to say that Sri Krishna is not from the local area network, but he has come from a world that is different because his mind is different. He glows. He doesn't experience the normal round of circumstances inwardly that most people do. He doesn't experience depression. He doesn't really experience elation as human beings would know it. He doesn't experience the kind of grayness and deadness of the human condition. Instead he lives in a perpetual sunrise. He's self-effulgent. The light that he seeks is not external. He doesn't have to turn to the sun for light, or towards another being or towards a God, because he is self-effulgent radiance. Arjuna, who is the fearless warrior in the story, on the other hand is a very worldly individual, we assume with high past lives, who's engaged in a battle, a kind of a civil war, the battle of Kurukshetra. And a conversation, a dialogue, ensues in the middle of a battlefield, symbolizing the battlefield of life in which we are fighting through our illusions. Please visit http://fredericklenzfoundation.org for more information.

The answer is to clean your room. And if your room is clean, that's about that. We seek to do that as Buddhists when we meditate and when we breathe and when we live and when we talk and when we interact and when we're alone. Because we like the way it feels when the room is very simple and very clean because there's no clutter. It isn't that we appreciate that there's no clutter. No clutter opens the window so we can see outside and see eternity, which is very full and very beautiful. But if there's too much clutter in your room, you can't see the room anymore. You see the clutter, you see. If you've ever seen the mind in its immaculate state, in its perfect state, you really don't want to have it all cluttered up because you just see all the clutter. Now, I ask you, do you see your minds? Please visit http://fredericklenzfoundation.org for more information.

The answer is to clean your room. And if your room is clean, that's about that. We seek to do that as Buddhists when we meditate and when we breathe and when we live and when we talk and when we interact and when we're alone. Because we like the way it feels when the room is very simple and very clean because there's no clutter. It isn't that we appreciate that there's no clutter. No clutter opens the window so we can see outside and see eternity, which is very full and very beautiful. But if there's too much clutter in your room, you can't see the room anymore. You see the clutter, you see. If you've ever seen the mind in its immaculate state, in its perfect state, you really don't want to have it all cluttered up because you just see all the clutter. Now, I ask you, do you see your minds? Please visit http://fredericklenzfoundation.org for more information.

We have a sense that we are participating in metaphysics and the metaphysical experience voluntarily. We're doing it because we're doing it. We've chosen to do it. As you go much further in metaphysics, you discover that that's not true at all. The reason that you're engaged in metaphysics is -- there's no reason, you just don't have any choice. You couldn't stop, no matter what you did. You're held by power. Now, this is a very different view of life. In other words, we believe that we are all people are created equal and we have free choice and all that sort of thing. I like independence and I like that idea, but to be honest with you, in metaphysics, we see as metaphysicians, we perceive that it isn't really we who ever decide anything. It's power that decides things. It's power, if I can enter into the world of the American Indians for just a little bit here, who believe that there's a force that binds life together. There's something that makes everything what it is, and we call it power. In Buddhism, I guess we'd call it karma. But let's be American Indians for a minute, since we're in America. They were here first. Please visit http://fredericklenzfoundation.org for more information.

We have a sense that we are participating in metaphysics and the metaphysical experience voluntarily. We're doing it because we're doing it. We've chosen to do it. As you go much further in metaphysics, you discover that that's not true at all. The reason that you're engaged in metaphysics is -- there's no reason, you just don't have any choice. You couldn't stop, no matter what you did. You're held by power. Now, this is a very different view of life. In other words, we believe that we are all people are created equal and we have free choice and all that sort of thing. I like independence and I like that idea, but to be honest with you, in metaphysics, we see as metaphysicians, we perceive that it isn't really we who ever decide anything. It's power that decides things. It's power, if I can enter into the world of the American Indians for just a little bit here, who believe that there's a force that binds life together. There's something that makes everything what it is, and we call it power. In Buddhism, I guess we'd call it karma. But let's be American Indians for a minute, since we're in America. They were here first. Please visit http://fredericklenzfoundation.org for more information.

The best meditation I ever had, I haven't had yet. It's in the future, which as anyone knows doesn't exist -- anyone who meditates knows. But yet, I'll have it some day. The best lifetime I've ever experienced hasn't occurred yet. I've had billions of lives. I've been around the universe almost as long as the universe, I think. I remember my lives; you don't. Or you remember a few. I remember a billion. And I've had wonderful lives. I've had wonderful lives, beautiful lives, lives of struggle, lives of battle, lives of ecstasy. I've had beautiful lives, and this is a beautiful life I'm in now. It's a hard life, as they go, but it's a beautiful life. But I haven't had the best lifetime yet. It's around the corner, I know it is. It hasn't occurred yet because things get better in infinity as we get better. And in each lifetime we get better. The universe is always ecstasy and it's always perfect. But we don't perceive it that well. And if we keep doing our yoga in every lifetime, we perceive it more correctly. Please visit http://fredericklenzfoundation.org for more information.