Dharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick Lenz

Willpower. You have two choices, and only two that I'm aware of. One choice is to be a human being. To be a human being is to be frustrated, unfulfilled, and there are lots of them around. A human being is someone who's bound by emotion, as opposed to reason -- a person who is enslaved by their desires, a person who is never really at peace with themselves or fulfilled or happy because they live in the spectrum of the human consciousness, which is endless craving, endless desire. Pleasure is followed by pain, loss by gain, love by the loss of love, joy by sorrow. That is the life of a human being. There is another possibility. One can be something other than human -- human in the sense that I've just defined it. One can become limitless, enlightened, aware, awakened, knowledgeable and powerful in ways that the human beings who traverse this earth cannot yet fathom. Please visit http://fredericklenzfoundation.org for more information.

Willpower. You have two choices, and only two that I'm aware of. One choice is to be a human being. To be a human being is to be frustrated, unfulfilled, and there are lots of them around. A human being is someone who's bound by emotion, as opposed to reason -- a person who is enslaved by their desires, a person who is never really at peace with themselves or fulfilled or happy because they live in the spectrum of the human consciousness, which is endless craving, endless desire. Pleasure is followed by pain, loss by gain, love by the loss of love, joy by sorrow. That is the life of a human being. There is another possibility. One can be something other than human -- human in the sense that I've just defined it. One can become limitless, enlightened, aware, awakened, knowledgeable and powerful in ways that the human beings who traverse this earth cannot yet fathom. Please visit http://fredericklenzfoundation.org for more information.

What I term Tantric Zen, I could also refer to as old Zen, the original face of Zen, or new Zen, contemporary Zen practice -- no mind, the mirror of existence. Tantric Zen is Zen in its essence. Bodhidharma, who brought Zen from India to the Orient, taught a very pure type of Zen, in that it was -- pure Zen. Zen is meditation, the actual experience of life -- directly, immediately, with no buffers. Over the course of time, different schools of Zen have evolved, principally the Rinzai and Soto orders of Zen. There have been lots of Zen teachers, Zen masters. Books have been written about Zen, commentaries on sutras. A whole hierarchy has developed for the teaching and practice of Zen. And Zen has become, to a certain degree, institutionalized. Tantric Zen is the original Zen -- Zen without rules, Zen without form. Zen can certainly take rules and form. So Tantric Zen might have some rules and form, but it would also remain formless, even though it has rules and form. Tantric Zen is the awareness of the infinitude of all things. To gain that awareness, to be it, is enlightenment. Enlightenment frees you from the pain and suffering of limited states of mind. Please visit http://fredericklenzfoundation.org for more information.

What I term Tantric Zen, I could also refer to as old Zen, the original face of Zen, or new Zen, contemporary Zen practice -- no mind, the mirror of existence. Tantric Zen is Zen in its essence. Bodhidharma, who brought Zen from India to the Orient, taught a very pure type of Zen, in that it was -- pure Zen. Zen is meditation, the actual experience of life -- directly, immediately, with no buffers. Over the course of time, different schools of Zen have evolved, principally the Rinzai and Soto orders of Zen. There have been lots of Zen teachers, Zen masters. Books have been written about Zen, commentaries on sutras. A whole hierarchy has developed for the teaching and practice of Zen. And Zen has become, to a certain degree, institutionalized. Tantric Zen is the original Zen -- Zen without rules, Zen without form. Zen can certainly take rules and form. So Tantric Zen might have some rules and form, but it would also remain formless, even though it has rules and form. Tantric Zen is the awareness of the infinitude of all things. To gain that awareness, to be it, is enlightenment. Enlightenment frees you from the pain and suffering of limited states of mind. Please visit http://fredericklenzfoundation.org for more information.

Concentration and meditation are practices that enable you to alter your state of mind. Within a state of mind, the state of mind you're in now, there are different possibilities. There's a higher end to the state of mind and a lower end. The higher end -- let's call it the right side of that state of mind, which leads or borders the next state of mind that has a better view -- has more light in it. The lower end has less light. If you spend enough time at the lower end of a state of mind and if you lose enough energy, you can drop to the next state of mind down. You might drop from 100 down to 99. If you spend enough time on the right hand side and you accumulate power and energy, you can kick up -- maybe to 101. When you change a state of mind, your whole life changes. Nothing remains the same. Nothing looks the same because you have changed. Please visit http://fredericklenzfoundation.org for more information.

Concentration and meditation are practices that enable you to alter your state of mind. Within a state of mind, the state of mind you're in now, there are different possibilities. There's a higher end to the state of mind and a lower end. The higher end -- let's call it the right side of that state of mind, which leads or borders the next state of mind that has a better view -- has more light in it. The lower end has less light. If you spend enough time at the lower end of a state of mind and if you lose enough energy, you can drop to the next state of mind down. You might drop from 100 down to 99. If you spend enough time on the right hand side and you accumulate power and energy, you can kick up -- maybe to 101. When you change a state of mind, your whole life changes. Nothing remains the same. Nothing looks the same because you have changed. Please visit http://fredericklenzfoundation.org for more information.

Everyone is psychic. You are psychic. Psychic is not a particular talent; it is an ability that we all have. Everybody has a left foot. Some people may just walk with that foot, some people may drag it, some may learn to dance with it. Everyone is innately psychic. It's a part of your mind. What does it mean to be psychic? Essentially it means to feel, rather than to think all the time. There are two general modes of perception. There are many, but there are two that we see most frequently in this world, and that's thinking and feeling. Feeling, not in the sense of the senses -- hot, cold, pleasant, unpleasant, pain, pleasure -- but feeling in a more intuitive sense. Feeling love from someone, feeling anger from someone, that kind of feeling -- a non-sensorial feeling having to do with the emotional body and the psychic body. Thinking is analysis, perception, measurement, random association. It's a way of figuring something out. But to be honest, most decisions are not made through analysis. Please visit http://fredericklenzfoundation.org for more information.

Everyone is psychic. You are psychic. Psychic is not a particular talent; it is an ability that we all have. Everybody has a left foot. Some people may just walk with that foot, some people may drag it, some may learn to dance with it. Everyone is innately psychic. It's a part of your mind. What does it mean to be psychic? Essentially it means to feel, rather than to think all the time. There are two general modes of perception. There are many, but there are two that we see most frequently in this world, and that's thinking and feeling. Feeling, not in the sense of the senses -- hot, cold, pleasant, unpleasant, pain, pleasure -- but feeling in a more intuitive sense. Feeling love from someone, feeling anger from someone, that kind of feeling -- a non-sensorial feeling having to do with the emotional body and the psychic body. Thinking is analysis, perception, measurement, random association. It's a way of figuring something out. But to be honest, most decisions are not made through analysis. Please visit http://fredericklenzfoundation.org for more information.

Hi there. Zen Master Rama here, talking with you about karma and reincarnation today. The poignancy of life. Incarnation. The intersection of different spheres of existence in time and space, matter and energy -- life. We are alive, for a brief moment. And there are many, many wonders to see. And sometimes we think that life is random. We just go through life without a plan, without a direction. Things seem chaotic. Chance. Is there chance? No. There's karma. Karma causes all things to happen. It makes the sun come up every day; the moon go through its 28 phases; it causes your birth, your death. It's what makes your days and nights, days and nights. Karma. Why do you meet someone? Karma. Why don't you meet someone else? Karma. Why do you love one person more than another? Karma. Why are you in the career you're now in? Karma. There is only one thing that karma can't decide, and that's how far you will evolve in this lifetime. How much you'll wake up. How much you'll come to see and know before you leave this place again. That is up to you. The rest is karma. Please visit http://fredericklenzfoundation.org for more information.

Hi there. Zen Master Rama here, talking with you about karma and reincarnation today. The poignancy of life. Incarnation. The intersection of different spheres of existence in time and space, matter and energy -- life. We are alive, for a brief moment. And there are many, many wonders to see. And sometimes we think that life is random. We just go through life without a plan, without a direction. Things seem chaotic. Chance. Is there chance? No. There's karma. Karma causes all things to happen. It makes the sun come up every day; the moon go through its 28 phases; it causes your birth, your death. It's what makes your days and nights, days and nights. Karma. Why do you meet someone? Karma. Why don't you meet someone else? Karma. Why do you love one person more than another? Karma. Why are you in the career you're now in? Karma. There is only one thing that karma can't decide, and that's how far you will evolve in this lifetime. How much you'll wake up. How much you'll come to see and know before you leave this place again. That is up to you. The rest is karma. Please visit http://fredericklenzfoundation.org for more information.

Well, what it means is that you are experiencing right now -- I mean right now -- your past. Everything that you have done has led up to what you are now. That's the theory of reincarnation. Everything you do now will lead up to what you will be. That's the theory of reincarnation. The wave that's moving along the top of the ocean has a certain formation. The reason it has that formation is because of what it has been through up until this moment. What it will go through will cause it to change form. So you are a wave of awareness and you are in this world and you are aware of a certain amount of stuff (Rama laughs), of consciousness. If you wish to become more aware, then it's necessary to do something that you haven't done. Because everything that you've done, if you just continue to do it, will only make you as aware as you are now. If you don't do as much as you have been doing, you will become less aware. Please visit http://fredericklenzfoundation.org for more information.

Well, what it means is that you are experiencing right now -- I mean right now -- your past. Everything that you have done has led up to what you are now. That's the theory of reincarnation. Everything you do now will lead up to what you will be. That's the theory of reincarnation. The wave that's moving along the top of the ocean has a certain formation. The reason it has that formation is because of what it has been through up until this moment. What it will go through will cause it to change form. So you are a wave of awareness and you are in this world and you are aware of a certain amount of stuff (Rama laughs), of consciousness. If you wish to become more aware, then it's necessary to do something that you haven't done. Because everything that you've done, if you just continue to do it, will only make you as aware as you are now. If you don't do as much as you have been doing, you will become less aware. Please visit http://fredericklenzfoundation.org for more information.

The most noble of all pursuits -- to become all that you are, all that you have ever been -- is to be enlightened, to know truth, to have knowledge and yet be beyond even truth and knowledge, to be God. You are God. To be conscious of that, not from just the point of view of the human form. To be endless and beginningless, perfect being. Infinite awareness, beyond pain, beyond frustration, beyond birth and death -- that's enlightenment. A part of it, anyway. And we call the study of enlightenment, self realization or self-discovery. There are many paths that lead to enlightenment. There are lesser enlightenments along the way to a larger enlightenment, which is referred to sometimes as liberation -- the larger enlightenment, that is. Not just being happy, not just having a peaceful mind or coming to a good understanding, which can change, but being perfect. Perfect mind, the diamond mind. Radiating all universes through your being. Each pulse beat is the universe. Each breath, eternity. Enlightenment. Try it. You'll like it. Please visit http://fredericklenzfoundation.org for more information.

The most noble of all pursuits -- to become all that you are, all that you have ever been -- is to be enlightened, to know truth, to have knowledge and yet be beyond even truth and knowledge, to be God. You are God. To be conscious of that, not from just the point of view of the human form. To be endless and beginningless, perfect being. Infinite awareness, beyond pain, beyond frustration, beyond birth and death -- that's enlightenment. A part of it, anyway. And we call the study of enlightenment, self realization or self-discovery. There are many paths that lead to enlightenment. There are lesser enlightenments along the way to a larger enlightenment, which is referred to sometimes as liberation -- the larger enlightenment, that is. Not just being happy, not just having a peaceful mind or coming to a good understanding, which can change, but being perfect. Perfect mind, the diamond mind. Radiating all universes through your being. Each pulse beat is the universe. Each breath, eternity. Enlightenment. Try it. You'll like it. Please visit http://fredericklenzfoundation.org for more information.

How do you cope with stress? Well, from my point of view, from the point of view of Zen, of course, it's good to understand what it is you're dealing with. We want answers. We want quick relief. That's why we take the quick relief pills. The quick relief pills may give us some quick relief, but when the little pill goes away, the relief is gone because we didn't take a larger look at what it was we were dealing with and try to understand it. Zen is the study of mind in all of its manifestations and permutations. And the power of mind directed at any problem will eventually overcome the problem. But it's necessary for you to bring the full power of your mind to bear in an unhurried way, and then you can easily overcome stress. Why does a person experience stress? Well, to begin with, there is really no such thing as stress. In other words, stress is a popular word that indicates a condition of mind, not something that really exists in the world by itself. Oh, I'm familiar with all the popular theories, the fight or flight response, and all that sort of stuff. But that really has very little to do with stress. Stress is a state of mind. It doesn't exist independently of itself. Please visit http://fredericklenzfoundation.org for more information.