Dharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick Lenz

Rama ~ Dr. Frederick Lenz
  • 4.4 (30)
  • BUDDHISM
Dharma Talks by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick Lenz

Dharma Talks on a variety of topics in Buddhism by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick Lenz. They were recorded from 1982 through 1992, and cover a wide variety of topics across meditation, Tantric Mysticism, Hinduism, Zen Buddhism, and Vadrayana Buddhism. Please visit http://fredericklenzfoundation.org for more information.

  1. 02/22/2018

    Insights - How To Make Friends With God

    God is limitless awareness. There. Now I just told you everything I know about God. A lot of good it did you. You probably knew that already. But do you really know what limitless awareness is? Oh, sure, you can hear me say, "God is limitless awareness." But immediately when you think of God, you have a preconceived cultural notion of who and what God is. Since the time you were born, you were taught about God. If you were taught to believe in God, you were taught what to believe, that God is a certain way and not another way. If you were taught that God doesn't exist, then you were taught about God. Our society dwells on God. God is mentioned on our currency, on the money that we carry in our wallets. God is everywhere, but no one knows about God. Please visit http://fredericklenzfoundation.org for more information.

    43 min

  2. 02/22/2018

    Insights - Instant Enlightenment

    Enlightenment, from my point of view, does not involve going into samadhi a few times or having a few satori experiences. Over a period of years of going into samadhi day after day, night after night, for hundreds and thousands of hours, enlightenment takes place. The way I define it is self realization. That is to say, enlightenment doesn't simply mean that you've gone up a few times and seen the white light of eternity and merged with the all. I would say that's a basic level of samadhi. Enlightenment has to do with the erasure of the samskaras, the past life tendencies, after you've gone into samadhi for hundreds and thousands of hours, many, many times over a period of years. This described, let's say, in the biography of Ramakrishna. You know, Ramakrishna didn't suddenly become enlightened. We had years of him meditating, seeking, crying to Mother Kali, going in and out of samadhi, and he would never have referred to himself as enlightened, certainly, in those early stages. But after many years of this process, he was enlightened. He was no longer a finite individual. Please visit http://fredericklenzfoundation.org for more information.

    44 min

  3. 02/22/2018

    Insights - Love - The Fourth Level of Ecstasy

    All of the various forms of self-discovery, ranging from Zen and Tibetan tantra on through Christianity, Buddhism, whatever it may be, all of them are based on love. While in some forms of self-discovery, love may not be discussed a lot, it's understood to be the basis of all spiritual and religious practice. It is the essence of being and living. When a civilization, a race, a people, a society, when they lack love, they are soon destroyed. Gandhi realized this. Love makes you immortal because it connects the world of mortality that we live in now to the immortal kingdoms of higher existence. Love comes in two forms -- higher love and lower love, or let us say advanced love and the beginning of love.

    1h 56m

  4. 02/22/2018

    Insights - Modular Mysticism: Dress For Power

    One's progression along the spiritual path is a very, very intricate matter. This evening I'd like to talk to you a little bit about the structure of your being and how this process actually works, with specific recommendations as to what you can do to radically alter your current state of knowledge and awareness. In essence, then, this is a technique-oriented presentation, but I'd like to begin with a consideration of the dynamics of this process. To begin with, the process of self-discovery normally involves, in mysticism, a teacher and a student. In some forms of mysticism, there are two teachers for a student. One is referred to as the teacher, one is the benefactor. The idea is that the teacher prepares the tonal being, the conscious being, whereas the benefactor prepares the superconscious side of one's being, or the nagual. In your case, you have one teacher who does both. There are teachers who teach both sides. Some only teach one. Please visit http://fredericklenzfoundation.org for more information.

    46 min

  5. 02/22/2018

    Insights - Modular Mysticism: Seeing

    This evening I'd like to talk to you about seeing. Seeing is the ability to tell what really is. There are many different forms of seeing. Some forms of seeing involve apprehending that which is occurring in the world. Other forms of seeing are more esoteric, and they involve the perception of perception itself. Without seeing, it's very difficult to practice self-discovery. You're quite blind. Most people of course, think of seeing as the thing that we do with our eyesight. We're using the word 'seeing' not in that sense at all, but as a metaphor, almost a mixed metaphor, for knowing. Perhaps 'knowing' is a better word. It's a little bit of both. Conditioning is responsible for what our life is. The totality of your life at this time is dependent upon what's happened to you. What's happened to you is your awareness now. Your current awareness is a reflection of everything that has occurred to you since the time you were born. Your awareness is a reflection of the people you've known; the experiences your body has undergone; the language and structure of the language or languages that you speak; the way others have treated you; the way you've been accepted by others; the exposure you've had to media, be it print or television or radio; the recollections of others because the experience that others have had upon you is formed largely from the recollection of others. Your parents, in other words, treated you growing up as their parents treated them, as their parents treated them, and so on and so forth. So what we have are reflections of reflections of reflections. These images are literally programmed into us from the time we were born. Please visit http://fredericklenzfoundation.org for more information.

    44 min

  6. 02/22/2018

    Insights - Modular Mysticism: Storing Power

    What causes us to change? Sometimes a piece of music causes us to change. Sometimes the way the light falls on a particular day. Someone says something - it opens a doorway for us. We find it happening without knowing why. Very often we try and reason existence. We try and calculate it; to discover it. And while we can certainly discuss portions of existence and we can discover layers of reality, yet we find ourselves straying very far from existence itself in its absolute form. We're out playing in the world of self-discovery. We're looking at different pictures in the gallery. Very rarely do we look in the mirror of the self. In the practice of mysticism there are four stages. The first stage is gaining power. The second stage is avoiding the loss of power. The third stage is storing power. And the fourth stage is giving power. Please visit http://fredericklenzfoundation.org for more information.

    43 min

  7. 02/22/2018

    Insights - Sophisticated Sexuality

    I found that the breakthroughs for me, as I went through school, junior high school and high school, came through sexuality, came through explorations of consciousness, in reading, and loving, through friends. Through time alone in nature, through yogurt (laughter) and through psychedelic experiences. I had been pretty well made a prisoner by school, by society. I had been given this description which I couldn't accept and it's projected from the televisions, the radios. The images of the world, the teachers. Now, I must say, I've been very fortunate, and I can only thank all of those who I have known, because many of the teachers I had were exceptional. All of the teachers, it seems, were exceptional. But I didn't realize that at the time. I didn't realize that all teachers were not like the teachers that I had known. In reading, in literature and poetry, I found an artistic freedom which I didn't see at Woolworths. And so I was drawn to the arts. Because I sensed that I was by nature Bohemian, and yet, very conservative. How strange to have two natures. Please visit http://fredericklenzfoundation.org for more information.

    1h 13m

  8. 02/22/2018

    Insights - Spiritual Crossroads

    The spiritual process is not at all arbitrary. It's not necessarily sensible, from a structured point of view. But it's not at all arbitrary. A lot of people in self-discovery have this sense that they're involved in some process that they don't understand. That one can't understand. They feel that they're climbing a mountain that never ends. That self realization and liberation is something that will never occur to them, it's some mysterious process. They don't know quite what to do. This is not a helpful way to think or see. Because really, quite the contrary is true. Self-discovery to a certain point is very understandable. Beyond that point it's not understandable, it's knowable. And beyond that point it's something that you become, to the point of dissolution and back again. Please visit http://fredericklenzfoundation.org for more information.

    1h 9m
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4.4
out of 5
30 Ratings

About

Dharma Talks on a variety of topics in Buddhism by Rama ~ Dr. Frederick Lenz. They were recorded from 1982 through 1992, and cover a wide variety of topics across meditation, Tantric Mysticism, Hinduism, Zen Buddhism, and Vadrayana Buddhism. Please visit http://fredericklenzfoundation.org for more information.

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