The Zen of Zen Master Rama

Zen Master Rama was the name Rama, Dr. Frederick Lenz used for several years when teaching. He told me that Zen was closest to what he teaches. He called it Original Zen -- no hierarchy, no memorized koans, no uniforms, but rather the transmission of the highest states of enlightenment through every act of living. 

Rama said that everything he did was a koan.  “A koan is a multi-level structural device that is used to help a person expand their awareness.” 

The way he dressed was a koan.  In the early 1990’s, many of his direct students were teaching. The West Coast teachers brought their students to a gathering at The Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills. Everyone dressed up for the occasion. That was the first shift in mental attention—all dressed up in a beautiful setting — clothing and environment contributing to an upbeat, enthusiastic state of mind. After everyone was settled at their tables, Rama, Frederick Lenz walked onto the small hotel stage and the new people saw him for the first time. As a mentor, I had advised my students that Rama dressed nicely. But this was different. When he walked out wearing all black leather of the most lustrous and chic quality I had ever seen, minds popped. Mine did. My guests were agog, and in that wild bursting of expectations, Rama filled us all with light.

The car he drove was a koan. How he taught his students was a series of koans. His emphasis on student spiritual and economic self-sufficiency was a koan.  His decision of how to exit on April 12, 1998, also a koan.  

Rama staged a dramatic exit. He had been telling people from 1988 forward that he would be leaving in 1998, and he did.   

Frederick Lenz Was Always Teaching

Rama was always teaching. He performed a teaching gesture at the end of his life. It was very clean. All papers were in order. He had meticulously reviewed core wisdom with his students and announced they were about to enter the advanced program. 

He said that suicide was wrong. He made it clear that his students should never commit suicide.  You will be reborn in the same state of mind in which you left. But he said that if an enlightened person fully entered into samadhi —a state of infinite awareness and compassion —and used their death as a protest, it would have a powerful effect.

He told his companion that his dramatic exit was a protest against how spiritual teachers are treated in America.  

When Rama dropped his physical teaching body, although in hindsight amply forewarned, I was stunned.  My being suddenly faced another direction. I felt reconfigured, as if a large round energy center inside my chest (known in yoga as the heart chakra) was enlivened. I entered the advanced program, which turned out to be continuing to study with Rama, Dr. Frederick Lenz when he was not in the physical body.

Zen Master Rama Dances

 I asked the Zen Master

What is Dancing?

1986– Moscone Auditorium in San Francisco – over 1,000 people.  Waiting.  At one quiet point, Frederick Lenz - Zen Master Rama glides onto the stage.  He is dressed in all black – a black turtleneck and supple black pants.  On his feet he wears ballet shoes.

Zazen music fills the hall with a strong jazz/rock beat.  Rama dances to it.  He twirls around the stage.  As he dances, he performs mudras – hand gestures that produce inner stillness and joy.

I meditate – still my mind – but keep my eyes open.  All of a sudden there is so much to see.  Waves of energy and power pulsate out of Rama’s body and his hands.

His mudras open higher dimensions.  My mind enters deeper stillness.  Thought-free realizations envelop my mind.  The only movement is on the stage.

I am transposed.  The movements do not exist in time.  Time has gone away as a clunky construct.  Time is limiting, configurable and malleable.  I see Rama’s hand gestures shaping time like clay.  His legs propel him, and the audience, into delightful worlds of being.  He’s here, but he’s not.

He pauses for a moment.  I focus. While he looks at the audience, his two hands form a cup-like shape.  Clear blue light smolders between his palms.

Seated in the row before me, two people snicker.  Their sounds bring me back into my body.  I lean forward, tap one of them on the shoulder, and say, “Meditate while he dances.” 

I return to meditating with Rama.  The flow of movement is like a higher love.

I asked the Zen Master

What is Dancing?

Dancing is Life.