Rama Speaks

"Real wisdom is gained personally in meditation… in the planes of light. So meditation is the short path to happiness. It is the way to become completely happy. It streamlines the process." (from the talk "Personal Happiness")

This book presents the teachings of Dr. Frederick Lenz (1950-1998), known to his students as Rama, an American Buddhist teacher who focused on how to attain enlightenment in today's world. During a dozen years, Rama recorded over 120 talks for his students covering all aspects of this process. Rama Speaks has nearly 200 extended quotes from these recordings, in which he discusses each part of how to become enlightened in depth. In these tapes he taught how to become fully enlightened in the traditional Buddhist definition of the term, carefully breaking down the steps and how to do them in our modern society.

Rama Speaks was meant to consolidate and organize these recorded talks into an easy-to-follow narrative. As a student of his for practically the entire time that he taught, the book presents what I thought were his most important concepts in a sequence that lets the reader more easily grasp his model of the enlightenment process. No other book offers this level of instruction about how to become enlightened.

For 20 years he taught a uniquely interconnected blend of powerful self-discovery practices. The book includes detailed descriptions of the meditation methods and other techniques he taught us, as well as several photos of him. As the title of the book says, the idea is to let Rama speak, directly to you.

Nearly half of the book is him speaking to his students, transcribed from the recordings he made for them (the excerpts in the audiobook are spliced in from the actual recordings). The chapters begin with the basics and culminate in the samadhis. While the listener may know about the spiritual topics he discusses, Rama explains the many sides of each one. As the Midwest Book Review said, "an extraordinary Spiritual Self-Help volume."