Tape 1 - Tantric Zen

"There's a place where everything comes together and where it's all the same. It's a state of mind, that is, where it's all the same, in which it's the same. That state of mind, in which all things are the same, is the state of mind of Tantric Zen."
- Rama

Rama begins the Zen tapes by discussing his views of Tantric Zen. In his opinion, there are 3 types of Zen teachers: Conservative, Liberal and Tantric. A conservative teacher has many rules about how Zen should be practiced. A liberal teacher has fewer rules and allows some rules to be broken. A tantric teacher has no rules about how his students should practice.

By rules, we are referring to the ideas about what you should or should not do and about what is spiritual and what is not spiritual. For example, many schools emphasize that we shouldn't eat meat. Rama's point is that there may be times when you shouldn't eat meat but there may be other times when meat is the right thing for you to eat. Only you can judge and that judgment should be based on how something is affecting your awareness at this time.

Instead of focusing on how we should live our lives, Rama feels that the emphasis in tantra should be on meditation. If you learn to meditate and be mindful then the physical circumstances of your life have less impact on you. Meditation is therefore an integral part of the tantric path.

"The emphasis, though, is on meditation in Tantric Zen - the experience of meditation in formal practice, zazen, where you're sitting down and meditating and concentrating. And, of course, in mindfulness the rest of the time - using all of the experiences in life to further your awareness, without a sense of conflict in any experience. Mind delineates experience, and through the filter of mind, experience becomes something else; it become knowledge - in tantra."
-Rama