CoachBri’s Blog

Editor’s note: In what follows, Coach Bri discusses The Landmark Forum with an individual involved in the Forum. For clarification, a brief description of their method is included here from their website.
“Whenever we’re limited in life, there is something – a context or framework – that we are blind to and that is holding that limitation in place. Landmark’s technology allows you to create breakthroughs in a two-step process in which you:
• Uncover and examine the blind spots or context holding you back in your life.
• Find out where your current context originated and address it for what it really is.” www.landmarkeducation.com

You have me questioning the Landmark Forum. I listened to you give a talk to a group of people. And I was intrigued by what you have said; I am in training to be an instructor and will start training shortly. What you have discussed and the way you discussed it was devastating to me. I feel I have felt something deeply untrue about Landmark all along, but could never put my finger on it until I heard you speak. If you don’t mind I have some questions for you. So I thought I could come and see you in person. I asked a couple of questions the other night, but I was asking them out of anger because you were breaking down something I have found a lot of security in.

Okay sir, I will do my best, but I’m not against how any things are. I’m only interested in the truth.

Well let’s start there, as you were talking. There were other people who had taken the forum there as well. And they were very bothered by what you said!

Yes sir. Sorry!

Why do you say that the Forum is deceptive?

Well sir, that is easy. The truth cannot be bought or sold, and they claim what all religions claim.

What is that?

That by using thinking you can improve your character or increase your loveliness or compassion or improve yourself.

Okay, see, now why do you say that?

Sir, when you go to these groups, there is a seller in the group, is there not? A person who takes the crowd of people and influences them through positivity, and they’re often in this group to use language like, ‘Yes I see what you’re saying’ or ‘I’ve got it’ or ‘Yes, I’ve got that’. They also put people in the group to ask certain questions in a certain way, which basically is supposed to allow the recruit to feel comfortable and feel at a loss for not doing the training. It is this feeling of being at a loss for not doing the training that is a clever way of getting people to conform to what you want. And what I’m saying sir is that all forms of conformity are violent.

Yes I’m aware of this method and the reason they do it is that it helps people to relax and not be afraid.

It is deceptive sir!

Yes, but people sometimes won’t even entertain the idea…

Sir, how can something of any value begin with intended deception? I know if I want to improve my economic position in life or take a holiday or build a house, there will a need for intention. But to improve myself or psychological state, intention is not going to work.

Well, why do you say that?

Because are not all the religions, political parties, ‘isms’ and ‘anities’ about intention? They are there to help a man become a better person, more loving and have some ridiculous thing called a breakthrough, which means what sir? That they have gained a more powerful position in their life and are in better control of their life.

And what’s wrong with that sir?

Any position in your life where you feel more powerful is dangerous.

And the danger is?

That you’re strengthening your self-centered position.

Okay, and what is wrong with that?

Sir, what is the cause of all psychological problems?

Greed, fear, hatred, jealousy, prejudice… so many things.

No sir. Are not all psychological problems produced by the self? It is the self that is greedy, fearful, full of jealousy and hatred, envious, prejudiced. The self is the source of all man’s conflict. Right, sir? You see it?

Well, I can’t argue with you on that. I see what you are saying.

Now, is it not the self that takes Landmark? Is it not the self that goes to church, takes vows, practices yoga and all kinds of ridiculous things to improve itself?

So, you are against yoga to?

No sir. I’m not against anything. Yoga is good exercise but the fact that I can tie myself in knots has no bearing on how I treat other people, if I have love, compassion and sensitivity.

Well Landmark doesn’t profess to give people that either. It is educating people to be better people.

Yes sir! And are they not using thinking to do it?

What do you mean?

Well, as we have said, thinking put the whole psychological world together. Thinking has built beautiful buildings, marvelous cathedrals, great advances in medicine, human rights, etc… It has taken us to the moon, but it is also responsible for the inability for human beings to get along. We are all divided, separate and conflicted because of thinking, and the importance that we give to it. Thinking has created all the past and present problems and it will never solve our psychological problems. How can the thing that creates problems now solve it?

I see that. Landmark says that as well. You see, we create our reality, and then we lived into it and we have all these rackets going on, and they are just false and made up. So you spend a lifetime in all this mess. You are lost in all this confusion and the Forum cleans up some of the confusion.

I am not interested in cleaning up some confusion sir. I’m interested in ending all my confusion. So why create another mess, another ‘ism’?

Well you have Human Potential Plus, so why is that any different than Landmark?

I don’t know sir, but let’s find out. Why should someone take Landmark?

Because it will make their life better! It will help them to become more enlightened.

Okay sir! More enlightened to everyone that takes the training. It makes their life better and they are more enlightened.

Well, not everyone!

Now, what does that mean?

Well, some people don’t get it!

Get what sir?

How they lived into it and create their own misery!

So what makes them get it sir?

It is not the course, because if it was then everyone would get it. And I know that some people just get bits and pieces.

Yes sir, but that means they clear up a little confusion in their life. Is that right sir?

Well, Human Potential Plus does the same thing or do you say you enlighten everyone?

No sir! It enlightens no one. That is what I’m saying!

So, you are not different than Landmark?

Let’s find out please. Let’s be patient.

Okay, sorry! I shouldn’t treat you as I am.

No problems are treated that way! I don’t care how you treat these! It is how I treat you that matters. Can we continue?

Yes, sure.

So what makes someone get it sir?

I have asked this question many times and in Landmark we say it’s because the instructor isn’t living into his own experience. And therefore he is not able to enlighten the people taking the training. Therefore we as instructors have to make sure we are living the message.

Sir, that is the whole point. Can one human being bring another human being into the light?

Well of course they can!

So then you are responsible for someone not getting it.

Well, I think indirectly, I am.

Sir, mankind has been trying to change for eons, and every time they’ve tried, no matter how the enlightened person was,.they were never able to pass on their enlightenment. Otherwise, the whole world would be living totally differently.

Yes, I have never thought about that before, but I do see what you mean. Landmark is based on a lot of gathered wisdom, and if it was that wisdom that changed people, Landmark would be out of a job. So then what is keeping people from getting it?

Yes sir, that is the question and can you answer the question?

I don’t think I can.

And why not, sir?

I don’t really know!

Because you have never asked yourself that question deeply sir.

Well, I take offense to that! But I get your point. This is a question we have asked all the time in Landmark, but no one really seems to have a good answer for it.

And let us answer it!

Well, I’m all ears.

Well, is not Landmark, Human Potential Plus, Christianity, religion or any ‘ism’ or ‘anity’ just put together by thought? Does it not depend on the person asking the question and how deeply serious they are?

You know, I think you’re right!

No sir, you mean to say, you see the truth of that. Sir, if there were no Landmarks, churches, ‘isms’, ‘anities’, temples, psychiatrists peddling their bullshit, what would a human being have to do in order to solve the problems in his life?

I don’t know, I guess he would have to do what you said the other night – see himself and look inside.

And that means not running away or becoming anything. It means reading your own book. Not helping or giving any kind of crutch to people, right sir? Do you see it?

I see what you are saying. And I feel that is what made me attracted to you.

No sir, not to me – to the truth of what is being said.

One of the basics of Landmark is you can’t hide from the truth.

Yes sir. Another one is whether you can you handle the truth.

Well since I heard you speak, for some reason I can’t go on doing what I’m doing.

Sorry sir!

No, that’s good! I feel I have been running from something and from Landmark. It’s about money and being powerful, and you talk about being nothing and letting power go. It is a bit of a shakeup, but I will be fine. I have one more thing I want to clear up, and that is about possibility and creating new possibilities, as we say in Landmark. A person the other night asked you about creating a new possibility. And you quickly destroyed this question, and I didn’t really understand what you meant. I also was again deeply offended and I saw that what you said really kind of knocked me out. I felt like I wanted to sleep.

Yes sir, go on!

Well, you said that you can have a lifetime of changing your possibility to avoid your own transformation. I found that rather shocking and fascinating.

Yes sir, I stick to the fact that willful change is superficial and insignificant. Real change is letting go of the known and entering into uncharted seas. It is not knowing what will happen. Just finding out and moving on sir!

Okay, that’s good, but that is pretty radical. We talk at Landmark about creating new possibilities.

Sir, you talk about getting what you want and creating a life you want to live.

Okay yes…well, what’s wrong with that?

That is what everyone is doing anyway, going after what they want. So how is Landmark any different than anything else?

Well, when you put it that way, I guess it’s about empowering people to be masters of their own life.

Sir, are we not that now! The behavior we choose determines the course of our life.

Yes that is what Landmark is saying, that you can improve the choices you make!

Yes and it all leads to the same thing. It is a movement of self-interest. And it will always be limited. Eventually it would lead to conflict with someone who thinks differently from you and you will have to work it out. It is this working it out that creates the difficulty in the habits that we have because of the psychology we practice.

Okay, but the possibility to make it better is there.

Better is to become something more, more loving, more compassionate. Sorry sir but love and compassion are not things you can think your way into. They’re something independent of thought.

I see what you are saying and that has cleared something up for me, because when I get close to people at Landmark, they are still the same. They may be a little more aware, but most of them suffer the same way about the same things as I do. All they’ve done is put a different language to it. And they seem to hide behind the language. I’m tired of projecting something I’m not.

I see sir! That is a huge discovery. As long as thinking is the dominant thing in our life the self is at the center of our living. There will be no peace every time someone has a so-called breakthrough. They become high and mighty and want to claim it as their own and attribute it to the organization or the mentality that they belong to in order to have psychological security. It is like watching the sunset and being blown away by it and then the next night you return to see it and recapture the same feeling. It is the old conquering the new, and the inability to let go. Same thing as Landmark’s sayings like “Let go and move on”, it so petty and superficial. The real question is can the self and all its limitations be broken, smashed and finished and find a way out of the web of giving thinking supreme importance? Can one face the danger that thought creates, and because one lives with that danger and the havoc it creates, move away from the fact in the perception of the danger. If so, we can even speculate about a movement that would not include thinking or living out of the self. Thinking is so cunning.

I do see what you are saying. Does that mean that Landmark is a bad thing?

Sir, why is it that we have to look from a point of good or bad, why can’t we see the conditioned way of looking, the conditioned way of investigating?

What do you mean by conditioned way of looking?

Self-improvement is the path within society. This movement is created by society for society in order to bring about a competitive state to make us envious, greedy and ambitious. Self-improvement – it makes one fit into society, give one a sense of power and accomplishment. It allows one to be well adjusted within that society. However, what is the point of being well adjusted in a society that is so sick and corrupt? You may fit into it better. But you will live a life of fear, hurt, jealousy, conflict, violence and self admiration. Landmark, religion, ‘anities’, ‘isms’ and other systems of though do not and cannot find the truth. Is it not the very process of society to bring about conformity? That conformity, which is imposed by our parents and grandparents destroys our relationship to them, cripples our minds and hearts, and kills our sensitivity to the planet and its inhabitants. Self-improvement is man’s central problem preventing him from waking up. I think in Christianity, although I’m not a Christian, it is said, ‘What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul?’

It is pretty hard to listen to what you are saying sir!

Yes, this living into something is a nice distraction for us. It is like the external world, saying there is such thing called higher self. Self itself needs to come to an end before life has any meaning sir. You see the truth of this? We have to live out of a completely different way of being. And no one can tell another what it is or how it is.

Yes! I feel what you’re saying because I noticed that my mind is so quiet. This is the deepest conversation I have ever had in my life, and I thank you for it. I have also enjoyed reading articles on your site.

Sir, do you know what the word discussion means? It means to shake, and perhaps you have been shaken sir!

Well, I have!

That is the whole art of conversation, to bring about in our conversation a meditation. Real meditation is the emptying of the self.

Boy, this opens a whole other can of worms, these questions!

Yes sir, we have to continue to hold questions. Probably our whole life long!

Thank you so much for seeing me!

No problem sir. I too have been shaken. Thank you sir!

Coach bri

The park was small and quiet. A large river flowed on both sides of the park. After the downpour of rain, the smell of sewage was strong whenever the wind blew through a few tall solitary spaced trees. An old man, walking bent over with a cane, slowly made himself over to the small bench made for one person to sit in the serenity of the green space. As he sat, his hands and movements seemed to be well practised and his long nimble fingers placed the cane comfortably beside him and then he took a deep unencumbered breath. As his chest began to rise and fall he appeared to be somewhat more relaxed and the stress of his weathered face seemed to be removed and lost its hardness. He seemed to sit there for quite some time oblivious to everything around. He seemed very comfortable where he sat and even his feet were placed in a certain position that was known him. The city of Osaka was full of bustle and noise yet in this small quiet green space there seemed to be a break from the known, as well as the noise.

How important it is for us as human beings to be unoccupied and have a mind that is free of all external and internal pressure. Most human beings are occupied all the time with trying to achieve goals, accumulate ideas, money, power, sex or even trying to find the love that they want. We never take the time to look at the fact that we are always so busy inwardly and occupied with so many things that our brain becomes tired, monotonous, and caught in a rut. This rut that human beings are in has become our mediocrity, our prison and our false need of security. We think that through a routine, rituals, traditions, we are safe and protected, protected from hurt, fear and loneliness and all our psychological self-centered problems.

Humankind has been unable to solve many of our external problems such as war, poverty and destroying the environment. These problems themselves are created because inwardly in each of our daily lives conflict, greed, and convenience rule. Each human being has a self and that self is of the greatest importance. We spend most of our time satisfying the self and all its egocentric pursuits. This self is always pursuing pleasure and running away from pain.

Human beings have the greatest difficulty coming to terms with the fact that self is the dominant thing in our lives. When self is the dominant thing in life we lose all sense of relationship. Therefore we are unable to see ourselves as we are because the you that is is defined by your relationship with people and things. We are unable to solve the external problems because we cannot face our internal problems and in this is the revolution that interests me the most. To gather great wealth, have a good position in society, to be well respected for the letters that one has after their name – these are the pursuits of most people. These pursuits are in fact the pursuits of our ancestors and yet they continue in modern world today and are the central cause of the direction we’re headed. We will start looking more and more to other planets in the solar system and spread our poison rather than face ourselves and solve the noise within us.

Everything in life needs the space in order to grow. Even the most beautiful music in the world can be defined by the space between the notes. Inwardly human beings need space. This space means that the noise of thought is not the main occupation of the brain. And then it follows that most human beings would be terrified of such a movement because inwardly their self would not be a priority. Most religions unfortunately have caught onto this and have used methods and systems to get out of thinking, but they cannot see that the methods and systems that they’re imposing are also put together by thinking. Therefore the state of silence that they are trying to achieve is in fact imposed by the noise of thinking. People are happiest when they are doing something they love, mainly being creative. When we are creative, that creativity is in fact a thoughtless action.

As I sat and watched the old man leave and watched another person come and take his place, I began to feel the mechanical mess of ritual. A ritual is something you do over and over that is void of all creativity. In order to be creative, all thinking must come to an end and action flows out of the deep awareness and silence that is not the cultivation of thinking. That action is whole, healthy and responsible. That action is not the action of accumulation or gathering and not part of any premeditated result. In that action there is no regret or flaw because it is void of self. That I believe is the action necessary for change. That action cannot be brought into being through any type of effort, system or method.

I watched the sun slowly move behind the clouds and could feel the coming of another rain. As the sun slowly moved behind the clouds the buildings on the horizon took on different shades of red and gray. There in the beauty of the earth and in this buildings have their place. Several large swans were making their way slowly up the river. Every once in a while they began to honk loudly and then scatter about. On the other side of the river standing between two metal beams was a large beautiful heron. It stood on one of its spindly legs and was absolutely still. In that stillness was its precision. Every so often at lightning speed it would snatch a small fish from the river and then remained perfectly still again. It was a benediction in the current which was full of music and love.

Coach bri