Landmark Forums, or Can You Wake up in a Herd?

This is a beginning impression of the Landmark scene,
or top of many glimpses before I stepped foot into
one of their introductory evenings.

Before I arrived I'd seen people
who used Landmark as a safety,
as a church
as a home for finding safe friends
and a world view that they found "worked"
and that was part of the safe friends thing:
they really really wanted other people to see the world
through the Landmark lens.

And what is the Landmark lens.
Well, you can go online and get the syllabus to the three day training.
And they hand them out when you show up for the intro night.

It's something like this:
we are programmed beings,
and out programming creates our VIEW
and our VIEW determines how we'll perceive and
act in reality.

We have a story that seems to validate the view,
we confuse and conflate the story with What Happened,
and the story is an illusion,
and once we see things the Landmark way,
we can "get on the bicycle" and ride
in the world of possibilities.

All that at the end sounds vague,
and it works,
because in part they are trying to have their cake
and eat it too:
deprogram people
almost with a hypnosis about "and now you
will be deprogrammed once you know it
our way."

It's all words.

Sort of
because they are big on action,
especially making phone calls to apologize for
being lost in "the story" about
some person you've been on the "outs" with.

There are no internal movement lessons
that give a feel for the new in a person.

There is no practice of being present,
though there is gobs of talk about the past and
the future not being real,
they are good on that,

and what about this now,
outside of the leader's words
and our / the audience's words
about the leader's word

is there a way to
be
to be now
okay now,
to be present,
follow your breathing,
or sense your arms and legs and watch light
and notice the sounds as they are happening.

or sense your big toe and your tongue and your thumbs
as you eat and talk

not really

life as a meditation
or an ongoing experience
is not offered

"possibilities"
are
"transformation" not change are

it's cool stuff
in a way
and....

So, you have a leader,
and he's been through "breakthroughs"
which are the currency of the L F,
you give up the "story"
and you get on the phone
and you apologize to people you've had trapped
away from your love with your VIEW

This is all very good,
and could be done with the Byron Katie work,
but she doesn't say
you need to/ should/ have to
do her work,
she doesn't want you to get everyone you
know
in
she leaves that up to you,
the work is to be done any time you are feeling
bad,
and only if you want to know the truth instead of suffering

And then the Feldenkrais/ Anat Baniel work
is a set of movement possibilities
that help us feel younger, more free,
clearer in our thinking,
but they are an approach to lifelong
discovery.

And in Landmark, too,
the world of possibilities is the cool
place

and it is

but,
the way to that,
the pressure to come to more and more trainings,
to get every one else in so they'll all "get it,"
the push to "get on the bicycle"
all mitigate against real inner clarity.

And it feels good, though,
to belong,
to be around people who are changing,
to be around people who have the same world view,
to be around people who have the same "born again"
experience,
not Jesus here, but Landmark.

And there is more
and this is hard to articulate,
but at the end of the introductory evening
the trainer brought up
some new people,
and had them admit an overview
that seemed to dominate their life.

One was: "I'm not good enough"
one was "I can't do it"

These two people were pushed to see
that these statements were illusion
(Which isn't all true:
sometimes all of us aren't good enough,
say, to fly a plane,
or can't do it, like quadratic formulas,
but as a blanket over view, both VIEWS aren't so useful).
And thus they didn't have any power over the people.

When the second person said she was fine when
she didn't believe her story,
the trainer pushed her around emotionally,
told her that wasn't so,
that she could NOT believe or disbelieve something
that was an illusion,

which is bullshit

that's the history of the world
falling apart
with
 couples and neighbors and nations
all going to war over the illusion:
you should change
you are wrong
I am right and you should see/ do/ feel/ think it my way

So, he's demanding she get with the program
He's denying an absolute full proof way out of suffering,
which is to stop believing the story,
He's promising her the Landmark pie in the sky
if she signs up for her $485 and learns to "ride the bicycle"

But the worst is,
unlike any person in the present,
who can't demand others shape up,
he isn't present to her,
he's present to the problem of solving her
to get her to demonstrate to the audience how
cool his method is

so he's not listening

oh, well.

that's my view,
and man do I fail at it,
sometimes,
don't we all,

this listening to others less enlightened than I

and that's always a false story of mine,
and to my mind,
was a false story of his

So, that enough.
Except the huge dishonesty of saying at the beginning of the night
that this wasn't a pressure thing,
and then pretty much making it almost impossible
to leave
if you didn't sign up at the end

And yet,
they were so happy

one almost wants to join the cult
to get that "oh, my, now I fit in" rush
and to
"get with a program"
that opens a lot more doors than "ordinary living"

and not to "disappoint" all the smiley faces,
if you'd just join our club
we'd smile even more
and love and hug you
and take you in
in
in

and there are boyfriends, girlfriends
a whole world,
like a megachurch
all is contained

come on in
come on in

all is safe

join the Hitler Youth
the born again
the we love the 49ers
the Tea Party
the communist party
the party party

join us
join us
and we will love cherish accept
take care of you

the Scientologist club,
wow, that's probably the closest

and then again
to just
"just"

be present

and including the ideas of making small changes
and noticing differences
and slowing down
and living in the emptiness of
now
and no story
and waiting and seeing

ah,
life as it is in the moment,
and seeing what happens,
in movement
in thought
in emotions
in spiritual work

that, too, will set us free

but without that warm mob family tribe feeling

and we can always do the work
as in TheWork.com (Byron Katie, again,
and you don't have to do that,
and you CAN do that
all on your own,
and Katie/ me/ others
won't love you more
if you do or don't do it)
on any feelings that it's wrong/ bad/ scary/ hard
to be alone

la,
la

and
I thought this was going to be short

Oh, well

The Nearness

THE DAY IS LONG, THE NIGHT IS SWEET
In emptiness, God can be found

What is God?

I don’t know.

I have been reading the book of a friend of man, Fully Alive, with eh sweet idea: Jesus came not to make us Christian, but to make us Fully Alive. In it is a chapter that skims glories of believing in the God at the start of all, God as the creator, God as the Force behind all that we know. It speaks of atheists and scientists and the chances of DNA getting all that together and the Big Bang and scientists who think the Big Bang was God happening (I’d say, God farting, but the book is not, perhaps luckily, written from my sort of humor.). God is real, or God is not real.

People believe in God or don’t believe in God.

All this you know and it don’t make no difference.

God is what you can love when you want something to love and you don’t know what to call it.

God is what you can “explain” the “big picture” with when you want to blame the starting/ creating/ beginning of “it all.”

God is a story that has enthralled millions over the ages.

Or God is the Reality that hold us all is His/ Its hands.


And still, it don’t make no difference.

I keep riffing out this grammatically incorrect phrase because it is the title of a book that will lead you closer to God than a hundred Bibles, a tale of two friends, one rich and white and learning how to give and heal and serve and the other black and illiterate and full of street wisdom understanding of life and of “real religion” and formerly homeless (he now lives with the white art dealer guy, whose amazing and love filled wife died in the book before this book. Well, didn’t die in the book. Died in Texas. Her story was reborn in the first book, Same Kind of Different as Me.)


So God is out there, or God is in us.

Don’t make no difference, no how.

Life is pulsing through us right this moment. That makes a difference. If we find God in that, or feel this living-ness as God, or sense that a God is responsible for this living-ness, that is all good.

And since I’m so slippery about “God,” why did I even subtitle this chapter: In Silence we can find God.

And looking back, that isn’t the “right” words: In Emptiness, God can be found.

Silence, emptiness, and Buddha’s question: who are you really?


It’s a good question and any set of words that you string together for the answer, won’t be an answer. So, what is left?

Ask the question and answer without words?

How can we do that?

This is meditation, perhaps, or contemplation, of “just” Being Here Now.

Think about it, a bit. Any now, is just: What Is. Any set of words to describe the table or the sky or your nose or your fingers is a set of words pulled out of the past, out of our brains and our learning. The sky will keep being whatever it is whether we call it sky or cielo or ciel or der himmel or sora, it’s that stuff up there, and up is a word, and it’s usually blue, and blue is a word, and its blue in the day, and day is a word and there’s the sun/ word up there, and there’s the sun.

See the “problem” when we try to pin down the What Is of the world, the What Is of this miracle in which we appear to be drifting, or floating, or clawing, or dancing, or scheming, or rushing through, or playing in, or working in and around and about.


It’s about you?

And me.

And what is it about?

That’s another question, for another day, and I suspect it has no answer.

But the “sun” just came “out,” and it’s time to climb on my “bicycle” and move across the Earth a little.


If my mind is soft and quiet and silent or near silent, chances are that the bike ride will bring me close to God.

Or will be God?

What do you think?


If you empty your mind of words, what do you think?

Who are you, when you empty your mind of words?

Are you still you?

Do you feel nearer to God, even if you don’t know what God is?

Day Twenty-Four: Sensing the Floor, our Constant companion: Gravity

We can be in reality or not. A basic and wonderful and ongoing and usually forgotten aspect of the Reality on Earth is gravity. We can sense our relationship to gravity right now.

This now. This one and only.

Are we standing. Can we sense and get the understanding of how our feet are pressing down into the Earth as the Earth pulls us towards its center, and whatever surface we are on presses back up.

Sitting. If we aren’t leaning back, and don’t have armrests, we are sitting on each Sitz/ sit bone, our ishiums (or is it ishii?), and we have weight probably little on one or both feet. If you are sitting check this out.

If you are leaning back, feel how that turns “sitting” into something like “lying down,” and notice how back and bottom and thighs on the chair and maybe feet all are pressing into whatever is holding you up.

Pay attention to whatever is hold you up.

Shift a little to get more clear about this. Shift left, shift right, shift forward, shift back: wake up to the moment and your ongoing relationship to gravity.

Tomorrow we’ll get a little fancier in sitting, and clarify the pelvis some more, but for today, pay attention to your butt, when you sit. If you have judgmental words in your head about it’s size, drop them.

Sense is about real experience in the real moment.

Now.

This now.

Read these words and add on awareness of gravity.

If that is “too easy,” add on awareness of your breathing.

If that is a delight, add on awareness of awaring as a central gift and birthright of being a human.

Enjoy your day on planet earth.

89: Arch and round, breathing 2 ways, waking up the lungs

Arch, round, breathing two ways

Awhile ago we practiced paying attention to and enjoying our spine arch and round with our hands at the side of our face, thumbs under the ears, other fingers over the ears, pointing backward.

On the arch, we push our belly forward, come forward on our pelvis, lift our sternum, look up a little.

On the round, we bring our belly back, round our back, let our head (in our hands) come down and forward, and let our sternum sink.

Do this awhile, back and forth. Notice your breathing.

Now play with this: as you round and pull your belly in, push the air out and breathe out. Do this a number of times and then rest.

And once more, belly in, air out, round the spine, curl up as if into a ball, feel the whole spine rounding in from the top and the bottom as the air goes out. Hand on the face so that the whole ribs and back acts as a complete unit.

Rest.


Now, try this way: as you bend forward and round your back, let your stomach come in as usual, but think of filling your lungs with air to make them bigger.

That is to say: as you round, breathe in. It may seem “strange,” but strange means “different” or “new” most of the time. So hang out there in the new, the learning, the amazing. Then as you arch your back and lift your head as you hold it in your hands, breathe out, push your belly forward. So this is belly forward and breathing out.

Do it a number of times.

Rest. And do it again.

Rest. And feel your spine. Do this a bunch of times today, and enjoy your spine all day. See how curiously aware you can be about the whole thing.

69: What to leave behind

What to leave behind?

Yesterday, leave yesterday behind, unless there is something sweet that brings a smile to your heart, and then bring that back a bit, and let it go, too.

What to leave behind:

Grudges, and things other people “did to you.” If they aren’t doing it now, feel happy, it’s over. If they are doing it right this moment, ask them to stop, or leave the room. If someone is say, on-going-ly mean in your life, learn to love them as a person, and maybe leave the situation, maybe not. (Leave behind blaming and see if you can discover the pain in them that is leading to the meanness. What can you do to ease this pain?)

All sorts of amazing things can happen just by leaving behind the “they are bad” story.

Worries in the mind. Leave that behind.

A fearful attitude about all the “things you need to get done.” Leave that behind.

The feeling of slavery and concern that comes from getting hooked into other people’s approval or disapproval: leave that behind.

What’s left? The present. Leave everything else behind.

That’s the game today, leave, leave, and wake up to Now.

Day Seventeen: Emotions minus the inner words

DAY SEVENTEEN
Emotional choosing, sense the feeling, leaving behind the words

Into all lives some rain must fall. Good for the garden. Good for the soil. Good for the soul.

Yesterday we played with the idea of sipping through the straw of sweetness and not the one of bitterness. This was either easy or hard or a little of both.

Let’s give this a little more help.

Later in the book, we will spend lots of time, playing in the fields of Waking Up from Emotional Suffering, via the “Work of Byron Katie.” This is an amazingly simple and powerful tool / gift / offering, sprung forth for humankind’s benefit in 1986.

For now though, today, we are going to play a slightly different game. We are going to notice our emotions.

Notice and name. Unhappy. Sad. Happy. Worried. Afraid.

We are going to notice the sensations involved with whatever emotion we are feeling. Often “feelings” will bring stuff to happening in our chest and stomach and torso area.

We are going to notice those sensations, AND LET GO OF THE WORDS THAT GO ON AND ON ABOUT WHY WE ARE HAVING THE FEELING.

Usually these words are of the “So and so should be different toward me” sort. Fine. That’s the way we suffer. For today, sensing legs all day and our breathing, when emotional “feelings” come up, we are going to:

A. Name them

B. Sense what they bring about

C. Skip the words

D. Sense our legs and gravity, and our breathing and air as the anchor into being alive in the moment, no matter what feeling we are having.

E. This is hard, huge, amazing, give it a try.

the porpoise of life

to be happy
in a simple way
that doesn't require
anything

to be of use to others
and the
Earth

to learn some good stuff
and help
other people
out of their suffering
and squandering of
the miracle

of
life

if they want help

if not:
be happy
waiting for them
to maybe wake up
to the need

to
wake
up

the friendship boat

what can be said
from the place
of waking?

two people
are lucky
to be friends
and to make each other's lives
sweeter

for a day
for a year
for eight years


it's all good

and
forever after
isn't better than
not forever after
in spite of what
the fairy tales say

and the wish for something permanent
is deep
deep

and there is something permanent
the good old Universe

and even that
may fade away
and or blow up
some day

oh, well

while we're here,
let's enjoy it

there is only one
forever after:
now

ah
good