Landmark Forum Graduates and the Tao.

Who am I?

My mom said I could be someone great but probably too lazy to be any rich person she would wish I were. I was born in a Chinese family and looked like any Chinese, each of us speak many languages, but no one in my family actually speaks Chinese.

I am fascinated by the ancient Chinese text Tao Te Ching. Since I do not read Chinese, all what I know about it was from its many and various English translations. As a kid, I was also once part of our local wushu group who trained weekly. It was during these training sessions in my formative years I had fleeting glimpses of the experience, rather than “understood” - what Tao Te Ching is all about.

It was said that “The Essence of Knowledge is the ability to apply it” (Confucius)

In what I considered one of the most bizarre twists of fate, I did the Landmark Forum. Many people have tried to explain the unexplainable about this much talked about course from Landmark Education. All what I knew from the very beginning was that I love it.

Tao Te Ching, Chapter 33

Knowing others is wisdom;
Knowing the self is enlightenment.
Mastering others requires force;
Mastering the self requires true power;
He who knows he has enough is rich.
Perseverance is a sign of the strength of the will.
He who stays where he is endures.
To die but not to perish is to be eternally present.

(my own version of the translation by Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English)

Indeed today, many years after my initial Landmark Forum, I began to be able to walk the saying, the talk from the above conversation of Chapter 33, of Tao Te Ching. What used to be a nice albeit mysterious mumbo jumbo, suddenly becomes accessible. The Methodology of the Landmark Forum allows me to create a new reality for myself that was not a continuum of the unchosen path where I started before I did the Landmark Forum.

A path inherited by the past doomed to go on forever by virtue of my resistance to even look at it. Amply reinforced by the environment I found myself in, every hour of every day, week after week to infinity. The Landmark Forum gave me at the very least a chance to sit and look at the way I was bound to go. And, if you are very lucky, you might even then hear the call of destiny.

I took many Landmark Graduate Seminars that served me well to practice what I learned from my initial Landmark Forum. Why did I do it? Because at that time, it was clear to me that I did not have the strength of the will to walk away from the many unwanted trails of life that was predictable to me. I could not have stayed the way.

That was the true price of “enlightenment” for me, not the dollar amount to pay for the Landmark Forum or other graduate courses by Landmark Education. Not the many hours I spent at the Landmark Seminars when I would rather stayed home and watched my preferred TV programs …

The admission, telling the truth of what was so - was the price. What do I get for this very high price? Nothing. In which something can get created, as clearly distinct from changing behaviors or unwanted circumstances by force. Beyond that, what is priceless is to know myself unlike any words can describe. For that I truly love the Landmark Forum and the people at Landmark Education.

I acknowledge many Landmark Program Leaders, Staffs, People Who Assist and graduates. I am especially thankful the Landmark Forum Leaders Laurel Sheaf, Mark Spirtos and Jerome Downes.

Special acknowledgment to Han Dana and his great team who have maintained the Landmark Forum Graduates website I Love Possibility, which nameless tao has made a difference to me and to a great number of people I appreciate and highly respect.

Tao Te Ching, Chapter 1
(Stephen Mitchell) 

"The Tao that can be named
is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name."

(Ron Hogan) 

“If you can talk about it,
it ain't Tao.
If it has a name,
it's just another thing."

From Chapter 2:

“If something looks beautiful to you, 
something else must be ugly.
If something seems good, 
something else must seem bad.

“You can't have
something without nothing.
…”