“Just when I think life is so good that it can’t get any better … there’s a knock at the door. Who could it be? I walk towards the door, filled with the given, the fragrance of the vegetables, the sound of the phone, and I have done nothing for any of it. I trip and fall. The floor is so unfailingly there. I experience its texture, its security, it lack of complaint. In fact, the opposite: it gives its entire self to me. I feel its coolness as I lie on it. Obviously, it was time for a little rest. The floor accepts me unconditionally and hold me without impatience. As I get up, it doesn’t say, “come back, come back, you’re deserting me, you owe me, you didn’t thank me, you’re ungrateful.” No, it’s just like me. It does its job. It is what it is…

“Reality unfolds without desire, bringing with it more beauty, more texture, more exquisite surprises than the imagination could ever devise. The mind, as it lives through its desires, demands that the body follow after it. How else can it mirror back original cause? Anger, sadness, or frustration lets us know that we’re at war with the way of it. Even when we get what we wanted, we want it to last, and it doesn’t, it can’t. And because life is projected and mind is so full of confusion, there is no peace. But when you allow life to flow like water, you become that water. And you watch life lived to the ultimate, always giving you more than you need.”

 Byron Katie
“A Thousand Names for Joy: Living in Harmony with the Way Things Are”

Byron Katie (1942 to present), is an American speaker and author who teaches a method of self-inquiry known as “The Work”. In 1986,^[2] while in a halfway house for women with eating disorders, Byron Katie experienced a life-changing realization: “I discovered that when I believed my thoughts, I suffered, but that when I didn’t believe them, I didn’t suffer, and that this is true for every human being. Freedom is as simple as that. I found that suffering is optional. I found a joy within me that has never disappeared, not for a single moment.”

I came across Byron Katie about 15 years ago and have found that the process she calls “The Work” is extremely helpful for understanding how we identify with our thoughts. When we believe our thoughts, particularly the stressful or unhappy ones, we lose our peace of mind and heart. We suffer.

In the excerpt above, she gives us a look into her daily life – “what is” is accepted and welcomed without judgment of good or bad, desirable or undesirable. In other words, she does not argue with the reality of a situation or wish it to be other than it is. This is very similar to the advice given in the Tao te Ching (“When people see some things as good, other things become bad.”) and the Buddha, desire is the source of suffering.

We often think that enlightened people are so how vastly different that we are. That is true and not true. Outwardly, they still wash clothes, drive to the grocery store, get sick, etc. but inwardly they are not arguing with life but accepting whatever it brings. The joy and peace they emanate are not the result of having only ‘good’ things in their lives, but their understanding that good and bad are just judgmental thoughts that lead to suffering. I love how she easily accepts falling down and perhaps being hurt, without judgment or complaint – often so different from my own reactions.

Katie also wrote “Loving What Is” and “I Need Your Love – Is That True?” There are many examples of “The Work” in action with real people on You Tube if you want an idea of the process.