The AARP article about The Work is timely, in a way.
I'm 63, and I accept it.
But not everyone accepts their age. What stress do you experience when you think your body should be different than it is, or when you think someone else should take better care of their body, and they don't?
Who would you be without that thought?
Read the article, "Quit Your Pain" here.
Here's an excerpt from chapter 29 of my new book A Thousand Names for Joy: Living in Harmony with the Way Things Are:
If you have a problem with people or with the state of the world, I invite you to put your stressful thoughts on paper and question them, and to do it for the love of truth, not in order to save the world. Turn it around: save your own world. Isn’t that why you want to save the world in the first place? So that you can be happy? Well, skip the middleman, and be happy from here! You’re it. You’re the one. In this turnaround you remain active, but there’s no fear in it, no internal war. So it ceases to be war trying to teach peace. War can’t teach peace. Only peace can.
I don’t try to change the world—not ever. The world changes by itself, and I’m a part of that change. I’m absolutely, totally, a lover of what is. When people ask me for help, I say yes. We inquire, and they begin to end their suffering, and in that they begin to end the suffering of the world.
I stand in my own truth and don’t presume to know what’s best for the planet. Knowing that the world is perfect doesn’t mean that you withdraw or stop doing what you know is right for you to do. If, for example, you’re concerned about the environment, please give us all the facts. Do a whole study of it, go to graduate school if you have to, help us out here. And if you talk to us clearly, without an agenda or any investment in the results, we can hear you, because you’re on our level. You’re not talking to us from a superior, I-know position. If you know that we’re all equal, that we’re all doing the best we can, you can be the most powerful activist on the planet.
Love is the power. I know only one way to be an activist who can really penetrate the human race, and that is to give the facts, to tell your experience honestly, and to love without condition. You can’t convince the world of anything, even if it’s for the world’s own good, because eventually your righteousness will be seen through, and then you’re on a stage debating a corporate polluter, and you start pointing your finger in outrage. That’s what you’ve been hiding when you believe “I know what’s best for the planet.”
When you attack a corporate official for destroying the atmosphere, however valid your information, do you think that he’ll be open to what you’re saying? You’re threatening him with your attitude, and the facts can get lost, because you’re coming from fear and righteous anger. All he'll hear is that you think he’s doing it wrong, it’s his fault, and he'll go into denial and resistance. But if you speak to him without stress, in total confidence that everything is just the way it should be in this very moment, you’re able to express yourself kindly, effectively, and with no fear about the future.
By the way, the Dutch version of the book is called Katie's Tao.
Here's an article from the Japan Times about Nina and Ashik Peter Lynch as they move The Work in Japan. I can't thank them enough.
The Work: Four Questions for a Peaceful Mind
By Angela Jeffs
Nina Lynch and her husband, Ashik, share The Work of Byron Katie, a simple method to change our views of our lives from negative to positive, and so make better lives.
As Nina explains: "[Byron Katie] was able to see that her suffering continued as long as she believed her stressful thoughts, and when she questioned them she discovered that reality, truth, or 'that which is,' was much kinder and more benign than she'd been experiencing." In that realization, Byron Katie found a simple technique based on four questions that can be used by anyone to question their thoughts and radically change their lives. She calls it The Work.
Nina found The Work while staying in Kyoto some years ago. "A friend gave me Byron Katie's book Loving What Is. Having read it, I did The Work, then attended workshops, and the nine-day intensive School with Katie in Los Angeles."
Since then Nina has staffed Katie's schools and weekend workshops and takes every opportunity to participate in her events as well as working as a volunteer on the hotline, which is available to anyone through Katie's Web site. "If you have stress in your life, if you worry about money, if you have relationship issues, are depressed, unhappy, are an unsatisfied seeker of truth, or are in any way discontented with your life, The Work is for you.
"It's changed my life," she continues. "I'm a happier, more productive person and I know that life is kind and good to me. My deepest wish is to share The Work with anyone who wants to experience truth and be free from suffering."
Nina does sessions and worldwide teleclasses of The Work from her home. After introducing The Work informally to small groups in Tokyo in July, she and Ashik will be presenting The Work at Circle of Light in Tokyo's Ogikubo on Sept. 17, and then will facilitate a weekend workshop in Omote-sando on the 23rd and 24th, "The Way to a Peaceful Mind." The workshop will be primarily in English, though there will be Japanese translators available, and Nina and Ashik can be helpful in Japanese, German, French and Spanish if necessary.
"We're available in Tokyo from Sept. 15th to the 30th for in-person sessions, for individuals, groups and couples, and we do phone sessions, both classes and individually, with people from all over the world. For the teleclasses we use Skype Internet telephony."
Nina has always been a seeker. Her first memory of looking for answers was when at age 11 she went to every church in her hometown of Oxford, England, asking how to find God.
From then until now, Nina has not stopped searching "for myself, for peace of mind, enlightenment, whatever you call it." She began the study of meditation in India 30 years ago, and it's been a part of her daily life ever since. Since India she has traveled all over Europe and North America, where she now makes her home, and lived in Japan for four years.
"When I met Byron Katie and started to do The Work daily, my internal and external life totally changed. It is the key that I needed to unlock my meditation. Now my mind is clearer, stress is disappearing, joy is abundant."
Nina continues to do The Work on an everyday basis. Personally I learned how after commenting on a statement she made in an e-mail, "This house is a wonderful sanctuary up here in the mountains and it helps to make my life much easier," and asked her, "Why did you feel your life was hard?" Her reply gave me an idea of how The Work works, just four questions followed by a turning around of the original thought to its opposite:
"My life is hard. Is that true?
"Yes, sometimes I feel it is.
“Can I absolutely know that it is true?
"No, I can't know that it's true beyond any doubt at all.
"How do I react when I think that thought?
"I think of the things that I think are difficult, like: getting enough money, my feet hurt sometimes because I have stiff joints in my toes and sometimes it is harder to walk than other times, then that means I put on more weight and am not so healthy. Sometimes I think that living with Ashik is hard because, like me, he's not always easy. Or I think that life in America is hard because of all the negatives I can so easily get into . . . and so on, so I can end up feeling more unhappy."
Nina now turns her stressful thought around to its opposite: "Who would I be without that thought?
"I'd see my comfortable bed that I sleep on, that I slept on really well last night. I would see a fridge full of food, vegetables growing in the garden, friends close by who I trust, and we're supportive and helpful to each other. My blood family, though they live far away, don't give up on me, and one of my sisters is coming to visit soon. I'd see how many things are actually fine and perfect as they are and I'd feel full of gratitude."
Nina then looks for at least three examples of this opposite, which turn out to be actual examples of how reality is different, and more peaceful, than the stories her mind had decided to attach itself to:
"One, my life is easy, because I have a wonderful man in my life who is currently fixing the lights in our living room, something that I can't do, and it would take me a lot of time and energy to learn, so it's very convenient that he does it.
"Two, I have always been taken care of; it was only my thinking that said life was hard. For example, though I grew up being poor in England, we never starved, we always had enough.
"Three, when I first went to live in Japan, and arrived with no language and no money, people offered help, gave me a place to stay, took care of me."
Nina believes The Work can be just as much a powerful tool toward healing in Japan as in the English-speaking world. She is producing a Japanese edition of extracts from Katie's book, which is already available as a download from Katie's Web site.
Nina quotes Katie as saying that there are only three things we actually do in life: sit, stand or lie horizontal. All the rest is a story.
"The Work always leaves you with less of a story. Who would you be without your story? You never know until you inquire. There is no story that is you or that leads to you. Every story leads away from you. Turn it around, undo it. You are what exists before all stories. You are what remains when the story is understood."
The world is perfect. As you question your mind, this becomes more and more obvious. Mind changes, and as a result, the world changes. A clear mind heals everything that needs to be healed. It can never be fooled into believing that there is one speck out of order.
But some people take the insight that the world is perfect and make it into a concept, and then they conclude that there’s no need to get involved in politics or social action. That’s separation. If someone came to you and said, “I’m suffering. Please help me,” would you answer, “You’re perfect just the way you are,” and turn away? Our heart naturally responds to people and animals in need.
Realization has no value until it’s lived. I would travel to the ends of the earth for the sake of one person who is suffering. The desperate, the hopeless, are unenlightened cells of my own body. It’s my own body I’m talking about—the body of the world is my body. Would I let myself drown in water that doesn’t exist? Would I let myself die in an imagined torture chamber? My God, I think, there’s someone out there who really believes there’s a problem. I remember when I used to think there was a problem. How can I say no when that person asks for help? That would be saying no to myself. So I say yes and I go, if I can. It’s a privilege. It’s more than that: it’s self-love.
People are perfect just the way they are, however deeply they’re suffering, but they don’t realize that yet. So when I meet someone who’s suffering, I don’t say, “Oh, there’s no problem, everything is perfect.” Though I can see that there’s never a problem, and I’m available to help him see that, telling him what I see would be unkind. That part of my body is suffering, everything is not perfect for him, because he believes it’s not. I, too, have been trapped in the torture chamber of the mind. I hear what he thinks he needs, I hear his sadness or despair, and I’m available. That’s full-blown activism. In the presence of someone who doesn’t see a problem, the problem falls away—which shows you that there isn’t a problem.
People ask me, “How can you listen to all these problems, day after day, year after year? Doesn’t it drain your energy?” Well, it doesn’t. I’ve questioned my stressful thoughts, and I’ve seen that every single one of them is untrue. Every thought that used to look like a poisonous snake is actually a rope. I could stand over that rope for a thousand years, and never be frightened of it again. I see clearly what some people don’t yet see for themselves. Everyone in the world might come upon that rope and run screaming the other way, and I wouldn’t be afraid for them, feel sorry for them, or worry about them at all, because I realize that they’re not in danger, they’re absolutely not in harm’s way. As they cry snake, I see only rope.
If you have a problem with people or with the state of the world, I invite you to put your stressful thoughts on paper and question them, and to do it for the love of truth, not in order to save the world. Turn it around: save your own world. Isn’t that why you want to save the world in the first place? So that you can be happy? Well, skip the middleman, and be happy from here! You’re it. You’re the one. In this turnaround you remain active, but there’s no fear in it, no internal war. So it ceases to be war trying to teach peace. War can’t teach peace. Only peace can.
From A Thousand Names for Joy: Living in Harmony with the Way Things Are
I hope to see you as I travel on book tour for A Thousand Names for Joy with Stephen.
Here's the schedule. Please come see me if you can.
Tues., Feb. 6
[7:30-9:00 pm] Reader's Books Sonoma, CA
Wed., Feb. 7
[7:00-8:30 pm] Book Passage Corte Madera, CA
Thurs., Feb. 8
[7:30-9:00 pm] First Congregational Church [w/ Cody's Fourth Street] Berkeley, CA
Fri., Feb. 9
[7:30-9:00 pm] East-West Bookstore Mountain View, CA
Sat., Feb. 10
[7:00-8:30 pm] First Congregational Church [w/ Gateways Bookstore] Santa Cruz, CA
Sun., Feb. 11
[1:00-5:00 pm] Unity Palo Alto Church Palo Alto, CA
Tues., Feb. 13
[7:00-8:30 pm] Powell's Books Portland, OR
Wed., Feb. 14
[7:30 - 9:00 pm] University of WA - Kane Hall [w/ University Bookstore] Seattle, WA
Mon., Feb. 19
[7:30 - 9:00 pm] Unitarian Universalist Congregational Church [w/ ARK Books] Santa Fe, NM
Tues., Feb. 20
[7:30 - 9:00 pm] Unity of Boulder Church [w/ Boulder Bookstore] Boulder, CO
Wed., Feb. 21
[7:30 - 9:00 pm] Tattered Cover Denver, CO
Fri., Feb. 23
Kripalu Lenox, MA
Mon., Feb. 26
[7:00-9:00 pm] Learning Annex New York City, NY
Thurs., Mar. 1
[7:00-8:30 pm] Transitions Bookplace Chicago, IL
Sat., Mar. 3
[2:00-3:30 pm] Changing Hands Tempe, AZ
Tues., Mar. 6
[7:30 - 9:30 pm] Pacific Design Ctr [w/Bodhi Tree Bookstore] West Hollywood, CA
Wed., Mar. 14
[7:00-9:00 pm] Malaprop's Bookstore/Cafe Asheville, NC
Fri., Mar. 16
[6:00-9:00 pm] Unity of Louisville Church Louisville, KY
Next stop: Mountain View
Next Stop: Portland, OR
Download the audio file here [MP3 file].
Thanks for the photographs, Mary!
A review by Stever Robbins:
Mindfulness practices, and philosophies often say, "Be happy, and accept what Is. Be present." *cynical snort* Easily to say, impossible to do. The Devil is daily life. Sure, the Dalai Lama is serene. He meditates seven hours a day, has all his physical needs provided for by others, and needn't deal with any daily details. And he's celibate--no spouse to help him get dressed ("Oh, Tenzin, surely you're not wearing the maroon robes, again!"), and no teenage kids. Who couldn't be serene with that gig?
What's remarkable about Byron Katie is that she's serene in the midst of the modern, 21st century world. She has kids, a husband, an ex- husband, and an international business.
In this book, she attempts to put into words what it's like, living in her world. Yeah, she talks about life and death and grand universal concepts. Yada yada yada. There are a thousand masters who'll tell you about that.
Katie offers something infinitely more valuable: a glimpse into daily life. What is it like to get out of bed when you're not attached to thoughts like "I have things to do?" What thoughts go through her mind? How about when she does the dishes? Or when she trips on her way to answer the front door? What if she's mugged at gunpoint? Or her child dies? Or what if she's struck by a degenerative eye disease while writing the book? How does that change (or not) her world?
Some of her perspectives on life are familiar. Some are vastly different from anything you've heard. Yet her world makes sense, and even though I'm not there yet, it sounds like an infinitely joyous, loving world worth living in.
If Katie isn't a truly free, non-attached woman, she does the most convincing imitation I've ever heard. Buy the audiobook for a look into her world.
This book does NOT teach you The Work, her method of inquiring into your thoughts to reach this state of joy. For that, check out her book/audiobook Loving What Is, which includes facilitation sessions with real people using The Work.
The book is available in the BKI webstore and bookstores everywhere >>
The hotline is for anyone who wants to do The Work right away, by phone or online, with a trained facilitator who has graduated from the School for The Work with Byron Katie.
There is no fee for this service.
Calling Byron Katie's Hotline:
- Hotline Facilitators respect your wish to remain anonymous if desired.
- You must call the Hotline directly. No collect calls will be accepted.
- You are free to call any one of the listed Facilitators during the hours they are available. Please respect their specified availability and do not call any other time unless you have the Facilitator's direct permission.
- If all Hotline Facilitators are busy and your phone call goes to voicemail, please leave a message with your phone number. Hotline Facilitators will do their best to respond to your call.
- When you call, be prepared with a completed Judge Your Neighbor Worksheet and/or a One-liner, or a question about doing The Work.
- The length of your call depends on a variety of factors. Our intent is to make ourselves available to as many people as possible, and we love supporting you in this way.
- If you are in immediate danger of harming yourself or others, please call 911 or contact a local mental health organization.
Hotline Facilitator's Responsibilities
- It is the Facilitator's responsibility to walk you through The Work, not to give advice or therapy.
- The Hotline Facilitator is present to work with you when your intention is to meet the Four Questions and Turnarounds with honest answers.
- If the Hotline Facilitator feels that The Work is not being done honestly, they will let you know and the session will end.
Learn more about Byron Katie's Hotline for The Work >>
We are thrilled to announce that a new book will be appearing on October 15.
It's called Who Would You Be Without Your Story?: Dialogues with Byron Katie, and you can pre-order it now.
Dear Byron Katie,
This might be old news for you, but I found that two groundbreaking Stanford University pain syndrome experts consider Byron Katie's approach the best form of Cognitive Therapy.
In the new Revised 5th Edition of A Headache in the Pelvis (pp.326-330), that came out in May 2008, Stanford psychologist David Wise Ph.D. and neurourologist Rodney Anderson, M.D. refer to Albert Ellis' Rational-Emotive Therapy and Aaron Beck's Cognitive Therapy and then write (in their italics):
"The best form of Cognitive Therapy is, in our opinion, is offered in the work of Byron Katie who provides an approach to disarming catastrophic thinking by means of a process that one can do oneself. This is the approach that we recommend."
They then describe the procedure adding: "Our description of this process is rarely sufficient to become proficient at it. We discuss this method in our monthly 6-day clinics. Information specifically about this cognitive therapy work can be found at www.thework.org and the books of Byron Katie."
Wise and Anderson are practical "in the trenches" therapists who work daily with severe pelvic pain and other chronic syndromes . They recommended Byron Katie's method already in the 4th edition of the book (pp. 298-301).
I am happy to tell that my friend Ms. Essi Tolonen will be able to make true her long-held dream -- Essi will attend the 2008 School in Germany in two weeks. Many people here in Finland are already eagerly waiting for what she will tell us about the School.
All the best to you and your wonderful work
J. V.
Helsinki, Finland
From the Times of India, Rashmi Uday Singh gives us an account of her gastronomic experience with The School for The Work:
Chapter 3 from Who Would You Be Without Your Story >>
Are you trying to spare someone’s feelings by denying yourself? Free yourself from that prison. How can you know that they’ll disapprove? And if they do, whose business is that?
Rebecca: I’m very new at this; a friend just invited me to come to your event today, and voilà! Here I am. My question refers to the parent-child relationship. Actually, it sort of stems from a problem that I have with my mother. And I lied when I filled in the Worksheet. The problem was not with [choking back tears] relationships that I have now. It’s . . . probably something that I didn’t work out with her . . . probably am unable to.
Katie: So what is it with your mother that you haven’t worked out yet?
Rebecca: Well, I come from a conservative Jamaican family, and I’ve been living in America now for twelve years, so I don’t have my family with me. And I have to depend on myself, to pat myself on the back and say, “You’re doing okay!” I find myself, though . . .
Katie: Sweetheart, what’s the problem with your mother?
Rebecca: I’m not certain I can get her approval to do what I really, really want to do.
Katie: And what is that?
Rebecca: Well, it’s music . . . yes. They’ve told me in the past that I shouldn’t. In a conservative family, you do something practical.
Katie: So if your life became all about music as an occupation . . .
Rebecca: Well, I can’t even imagine that. I think of it all the time, and it’s . . . [She chokes back tears.]
Katie: . . . and it’s overflowing.
Rebecca: I teach business English, and my business is going very well, and this is something my mother approves of, especially when I’m so far away.
Katie: So what is it she would not approve of?
Rebecca: Doing something impractical, something that’s so risky.
Katie: Like what?
Rebecca: Singing . . . yes.
Katie: Singing where, how? As an occupation?
Rebecca: Possibly, yes.
Katie: So “if you dropped your profession . . .
Rebecca: I dare not.
Katie: . . . and you became a singer, your mother wouldn’t approve”—is that true?
Rebecca: She would kill herself with worry.
Continue reading "Book Excerpt: "My Mother Wouldn't Approve"" »
He calls it The Second Book of the Tao. The book is now available online and in bookstores everywhere.
Here Stephen reads an excerpt from the book:
Chapter 8
How do I know that loving life
isn't simply a delusion?
How do I know
that when we're afraid of death
we aren't like someone
who left home as a young child
and has forgotten the way back?
How do I know that the dead
aren't so happy that they wonder
why they once clung to life?
You may dream that you're at a banquet
and wake up to find yourself miserable.
You may dream that you're sobbing your heart out
and wake up to find yourself at ease.
How, in the middle of a dream,
can you know that you're actually dreaming?
In the middle of a dream, you may even
try to interpret the dream;
only after you wake up
do you realize that you were dreaming.
Someday there will be
a great awakening, when we know
that all this was one big dream.
And when I say that we're dreaming,
of course I am dreaming too.
COMMENTARY
How do I know? Well, I don't. So that settles that.
But loving life isn't a problem. Preferring life to death: that's what causes the confusion.
It could be (if there were such a thing as departing) that death is the return to a presence the wandering mind has long forgotten. It could be (if there were such a thing as separate beings) that the dead look upon our attachment to life like fond grandparents watching a teenager's first tumultuous love affair. It could be, in fact, that the dead are nothing but their own delight, there (if there were such a thing as space) where they know even as they are known.
We are close to waking up when we dream that we are dreaming. All the imagined ups and downs, the hubbub and reversals of fortune, are what most people call life. But before and after, at the point where the end meets its beginning, there is only what has woken up from the cycle of waking, dreaming, and dreamless sleep.
As for a "great awakening": dream on. When do you think that that someday will come, after all? Isn't it enough just to open your eyes, feel the pillow beneath your head, and see the hands of the alarm clock pointing to this very moment (as if there were such a thing as time)?
There's more on YouTube here >>
For those of you who have questions for Stephen, or just want to say hello to him on his book tour, you can catch up with him in the following places:
Portland, OR
2/27/09 Powell's City of Books 7:30PM
1105 West Burnside Street
Seattle, WA
2/28/09 Elliott Bay Book Company 2:00 PM
101 South Main Street
Santa Barbara, CA
3/2/09 Mind & Supermind Series 7:30 PM
Lobero Theatre, 33 E. Canon Perdido St.
San Francisco, CA
3/3/09 Berkeley Arts & Letters 7:30 PM
First Congregational Church of Berkeley
2345 Channing Way
3/4/09 Book Passage, Corte Madera 7:00 PM
51 Tamal Vista Boulevard
Sonoma, CA
3/5/09 Reader's Books 7:30 PM
127 East Napa Street
Denver, CO
3/6/09 Tattered Cover 7:30 PM
2526 East Colfax Avenue
Boulder, CO
3/7/09 Boulder Bookstore 2:30 PM
1107 Pearl Street, Boulder
Santa Fe, NM
3/9/09 Garcia Street Bookshop 5:00 PM
376 Garcia Street
New York, NY
3/11/09 Rubin Museum of Art 7:00 PM
150 West 17th Street
Philadelphia, PA
3/12/09 Free Library of Philadelphia 7:30 PM
1901 Vine Street
Los Angeles, CA
3/18/09 Los Angeles Public Library 7:00 PM
630 West 5th Street
3/19/09 Barnes & Noble 7:00 PM
1201 3rd Street, Santa Monica
Tiger-Tiger, Is It True? is a story about a little tiger who thinks that his whole world is falling apart: his parents don’t love him, his friends have abandoned him, and life is unfair. But a wise turtle asks him four questions, and everything changes. He realizes that all his problems are not caused by things, but by his thoughts about things; and that when he questions his thoughts, life becomes wonderful again.
Order the book here >>
Order here >>
Buy it from Amazon or the The Work Store >>
(freely translated by Stephen Mitchell)
Mind creates the world;
what you see arises with your thoughts.
If you speak and act with a confused mind,
trouble will follow you as certainly
as a cart follows the ox that pulls it.
Mind creates the world;
what you see arises with your thoughts.
If you speak and act with a clear mind,
happiness will follow you as certainly
as your own shadow in sunlight.
"It’s his fault." "She shouldn’t have done that."
Believe such thoughts, and you live in resentment.
"It’s his fault." "She shouldn’t have done that."
Question such thoughts, and you live in freedom.
Anger teaches anger.
Fear results in more fear.
Only understanding can lead to peace.
This is the ancient law.
I receive a lot of email about my relationship and marriage with Stephen. Here is a typical moment. We are very quiet together most of the time, and I appreciate the ease and yes, the bliss that meets with that silence.
Stephen: "Here’s the salad. Let me know if it needs more vinegar."
A few minutes pass.
Katie: "How was your morning?"
Stephen: "Excellent. Hector was just killed."
Some of you know Stephen as a poet, scholar, and translator of great works (all of which would be on my reading list, if I had one). He had just finished his verse translation of Homer’s Iliad, to be published in October.
Katie: "Imagine if they had just done The Work, instead of fighting for all those years."
Stephen: "Of course that would have been better for them, but we wouldn’t have the Iliad. Personally, I’m opposed to violence, except when it happens in great poetry." (Pause) "And how was your morning?"
Katie: “This is the best salad I’ve ever had in my entire life!”
And that’s about it. Life with Stephen? Soooo exciting!!!!
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