Loving What Is

Introduction

The more clearly you understand yourself and your emotions, the more you become a lover of what is. --
Baruch Spinoza

The first time I watched The Work, I realized that I was witnessing something truly remarkable. What I saw was a succession of people, young and old, educated and uneducated, who were learning to question their own thoughts, the thoughts that were most painful to them. With the lovingly incisive help of Byron Katie (everyone calls her Katie), these people were finding their way not only toward the resolution of their immediate problems, but also toward a state of mind in which the deepest questions are resolved. I have spent a good part of my life studying and translating the classic texts of the great spiritual traditions, and I recognized something very similar in process here. At the core of these traditions -- in works such as the Book of Job, the Tao Te Ching, and the Bhagavad Gita -- there is an intense questioning about life and death, and a profound, joyful wisdom that emerges as an answer. That wisdom, it seemed to me, was the place Katie was standing in, and the direction where these people were headed.

As I watched from my seat in a crowded community center, five men and women, one after another, were learning freedom through the very thoughts that had caused their suffering, thoughts such as "My husband betrayed me" or "My mother doesn't love me enough." Simply by asking four questions and listening to the answers they found inside themselves, these people were opening their minds to profound, spacious, and life-transforming insights. I saw a man who had been suffering for decades from anger and resentment toward his alcoholic father light up before my eyes within forty-five minutes. I saw a woman who had been almost too frightened to speak, because she had just found out that her cancer was spreading, end the session in a glow of understanding and acceptance. Three out of the five people had never done The

Byron Katie experienced what she calls waking up to reality in 1986, and since then she has introduced The Work to hundreds of thousands of people throughout the world. In addition to her public events, she has introduced The Work into business settings, universities, schools, churches, prisons, and hospitals.

Stephen Mitchell s many books include the best-selling Tao Te Ching, Bhagavad Gita, The Gospel According to Jesus, Meetings with the Archangel, and The Frog Prince.

Good Lord! Where did Byron Katie come from? She s the real McCoy. Her Work is amazingly effective a simple, straightforward antidote to the suffering we unnecessarily create for ourselves. She asks us to believe nothing, but provides a surprisingly effective and simple way to cut through the tangle of delusions we wrap ourselves in. Just reading the exchanges in Loving What Is, I can admit things I didn t want to admit and stop torturing myself in ways I didn t realize I was doing.
-- David Chadwick, author of Crooked Cucumber: The Life and Zen Teaching of Shunryu Suzuki

Suppose you could find a simple way to embrace your life with joy, stop arguing with reality, and achieve serenity in the midst of chaos? That is what Loving What Is offers. It is no less than a revolutionary way to live your life. The question is: are we brave enough to accept it?
-- Erica Jong, author of Fear of Flying

Byron Katie s Work is a great blessing for our planet. The root cause of suffering is identification with our thoughts, the stories that are continuously running through our minds. Byron Katie s Work acts like a razor-sharp sword that cuts through that illusion and enables you to know for yourself the timeless essence of your being. Joy, peace, and love emanate from it as your natural state. In Loving What Is, you have the key. Now use it.
-- Eckhart Tolle, author of The Power of Now

Loving What Is is filled with the essence of wisdom. Katie s Work is a wonderful, transformative practice for anyone interested in spiritual growth.
-- Lama Surya Das, author of Awakening the Buddha Within