Loving What Is, Revised Edition

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A Few Basic Principles

What I love about The Work is that it enables you to go inside and find your own happiness, to experience what already exists within you, unchanging, immovable, ever-­present, ever-­waiting. No teacher is necessary. You are the teacher you ve been waiting for. You are the one who can end your own suffering.

I often say, Don t believe anything I say. I want you to discover what s true for you, not for me. Still, many people have found the following principles to be helpful for getting started in The Work.

Noticing When Your Thoughts Argue with Reality

The only time we suffer is when we believe a thought that argues with what is. When the mind is perfectly clear, what is is what we want.

If you want reality to be different than it is, you might as well try to teach a cat to bark. You can try and try, and in the end the cat will look up at you and say, Meow. Wanting reality to be different than it is, right now, is hopeless. You can spend the rest of your life trying to teach a cat to bark.

Yet if you pay attention, you ll notice that you believe thoughts like this dozens of times a day: People should be kinder, Children should be well behaved, My neighbors should take better care of their lawn, The line at the grocery store should move faster, My husband (or wife) should agree with me, I should be thinner (or prettier or more successful). These thoughts are ways of wanting reality to be different than it is, right now. If you think this sounds depressing, you re right. All the stress that we feel is caused by arguing with what is.

After I woke up to reality in 1986, people often referred to me as the woman who made friends with the wind. Barstow is a desert town where the wind blows a lot of the time, and everyone hates it; people even move away from there because they can t stand the wind. The reason I made friends with the wind ­with reality ­is that I discovered that I didn t have a choice. I realized

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.