Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life

by Byron Katie

“we are disturbed not by what happens to us, but by our thoughts about what happens.”

Whenever we experience a stressful feeling—anything from mild discomfort to intense sorrow, rage, or despair—we can be certain that there is a specific thought causing our reaction, whether or not we are conscious of it. The way to end our stress is to investigate the thinking that lies behind it,

To realize your true nature, you must wait for the right moment and the right conditions. When the time comes, you are awakened as if from a dream. You understand that what you have found is your own and doesn’t come from anywhere outside. Buddhist Sutra

She would answer, “I’m just someone who knows the difference between what hurts and what doesn’t.”

“Perhaps the most important revelation is precisely this: that the left cerebral hemisphere of humans is prone to fabricating verbal narratives that do not necessarily accord with the truth.”

The Work is an ongoing and deepening process of self-realization, not a quick fix.

Their internal argument with reality has disappeared, and they find that what remains is love —love for themselves, for other people, and for whatever life brings.

We don’t attach to people or to things; we attach to uninvestigated concepts that we believe to be true in the moment.

You trade your integrity for harmony in the home. It doesn’t work. Spare yourself from seeking love, approval, or appreciation—from anyone.

Step aside from all thinking, and there is nowhere you can’t go. Seng-ts’an (the Third Founding Teacher of Zen)

“Nothing external can disturb us. We suffer only when we want things to be different from what they are.” (Encheiridion, V)

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.

All the stress that we feel is caused by arguing with what is.

The turnarounds are your prescription for health, peace, and happiness. Can you give yourself the medicine that you have been prescribing for others?

The thoughts that used to send us into deep depression—these same thoughts, once understood, send us into laughter. This is the power of inquiry.

“I love it that your way makes you happy. Thank you for wanting to share it with me.”

Reality is always kinder than the stories we tell about it.

The truth is whatever is in front of you, whatever is really happening.

In reality, there is no such thing as a “should” or a “shouldn’t.”

Humility is the true resting place.

Self-realization is the sweetest thing. It shows us how we are fully responsible for ourselves, and that is where we find our freedom.

Rather than being other-realized, you can be self-realized.