day 40: Question 4

THE END OF SUFFERING
The beginning of wisdom

In the fourth question of the Byron Katie work, we are asked to ask ourselves what life would be like, what we would be like, if we didn’t believe the big bad story. Or, we didn’t attach to the thought. Or, we didn’t hold onto our opinion. Or, we just looked at Reality without the requirements that our judgment/ story/ thought/ belief/ concept puts on it.

The 4th question: Q #4: Who or what would you be without attaching to this thought?

And this looking at the world without the story is not a requirement, as in, “Just let go,” or “Just drop it,” or “Just move on.” (That amazing little “just” again.)

No, this question is to give our minds something to do besides grind over and over with our conviction of being right.

Recall question #3: How do you react when you attach to the thought?

And add on question #4: Who or what are you when you don’t attach to the thought?

You and I and any of us always have this choice: to look at the world thought the lens of “should” and “shouldn’t”, which is pretty much what every judgment boils down to.

Or to look at the world as It Is.


So, for today (and many day???), play with this. Feel the troubled statements and thoughts and feelings and opinions come up in you and do the contrast game: Who am I, and how do I feel, live and react when I believe the thought?

And who am I and how to I feel, live and react if the outer world were just the same (“just!”), and we had no demand that it be different with our thinking/ believing/ demanding/ opinioning/ story making.

Don’t be good. You don’t have to drop the belief. Just keep noticing the difference, and as Katie says, the belief just might drop you. (“Just”!)