Notes to the Introduction
1. The more clearly you understand yourself and your emotions, the more you become a lover of what is: The Ethics, Book 5, Proposition 15. A more literal translation: “He who clearly and distinctly understands himself and his emotions loves God, and does so the more, the more he understands himself and his emotions.” Spinoza’s term God—he often says “God-or-nature”—actually means “ultimate reality” or simply “what is.”Return to Text
2. “we are disturbed not by what happens to us, but by our thoughts about what happens”: Epictetus, Encheiridion, V. Two other relevant statements: “Nothing external can disturb us. We suffer only when we want things to be different from what they are.” (Encheiridion, V) “No one has the power to hurt you. It is only your own thinking about someone’s actions that can hurt you.” (Encheiridion, XX)Return to Text
3. To realize your true nature, you must wait for the right moment and the right conditions: Quoted in a Dharma talk by the great Chinese Zen master Pai-Chang (720–814). See The Enlightened Mind: An Anthology of Sacred Prose, ed. Stephen Mitchell (HarperCollins, 1991), p. 55. I have been unable to identify the sutra.Return to Text
4. admission is always free: All one-day events sponsored by The Work of Byron Katie Foundation are offered free of charge. Because of Katie’s commitment to share The Work with as many people as possible, she has, several times during the past two years, accepted invitations from groups that do not waive admissions fees. These events are not sponsored by the Foundation.Return to Text
5. Katie often says that the only way to understand The Work is to experience it: This paragraph was written by my friend and literary agent Michael Katz, who also wrote the section in chapter 10 called “When the Story Is Hard to Find” and edited many passages in this book.Return to Text
6. “Perhaps the most important revelation”: Antonio Damasio, The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotions in the Making of Consciousness (Harcourt Brace & Company, 1999), p. 187.Return to Text
7. “The left brain weaves its story”: Michael Gazzaniga, The Mind’s Past (University of California Press, 1998), p. 26.Return to Text
8. Considering that, all hatred driven hence: From “A Prayer for My Daughter,” The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats, vol. 1, The Poems, ed. Richard J. Finneran (Scribner, 1997), p. 192. The second line of the stanza reads: “The soul recovers radical innocence.”Return to Text
9. Step aside from all thinking: From “The Mind of Absolute Trust,” The Enlightened Heart: An Anthology of Sacred Poetry, ed. Stephen Mitchell (HarperCollins, 1989), p. 27.Return to Text