The Way of It

To be kind to you

is my greatest joy

The best news is when something you’ve read for years and years in your favorite books suddenly makes sense to you, you discover it in your own words. You may not even connect, at the moment, that this is what the wisdom in those books was really about. Eventually, it becomes clear.

This happened to me the other day when I was walking by the beach at Montaña de Oro State Park on a beautiful Saturday afternoon. I had been having a wonderful week so far, doing my favorite things: reading, kayaking, talking to friends, working on my research, eating good food, and now walking on the beach. All of a sudden, it hit me: “I miss her.”

That was the thought. And as I could see mind showing itself images of why that was so, I stood there, astonished, being completely unable even to make sense of what “I miss her” could possibly mean. It’s like, there was the beach, the mountains, the open skies, the soothing sound of the water, and my own benevolent intelligence, which had taken me to this place. “I miss her” could only be true if there was something out of order, and I could not find it. There was no room for her in that picture, and no room for missing her in that picture. It was impossible to miss her, not because I was in some sort of a good mood, but because it was literally-not-possible.

It then became clear to me that I don’t suffer as much as I think I do. I noticed that when I believe “I miss her” I color my past, I describe that entire week as terrible, when in reality there were only a couple of moments of sudden disappointments that vanished as soon as they arose in me. So I unwittingly rewrote, in my own words, Katie’s famous dictum: Reality is much kinder than the thoughts we have about it. In my own words it is: We don’t suffer as much as we think we do.

And so I am grateful to my knees for having my own language for what is languageless. That way I can express myself freely, speaking from my own experience and kind intelligence, and have a great life.

‘Tis nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so.

-William Shakespeare

Words, it is said, cannot capture It, only point to it. How about a video?

Thanks to my friend Tash for sending this my way.

A few Sundays ago as I was taking a shower I had the courage to admit to myself the unadmittable: that I still loved my drama. I have been reading over the last few months in several of Adyashanti’s writings about the fact that the reason that we humans still identify with the notion of a separate Me is that we think it is fun to be a Me. If we didn’t think there were any benefits, why would we do it? And if we did not identify, how could we suffer? So to the extent that I still feel entangled in my life I can open my eyes and, well, begin to take inventory of all the benefits I think being a Me brings.

And the insights I got from this kind of honesty to myself are too numerous to count and even to describe, although I will try my best.

• I found a freedom that was at the same time deep and very ordinary, that simply comes from the realization that it is okay that I love my drama, when I do, because that’s what is.
• Loving what is, no matter what it is, does not take me to the land of the metaphysical fairies, it brings me to now, now, now. Where else would anyone think it was going to take me? It’s all reentry, all the time. And this is the best news.
• I notice an ease to deal with the “curveballs” in life that I fall in love with more and more with with each day that passes by.
• I am more loving and accepting to myself than before. I don’t have to wait to be “enlightened” to really love and admire the way I live. I can be more loving and accepting of it now instead. And whatever parts I don’t love yet, I can love and accept that I’m not there yet. It REALLY is okay.
• My favorite way of saying it, for now: I still have problems. It’s just not a problem that I still have problems. I don’t need to be problem free to be happy or at least to be at ease with the conditions in my life, or at least to have the integrity to be present with my suffering, when it comes. And sometimes it does.
• Further, I see the advantages of still “having problems.” Judging from all I’ve learned from my old problems, and knowing the value of those lessons, wow, I can’t imagine what good could come from what is left of my problems. So I look forward to them. They are welcome here. Not because I’m masochistic, but because, well, they may come anyways. I am open to the wonders they bring. In the end it becomes difficult to call them problems anymore, and I notice that I still do, sometimes. I’m working on it.
• The real end is that I don’t care much anymore about whether there is an end or not, because either way, I know how to deal with what comes. And even if I forget how to deal with it, I’m never too far from Home. Not far at all.
• And that, as far as I can see, is the real freedom, the one that is independent from conditions. It’s what’s meant in Buddhism by the expression “Samsara is Nirvana,” as far as I can see.

But, please, don’t take it from me: I may just be full of hot air. That could be as true, or truer :).

You may know I have a son. His name is Tad, and he is about to be 14 years old. He is a handsome, emotionally put together young man. A couple of months ago I told him:

You are coming of age. It is time for you and I to take a trip together, through which we will bond, and we will both expore how is it that one may come to live a meaningful life.

The old forgotten rite of passage. Machelle and I had talked about that this time would come. It was time. Tad tells me that at the moment he thought I was going to take him out to the wilderness for a week, or take him to the middle of a lake and throw him there and see him swim back to the shore. I said, instead:

You and I are going to Byron Katie’s three-day Relationship Workshop in Chicago.

He was strangely relieved. I asked him how he felt about that, and he said he would do it.

What you will read in the upcoming posts is his own account of how the weekend went for him. He wrote the text you will read as part of an assignment he had for school, about community service. His take on it was that being a facilitator of The Work is a form of community service. Enjoy.

Tad’s experiences at the Relationship Workshop (Part One)

Tad’s experiences at the Relationship Workshop (Part Two)

Tad’s experiences at the Relationships Workshop (Part Three)

Tad Baumann
Byron Katie Workshop: Day Two
May 5, 2007

Earlier this day I shared with the group about how we all are living so we can die happy. After I spoke everyone noticed Eduardo and I. Many people came up to us and said hello and told us how amazing it is for a son and dad to come and do something like this. They kept on saying “I wish my son would come and do this with me.” I felt really good that I did this and how great of a father I have.

Katie invited us to read a worksheet that we did on someone we were frustrated at. She had us pair up with someone and it was the first time I had paired up with anyone so I paired up with my dad. We did The Work (used the questions in the yellow card). I started to get the hang of it. It was entertaining and it started to make a lot more sense. After the exercise that we just did, Katie played a poem off the computer. I forgot who it was by but it was the most well read, most terrific poem I’ve ever heard.

After the poem ended I found myself struggling to open my eyes but I just couldn’t. So I sat there in a moment, joining the rest of the silent symphony.

The moment ended and she dismissed us for an hour and a half for lunch.

Tad Baumann
Byron Katie Workshop: Day Three
May 6, 2007

In this workshop I learned that other people go through similar things that I do. That made me feel better about myself and how I look at things. I also learned that some things I go through are very common and not as bad as what others go through. Like this man who said “I am angry at my brother because he killed his wife.” He later said that his brother had killed her by strangling her. Whoa! It was so vicious and not as bad as my problems. The brother did The Work and he handled his problem very well. He just gave a few tears. Katie later told him that “Crying is the same as smiling with a little feature, tears. It’s alright to cry. Nothing is wrong with how it is.”

Katie’s words are wonderful, influential, and touching. She never gets angry. She says she doesn’t know why there is a reason to be angry. Things are the way they are. She used to be really depressed. She was depressed for 43 years. She lived in a halfway house. But one morning she woke up on the floor of her bedroom. As she says, “It’s like I woke up as a whole other person.” People noticed that she was not her usual self. She gave the most stunning advice to anyone. People ask her if she was enlightened but she gave the simplest response “I’m not sure.”

-Tad

Eduardo’s afterthoughts:

It may go without saying, and let me say it anyways: I was very moved by Tad’s account of his experience at Katie’s Relationship Workshop. I loved being there with him. My experience was just as beautiful and personal as his. I post these experiences in my blog in tribute to our wanting to learn together how to live in love and in peace. What more as a father could I possibly want?

I truly can’t think of anything better than this.

One last thing. Past the astonishment of reading Tad’s experiences at the workshop I told him: I don’t remember hearing Katie say to that man that “crying is the same as smiling with a little feature, tears.” He said: “Yeah, she didn’t say that. I made that part up.”

To keep at it is at the same time divine medicine and insane medicine.

It depends on what is it that you keep at.

Does what you keep at bring peace or stress into your life?

Just notice.

Then stick with what brings you peace.

And be kind to yourself. Persistence yields its fruits in its own time, not your own time.