Byron Katie and Jonathan Fields: The Work and Awakening to Joy

let's say I'm I'm a little for a five-year-old child I'm playing I'm happy I have this amazing life and my mother says Byron Kathleen you are unlovable and I don't love you and what I can see today is that is absolutely not a problem so if you've heard the name of today's guest Byron Katie it's probably in conjunction with something called the work when Katie as she goes by was sort of in the middle years of her life with a family in the mid 80s she was entering probably the close to ten years of a deep all-consuming depression until one day she was lying on the floor and quite literally experienced a moment of awakening into a state of what some might even call enlightenment she lost her sense of the past of the future felt only the presence and almost had to relearn what the world was and who she was in the world and was in that moment also transmitted some deeper understanding of the difference between reality and illusion suffering and joy and spent the next few years developing a process of inquiry which she calls the work which is a very simple set of four questions that she has then taught now to millions of people to help them question their own realities and discover what is true what is false in the name of removing suffering in all of our lives I had the chance to sit down with her and her husband Steven Mitchell who is a deep scholar in his own right especially in Eastern traditions and philosophies and they have a new book out now called a mind at home with itself it's an exploration of a very classic text called the Diamond Sutra which is one of the most profound and somewhat esoteric deep dives around what is real and the essence of who we are and to get their lens on this to just have a chance to really sit down with Katie get her take on this to have her share her personal story firsthand and then also have Stephens contribution and his lens on this story and his experience of it as they've moved together in the later part of their lives was really powerful excited to share in this conversation with you I'm Jonathon fields and this is good life project so good to be hanging out with both of you today it's funny because it's sort of an odd twist I actually was familiar where Stephens worked before I was familiar with your work yes that's usually the case so you're like this starter and then okay so now I'm like the starter drug that gets a bit more serious right that's great and we've heard the other way around as well many people not familiar with your wonderful work yeah yeah that's great so I thought in my mind it would be fun to sort of pick a step back in time because I know many of our listeners will have a sense for who you are Katie but many also this may be the first time that they're hearing from you and so so let's kind of dip a little bit back into your personal story hmm and I think it probably makes sense to go all the way back to 86 and and maybe if you could paint a bit of a picture of what life was like before 86 for you it was it was you know it was a world full of depression you know my own depression and it was the depression was so deep it was more than a decade and it was it was so deep I didn't believe I could even live very suicidal and then one morning as I lay sleeping on the floor because I didn't believe I was worth even a bed to sleep in that's depressed I think oh my goodness you know you slept with a gun under your pillow yeah I'm very paranoid assess as well what was the fear that led you you know looking back I have no idea it was just blind fear and and three children that I was trying to raise at the same time and make the house payment that cetera and and and you could sometimes barely even leave your room for weeks at a time you couldn't shower can brush your teeth yeah just you know a life ended and I was still breathing but one day as I lay sleeping on the floor actually a cockroach crawled over my foot and I opened my eyes and it's as though I was just witnessing you know it was just witnessed same thing it was just you know I I don't have a description for that yet I don't know how to speak of it maybe I'll never understand how to speak of it but what I did see is that when I believed my thoughts I suffered and when I didn't believe my thoughts I didn't suffer and I saw that on the floor I more than thought I experienced it because it's like this witness this unspeakable witness was just seen and it was it was like a birth into the world of just consciousness and just pure consciousness and then I saw that on as thoughts began to hit my head everything began to have a name like window and sky and ceiling and floor and and even Katie it was it was you know everything had an end at that point I began to laugh and it's like I just I just got some kind of great and joke that had been played on all of us you know I've seen that that all of us in the world we believe our thoughts we suffer but to question them you know that's the way out of this maze for me and so of course I invite people to identify their judgments and assumptions when they're hurt and or suffering in any way that they just identify those judgments and assumptions and question them and I also J love to say that the the way to question they're only four questions and the work I call it the work it's always free at the work com everything I have that has any value is free there and how to do it and it's anyone with an open mind can do this I think of other people suffering unnecessarily which you know was my case and I think anyone that suffers once we learn how to question the cause of suffering we begin to experience a life worth living but I have something to add to that the remarkable thing about that moment on the floor in 1986 was that all the depression and all the anxiety and and fear and suicidal thoughts and everything else were gone instantly never came back and what was left was this deep sense of joy and peace now their enlightenment experiences are not uncommon what's uncommon about Katie's experience and I I speak from a knowledge of the literature and many different spiritual traditions what's rare is that she was at that moment also given a way to maintain that state of mind people sometimes pop into states of great rapture and joy and and clarity and then it fades they lose it somehow but what Katie was given was a mind a questioning mind that can maintain that state of deep peace when thoughts arise that would otherwise pop her out of it so throughout so in the 30 31 years since that experience it's been a very constant state of this pure what you can call joy or peace the opposite of depression for sure and I think joy is by definition and we all we all have our own definition of joy for me it's the absence of suffering hmm it was speaking with a friend a while back it was interesting because he was his lens on depression was so many people think what would say the opposite of depression that's happiness he had an interesting lens which I'm curious what your maybe both of your thoughts are which is that he felt the opposite of depression was curiosity exactly so and I think a questioned mind and enquiring mind is a curious mind because without what we're believing you know eat everything opens up so it really is that I love that when you were in your darkest time you mentioned your three kids mm-hmm have you talked with them over the years about how they were experiencing you during that window and then and then upon this awakening how that shifted for them just over and over and over and over you know any time we're together this shows up and you know in one way or another even in just very small minor ways now but actually every year on my birthday we all get together my three children and me there's their spouses aren't invited my children other fighters have been in Katie's world and they spend three we spend three days together and oh it is marvelous and now there's just not a lot to talk about everyone's so respectful and understanding and kind it's it's as though one person gets free and it changes the entire family dynamic but originally it's as you asked the question where my mind also went was my daughter for one thing said she had so much fear that the old mother would return again that it took her quite a while all three of them to to adjust that I wasn't going to flip and did this this world of depression that they were so used to and rage and and yeah and enrage you know confusion is it's not a friendly it's it's not a friendly world the most dramatic thing I think that any of them have said her younger son Ross said before the change I couldn't look into my mother's eyes after the change I couldn't stop looking into them so that says a lot yeah it does but this this radical shift and they're wonderful parents they're good people and their their sense of understanding and I'm just I'm just you know really happy that they have such good lovely lives when you started to sort of live this new life essentially how did it others around you receive that and receive you well distrustful at first for sure and then you have been sharing this lately I was I noticed one day was sitting on a park bench and and then you know people would come sit down of course and then the next day I noticed sitting on that park bench that maybe one or two of the same people would show up again and then I noticed one day sitting on the park bench that there was a queue a line of people standing up to wait to sit to sit there with me so it's it was for one thing I became a listener because when you really have no as we say no no life sounds a bit strange but no self we might say like no self it's like I don't have a self I'm interested in so that leaves me just fascinated by other people and connected to other people it's such a beautiful thing to be connected to the world when I was distant from it for us so many years well it and it's and there were dramatic things that happened at that time she would walk around town in the state of rapture and eventually it took me a while to balance you know - I'm not to be more or less but just in the center you know that balance and unrecognisable balance even though after its seen what I said may sound a little strange but at first there it was quite an adjustment that people began to call her the little ad and you know they started to knock on her door because what she had was something everybody wanted and so it went on from there and I wouldn't say everyone well a lot of us but as word began to pass around from one to the other then people were calling me literally all over the world and I had no idea what they wanted but I did know what pieces and I you know I do know it's suffering is and I know what pieces and it's really it's really difficult for people will say suffering people that are confused in their lives and it's really difficult to have a good life it's really difficult to and even decisions the simplest decisions sometimes they're just can be difficult do you have a sense for you like Steven shared that people were coming to you because there was something about you that they wanted or they wanted to feel do I sense for what that was what that well I'm a movable and what I recognized and and so I can't be swayed and let me sound like a stubbornness and and yet it's the extreme opposite but I guess you can say that people trust them I trust it yeah I would say it this way that that there's a radiance about her it's very attractive it's almost magnetically attracted to some people it's what attracts people to the great ancient texts like the bhagavad-gita and the daodejing etc there's something in us that recognizes that it's possible to be happy all the time and I think that's what draws people to the work as well as to Katy personally even though you know she's not interested in the woman Byron Katie there's something else that is much more important to her but a lot of people start that way by it being vented being interested in the woman Byron Katie and and I think I think that is you know I don't have a mind that anticipates or remembers I have a mind that's present and I can talk out of out of the past and future but I don't have a way of attaching to it because I can see that that's not reality that's imaging that's not really a pest like we drove over here and in a car we were driven over here in a car and I see that clearly but I can see me in that car but that's not myself and then Steven and I talked about getting a coffee after our time with you together and and I can see me at a coffee shop you know in my mind's eye that future but it doesn't mean that we're going to a coffee shop it really doesn't mean anything and I see me at the coffee shop but that's not me so when people are talking out of what I'm describing now but once we become aware of that is not itself in the past and that is not self I see in the future then we're no longer confused about you know false identity false worlds and it's so easy just to be just right here right now it's so simple I think the depression I came out of I'm just so grateful that this is all there is and I there's no worry in my life because I don't anticipate even though my mind can see what we would call past future there's nothing concrete about it so therefore nothing to worry over and so my life is about just saying yes and moving inquiry to as many people as as possible the end of suffering the absence of suffering because we make better choices that way we're kinder we're connected we're wiser because we're in touch with wisdom and as in as using as you mentioned earlier one of my favorites and curious so wouldn't it be great if you could have nutritious instagram-worthy meals every day without having to hit the farmers market and chop up a million fruits and veggies well now you can get all your super foods super fast with le harvest daily harvest sends frozen superfood smoothies and breakfast bowls packed with gorgeous organic ingredients straight to your door and ready to blend or heat cups I'm kind of obsessed right now with their chocolate and blueberry smoothie so go to Delhi - harvest calm and enter promo code good life to get three items free in your first box that's promo code good life for three free daily harvest cups at daily harvest com that's daily harvest calm one of the things that there's so much said I would love to dive into just from that with you and and and I know we'll get a chance to do some of that one of the one of the things that came to me and when I first heard your story and sort of like the moment and how it's changed you since then is that whenever you hear not whenever let's not use absolutes but often when you hear a story of somebody who's who's awakened in some way and in some level there is along with that some sort of almost dissociative experience the sort of Western world the modern lens and and medicine wants to label that they want to label that as something wrong as as disease as a condition I'm curious whether that was part of your early journey sort of like whether those labels were sort of thrust upon you or people wanting to say that this was something other than what you feel you experienced yeah it seemed on great I can see how people can see it that way certainly in the beginning because I was I couldn't say I want a drink of water because it was just completely untrue and so it took a long time to even learn to talk and then in that process of learning to talk that it really is a service that that it was just very very clumsy because who who after living 43 years in a lie wants to teach more line so I want a drink of water you know there was just not necessary from from the place I was standing you know I I although it sounds a little strange but I obviously don't want to drink a water I want to stand here now because the waters in the future so it wouldn't make any sense to me so I was teaching line every time it would open my mouth so it was difficult to to step into and it seemed I'm sure crazy to a lot of people like maybe I'd be leaving the house and my pajamas and and my daughter would say mom you know we don't wear those out into the world we wear those only in the evening and only in the house and maybe she would say mom you don't wear a red sock and a blue sock you know they you know you wear wear socks that match so really I was kind of I had had to learn all over again what we do here on earth was kind of my experience you know I'm new I'm new and now I'm not no I'm very comfortable it just it was just a little a learning process along the way that fascinates me because Katie was coming to all of these deep insights without any support by the family by the community she had never read any of the great spiritual texts I mean the the not the fact that there is no self is one of the central insights of the Buddha for example usually even people have been meditating for decades understand that and live that at a certain level but not at such a deep level that they can't say the word I within their own integrity I mean this is just popping into the world as a newborn with physical Aaron did you just say that that people had that experience well the Buddha one of the central the Buddha said the central characteristics of existence are impermanence and unsatisfactoriness or suffering and non-self that's that's one of the three basic characteristics and you somehow landed there without knowing that anyone had ever perceived that before and to me when I first met Katy in 2000 I was fascinated with the things that would come out of her mouth because inside I was saying that's straight from anapana shutter that's exactly what the daodejing says and she would have no idea so I I thought this was marvelously refreshing for somebody like me who was steeped in all these traditions to be hearing it as it were straight from the horse's mouth and plain American that cats and dogs can read you know here's this relatively uneducated woman saying the great insights of the great masters and having no idea that anyone's ever seen this before I couldn't have been more delighted and your background also you you spent the 10 15 years deep into Zen practice 27:26 oh yes alright so steeped in 27 years 3 days 4 well including a lot of solid long solitary retreats so I had put my time in and also in deeply involved in the Jewish tradition so I came with that background and I think with anything less I would not have been able to be with Katy of certainly not to be her her husband because you know it's like in the Tibetan Book of the Dead when you die and experience the clear light unless you've had practice under your belt it's like coming out of a dark Theater you just have to have to shade your eyes it's too much for you the brilliance sends you back into most people into another rebirth in another realm but if you've if you've had enough practice you are open to that radiance and you actually understand that it's you it's who you essentially are so I had been prepared yeah I mean you you had a background that allowed you to recognize something that I would guess very few others in the world would have immediately see well I think a lot of people well I know a lot of people when they first see Katie fell in love with her and thank goodness I'm not the jealous type but it's it's not uncommon there's something about authenticity that even children can recognize how did you guys meet actually since I have you both here well this short version is that my literary agent said I had to meet her and he had in the back of the mind that I would be able to write a book with her and something else happened as well so that's the short version Katie do you remember the first time you guys said yes I was doing events in Marin County and staying with a friend and Stephen had called several times and my friend would answer the phone and try to connect us and I was very busy at the time and so eventually we did connect she made an arrangement with Stephen to meet me in in my friend's house and at a specific time when when I wasn't working it was ten o'clock on January 23rd and 2000 I met her at 10:03 looked into her eyes and that was it so he walked in with this big big pile of books no Michael had brought Michael in trying to convince Katie to take him on as a literary agent her reaction was you know I don't have a book and he said oh yes you do this went on for quite a while and I can't be sharing him that no I did not I wasn't interested and so then he pulled in Stephen like a magic trick he brought Katie 12 of my books this delights me this part of it she never even opened one of them she gave them away she wasn't a reader and I think that's fabulous I loved that part so uh I had this little book this little book twelve page pamphlet twelve page very small pamphlet like a tiny little book and in fact I called it the little book but it's still free on the were calm today and it's in 36 or 39 different languages and pretty much it's guides people into their own suffering and then just a way to walk people out of it it's just pure inquiry for example let's say I'm I'm a little four or five year old child I'm playing I'm happy I have this amazing life and my mother says Byron Kathleen you are unlovable and I don't love you and what I can see today is that is absolutely not a problem there's no cruelty in it there's no there's no way to blame her for it because I've come to see that when we believe our thoughts we suffer and we say things that we are so sorry for and feel so guilty over but when we believe our thoughts we live out of that thought process and so she said I don't love you and so that is complete if I'm not experiencing compassion and connection with her because it's painful to see someone that way if I'm not seeing that then there's something way off and me so I'm just this little girl she says I don't love you there is zero problem until the moment I believed now that's my part I believed it just imagine she says that and I don't believe it so where was the where was the damage done if we I'm using that word loosely I believed it so there there are a lot of in and that became my identification I'm the unlovable one and so I have introducing to people you know as my job the simplicity of how to wait ourselves up from the dream of I am that identity I am unlovable in other words so a person might that feels that way might just ask themselves is it true and then meditate on I'm unlovable is it true and just to develop a practice let's say in the morning you do get up early and just sit in that practice and and and contemplate that that that I'm unlovable is is it true and then to just witness in that meditation how you react and what happens to your life when you believe the thought you're unlovable and just to witness what goes on when you the moment I believed it that became my identification so it gives everyone opportunity to see that for themselves and then that last question who would you be without the thought so I can go back and see my mother saying that would I be without the thought I'm who would I be without the thought I'm unlovable and there it is connected to my mother compassionate as opposed to living a life of trying to convince her all my life that I'm lovable and the torture of that and not just my mother but other people so you know we are we're all in this this world of seeking love approval and appreciation for what we already are and it's just a matter of of waking up to to that and inquiry it does wake us up to it and then the next thing I invite people to is is to take that assumption or judgment that we've been believing and and then to to turn it around and try it on as though you were trying on a new pair of shoes or something but I'm unlovable the opposite of that is I'm lovable now for some of us that's very difficult to hear because it's it's it's new we've never even considered such a thing so to get very still and close your eyes and just meditate on those those loving caring acts of kindness that we have that are common for us that we don't we're not even aware of because we're holding this identity of I'm unlovable so tightly for example but then when we get still and I'm lovable and I can just you know look back and end where it was i caring toward myself you know where was i caring towards someone else you know where have I said and done things that I find connect me to other human beings and in other words loving lovable things I do that I would love me for basically so it is like coming out of hell you know just coming back into a world that we're really living in but because we're believing our thoughts we're unaware of that beautiful world and I've come to see that you know beyond my own doubt that the universe is friendly and there is no opposite to that but what I'm thinking and believing could lead me to believe otherwise and I have a word for that it's called suffering and another word confusion another word war so this this new book a mind at home with itself it's the entire book it's Stephen introduced me to this book I'd never heard of the Diamond Sutra and it's all about gratitude and when we are living out of our kindest nature then that sense of gratitude comes with it and we wouldn't even name it gratitude it is just a sense of right living and joy and it's a fearless state of mind in life where we know what our talents are they're clear to us and there's nothing to stop us because we're living out of out of what is right and a mind that is is no longer confused in other words fearful to stop us no one and nothing can stop us from doing the right thing when our mind is clear and I really love that for people listening to this podcast to know that there is a way out of suffering but the world can't give that to me it's it really I don't call it the work for nothing mm-hmm and just sort of create a little bit of structure around what you just offered the work is you just navigated us through a really beautiful example of the process of inquiry that came to you which is this asking of these four questions and and these things that that you identifies turnarounds as a way to would it be accurate to say to develop the habit of testing the thoughts and assumptions that constantly come in and lead to suffering when you grasp onto them as truth Socrates said an unquestioned life isn't worth living and I am of that school what's interesting with the example that you just shared which was that your experience as it ran when I think about a you know as an adult okay so I can I can listen to this I can I can receive the process of the work and it makes sense to me and I say okay I'm open to this you know I'm there suffering in my life they're thoughts that I have that I'm not okay with let me let me at least I'm open to it let me try it four-year-old Byron Kathleen in your mind is is there a gateway to introduce this process the work to somebody much younger in life to create that lens long before the depth of suffering builds it's just happening it's happening all over well you know parents are there doing this work and it's shifting their children's lives and I watch my grandchildren and it's it's radical or chained because my daughter has the work in her life witnessing my grandchildren yeah it's really I did an event last night with Eileen Fisher and the two of us always have so much fun together she's such a such a force and I recall now an audience members stood up and talked about Tiger Tiger is it true which is it one of Katies books for children young children five six years old and it's the the questions are there so there there is a way for children to get it and then parents who who are actually taking asanas as a practice inquiry on as a practice on when their children come home for school from school for example they say no when no one likes me everyone hates me at school and and rather than say is it true a parent who really is steeped in in the work might say to that child are you sure that no one likes you no one likes you are you really sure and so we're connected we're empathetic we're listening we're not saying oh you know honey that's not true just I'll give you some cookies and milk it's not like that where you are connected we're listening and then the child might say yes it's true no one and then the parent steeped in the work in their own work would easily just continue to listen and say you know you look so upset how does that feel what are you going through what is that like for you so now the child is learning to get in touch with their emotions and in touch with what it sounds like to describe it and and learning so much about their inner world and then the parent might say do you recall you know walking home from school when that first hits your head and so that parent has just asked who would you be without the thought because they can see their life prior to the thought and their life with the thought and one is suffering one is not and they've already automatically turned it around but the parent can say you know let's let's sit down with us it sounds pretty serious to me I can see your heart and let's see if we can just find one person at school that cares about you and you know you can and maybe maybe you between the two of you can and and maybe not but both valuable and as a parent if that child were young you know I'd go to school with my child and be the one that does care about him at school but but for slightly older children it's actually being taught in schools now yeah so so for eight nine year olds there's a project underway a pilot project in Denver and they're finding this is with underprivileged children some of whom eat their only meal a day at school they're finding that the children are making such progress that teachers are starting to learn the work because they're seeing its effect on the kids and then the administrators start to get interested personally for themselves so it's it's really happening and it's accepted into build into the STEM program yeah which is I think that's brilliant yeah it's really exciting you know which is interesting because in settings like that things don't get accepted into a curriculum unless there's some sort of measurable outcome well these this particular teacher Rachel Rachel Pickett she came to the school for the work the nine day school for the work she came two or three times and as a young girl actually and it was just clear to her she said you know I'm going to go to school and I'm going to get my teaching credentials I want to take this and she didn't she she went to college she graduated she's very bright and she's teaching children the work so she has been doing this for three years and and when these children hit high school the way they excelled was so obvious you know they they could measurably see that it's worth it's really worth supporting and bringing into the school systems and so it's it's still you know in a trial thing but it's you know as before you can spread it through a whole country or world you got to make sure that it really is not just a flash in the pan but I mean the beauty of it is the simplicity of the process this is not a big heavy complex yeah like dogma and dogma it's not layered with with things or ideologies it is it's such a simple straightforward process that you can almost look at it and say well yeah it it just kind of makes sense what I love about it is there's no teacher involved it's just it's just just me with myself or just anyone doing the work it's just that person with himself and the opportunity to just get still and be shown what meets those questions when we ask with sincerity I don't want to gloss over also the last line that you said and if you sit down with that child and in fact the answer is we can't identify somebody else who likes you at school then you as a parent would then become that person because I would imagine there will be the occasional scenario where an entire school and entire community turns against one person and it does become very difficult to find the contrary evidence yes and even if it's not true if we believe it it's just as isolating it's just as cruel when we believe that you know it's everyone there could be no one in school that doesn't lie yes we would never be convinced that's how powerful the mind is so you mentioned the newest book which is I guess a joint effort yesterday well I was a kind of midwife unless that's a yeah a mind at home with itself and that's a mind no longer at war with itself that's a mind that understands the story of the Buddha with his students abuti and why don't you talk about it yeah people have been asking me for an us four years about a new kt book the last one last major one was a thousand names for joy which is based on my version of the Dao de Jing and so I I was involved for five years with Homer translating the Iliad and the Odyssey and when I finished that commitment I started to think what can be interesting framework for a new kt book and i thought of the diamond sutra which is an ancient Mahayana Buddhist text that was written in about 350 of the Common Era and it was it's a very important text in especially in Zen Buddhism so it's very close to me in my my own background my own training it's hardly known at all in the West people I know who have tried to read it have given up several times and several translations because the translations tend to be very clotted and academic and difficult to to penetrate so I thought it would be a a service to people to creative a version that was accessible easy to read clear and that would let the the marvelous wisdom of this ancient Buddhist monk who wrote it shine through into contemporary English so I did that and then brought it to Katie and and she was interested in in the project and so well you you read a chapter to me and I became very interested in its it's incredibly beautiful and something that I can relate to completely it was really it was it's really moving so beautiful I've been told Steven he'd read a chapter and then he'd want me to to speak to my own experience and relationship to that chapter and which I would and he would write it down and and then he do his beautiful thing moving the way I talk into a more understandable English and and I would tell him often this book is is so beautiful for me to say put one word into it would take away from it and he kept assuring me that that wasn't the case so we we have this this beautiful book and I really hope it serves people one of the things Jonathan that that struck me from the beginning was the similarities of the mind that created the Diamond Sutra in Katie's mind there's a great emphasis on inquiry in the Diamond Sutra and one of the terrific things that it does is it keeps pulling the rug out from under itself which you don't usually find in religious texts if you can call this religious but ever even even the clearest highest truths that the character of the Buddha in this text enunciates are invalidated right away or later so that you're left with nothing nothing to graph but you can you can grasp these truths and then you're grasping air it's wonderful how the subtle profound mind of the author educates you in in not knowing in in not grasping and it's very much what like what the work does looks at our assumptions looks at these cherished truths that we create our lives around and that creates so much suffering and then hoist us with our own petard as it were so so there were a lot of similarities and I was certain that in spite of what Katie said that she had nothing to add she had a great deal to end that could be any more value really but well what it does what it does you know in my experience what these her commentary hurt her reactions do is make insights which are sometimes hard to fathom in the insides of the Diamond Sutra they seem sometimes abstract and ethereal and and and impossible to grasp to penetrate her words make them flesh-and-blood and when she talks about her early experiences after the experience on the floor of learning how to be human again or from her from Katie's perspective learning how to be human period and the the rapture at the beginning that seemed crazy to some people and was actually the most rational sensible thing that you can imagine when you understand it where she was coming from so these stories make the insights of the Diamond Sutra very relatable to and very moving actually and I've talked to a number of people who went out right out in both the book and read it one person three times another twice and that within a few days and the first person was in tears all three times when he read the book and what he actually said was that he reads at one time and then and then he reads it and it's like a different book his experience I think reading at once for him on opened its mind up and then reading it again he's reading at a second time out of that open mind and then the third time out of a more enlightened mind so I really am hopeful that everyone would get as much from this book and I can see that in my experience it hit me on a couple different levels one structurally I thought it was really interesting that essentially the Diamond Sutra is a dialogue and this book is written as a dialogue about a dialogue which I thought was really interesting Wow well that's fascinating I hadn't thought of that yeah it just it added a really interesting layer me yeah so it's it's like listening to Bach in a sense there's this wonderful counterpoint that ye that you hear on a number of levels yeah yeah so there was that sort of just a really interesting structure that I felt like it drew me in more and I completely agree with Steve and Katy I feel like you're what you wrapped around because the Sutra itself is not long you know like most of these texts the actual thing is not long and very often when you read commentary on these things it's a hundred times longer than the actual text and it's one person saying this is what this means and what I found really moving was that this was a dialogue saying this is how I experienced it and similarly to how Steven you were sharing within the Diamond Sutra as soon as they say this is so they say but no it's not and if you believe it then you don't get it Katie you're you took the same approach because what was what was fascinating is it was a full-circle experience because it it kind of said and like Steven you were saying it's like it tied your deeper Tiger experience to a deeper lens that matched with the teachings of the Diamond Sutra so it was really fascinating to see this continuity through such a long death and it was known for a job it's the sutras of a text about generosity and the central insight of the Diamond Sutra is that the more deeply you understand that there's no real entity no such entity as the self in other words there's no in reality there's no separation between self and other the more deeply you realize that the more your life naturally becomes a life of generosity and the most generous one of the one of the rug pulling statements for example is sounds like the most generous thing in the world which is the Buddhist figure of the Bodhisattva who postpones his or her own enlightenment so that he or she can be there for the sake of all beings I mean what is more generous than that and then the buddha in the tech in the Diamond Sutra says but in reality when the Bodhisattva has saved all beings he or she realizes that there are no beings to save and that there's no one to save them now that's a bit of a mind Bend isn't it it makes perfect sense when for example I look at you you know use you as an example Steven it's like you are who I believe you to be and you are who you believe you to be so I can never really know you but when I love everything I think about you I can say I love you but really it's the you of my understanding so it's it's that internal that internal without sight it's closer than close it's like you whoever you are you belong to me you're mine because you are who I believe you to be and we don't do that on purpose we can look at someone and say he's unfair she's unkind she doesn't care about me why is she wearing that thing and you know really tears someone down in our mind but that doesn't that that's not that person that's who we believe that person to be so the next time we see that person we talk to them as though that is the person but it's all false self and it's self deception within me if I'm not loving everything I think I cannot love the world and so we seem separate to the world and tell our and until we're awake in in the way that you just spoke to the Buddha's understanding there is no self so when you love all the sentient beings in your mind when you love all the thoughts that you're thinking and the people to hear that populate your mind you've saved them beings are saved and you see the world as a place of complete clarity and beauty and and and that's the world that people live in who have practiced inquiry for a while and I love that because it's the only way the world can be saved and then that person becomes a kinder more caring more gifting human being and it's a cell phone and any kindness is a is a self filled life we could say it's just right mind just appearing to live itself out yeah some of this sounds like absolutely crazy solipsism you know and navel-gazing but it's truly the opposite because someone those mind is clear lives a life of service and generosity and it mean it's so obvious and completely unrecognizable and that's what I love about it just just in once we understand our true nature we have to see every one and every thing out of that and so every every time a person does self inquiry we become kinder more caring more connected wiser human beings we're actually not wiser we're just connected to the wisdom that's already there because our head is not so full of meanness and confusion yeah I feel like texts like this book and also the Diamond Sutra a lot of Zen Tibetan Buddhism difference or Eastern based philosophies that a lot of folks with a Western history and upbringing and orientation we really struggle so much with the ideas in them because at the root of it is dis identifying with the concept of capital as self and it is so far and because I think for so many people that like the idea is like how do we build that thing rather than how do we not even let go of it or dismantle it what we really learn to recognize that it it doesn't actually even exist in the first place and that that that idea is so jarring I think to so many that we don't even want to start to ask the questions and yet we persist in suffering I feel like this is actually a good place for us to come full circle so as we sit here I always end with one final question with everyone say I'm actually I love I love your both of your answers and it's a simple question with maybe a not so simple answer which is in in your experience what does it mean to live a good life to be present and recognize what is at hand to do and to do that without hesitation and to because it's just recognized as a good thing to do well I would go with that one and in Maya in a slightly different way for me personally living a good life is is always recognizing the genuine I I keep falling in love with the genuine wherever it appears in ancient texts or in in more modern literature or or music or art or people there's something magnetically compelling about someone who is speaking from a deep inner truth and I am always attracted to that and that's how I live my life and give us know thank you you're well thank you so much [Music] thanks so much for listening to today's episode if the stories and idea is in any way moved you I would so appreciate if you would take just a few extra seconds for two quick things one if it's touched you in some way if there's some idea or moment in the story or in the conversation that you really feel like you would share with somebody else that it would make a difference in somebody else's less take a moment and whatever app you're using just share this episode with somebody who you think it'll make a difference for email it if that's the easiest thing whatever is easiest for you and then of course if you're compelled subscribe so that you can stay a part of this continuing experience my greatest hope with this podcast is not just to produce moments and share stories and ideas that impact one person listening but to let it create a conversation to let it serve as a catalyst for the elevation of all of us together collectively because that's how we rise when stories and ideas become conversations that lead to action that's when real change happens and I would love to invite you to participate on that level thank you so much as always for your intention for your attention for your heart and I wish you only the best i'm jonathan fields signing off for a good life project [Music] you