Why did the ancient Masters esteem the Tao?
Because, being one with the Tao,
when you seek, you find;
and when you make a mistake, you are forgiven.

I love that what is of true value can’t be seen or heard. It’s nothing and it’s everything, it’s nowhere and it’s right under your nose—it is your nose, as a matter of fact, along with everything else. It can’t be reached or achieved, because as soon as you start looking for it, you leave it. It doesn’t have to be achieved, only noticed.

Nothing anyone says is true and no thought that arises within you is true. There’s nothing. And yet, here is the world again. The sun in the sky. The sidewalk. The dog trotting along on a leash.

When you understand that you’re one with reality, you don’t seek because you realize that what you have is what you want. Everything makes sense because you don’t superimpose your thinking onto reality. And when you make a mistake, you realize immediately that it wasn’t a mistake; it was what should have happened, because it happened. Before the fact, there were infinite possibilities; after the fact, there was only one.

The more clearly you realize that would have, could have, should have are just unquestioned thoughts, the more you can appreciate the value of that apparent mistake and what it produced.

Seeing this is forgiveness in its totality.

In the clarity of understanding, forgiveness is unnecessary.

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Assistant Ed: Steph Richard / Ed: Catherine Monkman

{Article excerpted from A Thousand Names for Joy by Byron Katie with Stephen Mitchell, © 2007. Reprinted by permission of the publisher, Three Rivers Press.}