A Workshop On Byron Katie’s The Work On August 23rd

How Can’t I Help?

In 1985, Ram Dass wrote a book entitled How Can I Help? The assumption, about the primacy of caring for others, is that we can. Could it be that this is the wrong question to ask, at least at the outset?

Early in the pandemic, I was philosophizing with an Indian American whose father, then living in Tennessee, was an alcoholic prone to great mood swings. This man’s insight about his father was that henceforth he wouldn’t “get in the way of my dad’s relationship with God.”

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You might be thinking that this shows maturity and restraint on the part of my conversation partner, and if so, you’d be partially right.

Yet that interpretation would also miss a deeper truth, which is that many of us have often been intervening in other people’s lives without realizing that we aren’t yet in a position to be able to help. I suspect that most of us reading this Substack would like to help others (good) and would also like to think that we’ve done so in the past, but how many of us have reckoned—that is, have really wrestled—with the fact that we may not yet be able to?

See how common it is for us to believe that we know what’s best for others; to feel certain about what should be done; to be firmly convicted about what ought to be changed. Take a second look at those keywords: know, feel certain, and be firmly convicted. Just like my conversation partner, we may need to confront our own know-it-all-ism as a precondition for offering a helping hand to those we deeply care about.

Thus my earnest questions:

1. What if we need to purify ourselves to some considerable extent before we’re really able to be of service to others?
2. What if some modicum of self-knowledge is necessary in order for help to be skillfully provided?
3. And what if trying to do so before then may, more often than not, engender unintended consequences, even quiet forms of harm?

Which brings me to Inner Purification #2: “Working With The Work,” a practicum on Byron Katie’s The Work. (For more on The Work with reference to the ego-knower identity, read the last issue.)

Event At A Glance

• Theme: A philosophical inquiry into Byron Katie’s The Work
• What: Essentially, lots of practice in The Work. More granularly:
  • 1.) A guided exploration of these 4+ questions (~30 minutes)
  • 2.) A brief exposition and clarification (~10 minutes)
  • 3.) One-on-one demonstrations of The Work with willing participants (~30 minutes)
  • 4.) Open discussion (~20 minutes)
• Where: Zoom
• When: Saturday, August 23rd at 12 noon PT / 4 p.m. ET
• How: Register via Luma
• How Long: 1 1/2 hours
• Offering: $15 (suggested); $5 (minimum)

About Me

I’m a Ph.D.-trained practical philosopher and meditation teacher. Over the past 15 years, I’ve explored—with executives, tech founders, and finance professionals—the things that matter most (philosophy) as well as the deep peace that’s at the heart of our experience (meditation).

I’ve meditated for thousands of hours, originally devoting myself to Zen (under the tutelage of a Zen teacher based in Kyoto, Japan); I still sit 4 hours daily. In recent years, I’ve been instructing others in the Awareness Teaching of Advaita Vedanta, an approach which insists that abiding peace is to be found through clear self-knowledge.

To learn more about me, you can visit my website.

Registration

You can register via Luma.

Coda: Going Deeper

• “Does The Work Actually Work?”
• “A Philosophical Defense Of Byron Katie’s The Work”