The space of don’t-know

You can’t empty your mind of thoughts.

You might as well try to empty the ocean of its water.

Thoughts just keep coming back, it seems.

That’s the way of it.

 

 

But thoughts aren’t a problem if they’re met with understanding.

Why would you even want to empty your mind,

unless you’re at war with reality?

 

I love my thoughts.

And if I were ever to have a stressful thought,

I know how to question it and give myself peace.

 

 

Even the most stressful thought could come along,

and I would just be amused.

 

 

 

You can have ten thousand thoughts a minute,

and if you don’t believe them,

your heart remains at peace.

 

 

The original stressful thought is the thought of an I.

Before that thought, there was peace.

 

 

 

A thought is born out of nothing and

instantly goes back to where it came from.

 

 

If you look before, between, and after your thoughts,

you’ll see that there is only a vast openness.

That’s the space of don’t-know.

 

 

 

It’s who we really are.

It’s the source of everything,

it contains everything:

 

life and death, beginning, middle and end.

 

 

– Byron Katie