Through inquiry, we discover how an attachment to a belief or story causes suffering. Before the story there is peace. Then a thought enters, we believe it, and the peace seems to disappear. We notice the feeling of stress in the moment, investigate the story behind it, and realize it isn’t true. The feeling lets us know that we are opposing what is by believing the thought. It tells us that we’re at war with reality. When we notice that we are believing a lie and living as if it were true, we become present outside our story. Then the story falls away in the light of awareness, and only the awareness of what is remains. Peace is who we are without a story, until the next stressful story appears. Eventually inquiry becomes alive in us as the natural, wordless response of awareness to the thoughts and stories that arise.
– Byron Katie