Eckhart Tolle's Life Practices | Non Labeling & Life in Small Moments

And the other is another great thing you want to practice is, and this is so important, awareness of sense perceptions. Without labeling. You can do it anywhere. In the middle of the city, in the country, on the beach, at home, in the office, in a restaurant, in a cafe. Let's take cafe as an example. You sit. You're having a cup of tea or coffee, and you sit in a cafe and use it. Instead of going to your phone. Use it as a spiritual practice. It's a cafe practice, but you don't have to drink coffee with it. You can drink anything. It's a public place. And you sit there for 10 minutes, let's say, looking around at all what's happening around you, all the people and what they are doing and sitting. Most of them will be on their phones. That's okay. But you are not. And you look, and here's the room, and you might see what's happening in the street also. And as you sit there, you get in touch with your presence, the sense of presence and being. Maybe feel the inner body and feel your own presence, the presence of consciousness. You as consciousness. And then you look around and you listen. There are sounds and you look. And your practice is not to label your sense perceptions mentally. In other words, you're just looking. And as you look, feel the presence of yourself. And then look around in thoughtless awareness. It's a wonderful practice. And you will love what you see. Because every human is an expression of the one life in their own way. Every human is quite lovely and lovable. But you don't have to say that in your mind. It's a realization of the aliveness of every human. But you cannot sense the aliveness of every other human if you cannot sense your own aliveness. So your own presence or aliveness is the basis for sensing the aliveness of other humans. And by doing that, you love them in a way. Not the clinging love that says, oh, I want you. You're quite happy with them doing what they do. You don't need to want to interact necessarily. You just be there. You just love them. They're all manifestations of the one, the one life. And they're all so different. Isn't that amazing? Not a single human is the same out of billions. They're all different. That's wonderful. And yet the essence in each one is the one essence that is one with your essence. And you can sense that if you don't label them. So that's a lovely practice to enjoy the aliveness of things in a limited space. If you sit I mean, you're in a relatively passive situation when you sit in a cafe. Relatively. There's a coffee, you might be tea, whatever you are drinking, but you're not doing much. So it's relatively easy to be there as the presence. And you don't have to do it in a way that people necessarily notice, or they probably won't notice anyway, because they're on their phones, they don't see anything. But if they happen to be looking up from their phones, it might look bit weird that you are not on your phone. There's something wrong with you. So that's one place. Another place, of course, is in nature. And that's a wonderful way to practice. Also choose a spot, you stand or sit somewhere. And lying is not immediately advisable if you lie down, because that can easily take you below thought. You want to remain above thought. So you stand or sit, and then nature. That might even be easier than in the cafe, because in a cafe there's lots of things still happening that stimulate thought because people are talking. Or the general energy field is mind. If you go into nature, you're in no mind. And then the same way you perceive in that alert awareness the miraculous life forms around you that have no name. If you don't give them names, have no name. And if you don't obscure things with names, you can sense their inherent aliveness. They speak to you. So there's another dimension that reveals itself to you that is everywhere in nature that you don't know when you're stuck in your mind at label things. And that's a beautiful way of practicing presence. Don't destroy nature by getting. I mean, gradually you're sitting under a tree in this miraculously, the same place where the Buddha found enlightenment sitting under a tree. And you get out your phone. It's such a wonderful opportunity under this trees of wonderful beings. And you sit under the tree and there's the vastness of the sky and nature. And just be there in that moment, not as a person, but as a conscious presence. Wow. And don't overdo it. Even if you just do it for 10 minutes, just be there. Watch. So the practice is sense perception without mentally labeling them. It requires an alertness. It's a choice. You make that choice to. And that's a shift in consciousness. And every time you do that, you are not there as a person. The person is kind of temporarily disappeared. You are there as a conscious presence, as the deeper presence of life itself. And that's beautiful. So that's a practice. Same thing Practice nature. Practice in a public place. You can practice at every traffic light. If you're driving every time the light is red, practice presence, red light, presence. And look at the beauty of that red light. Ultimately, everything is natural because that's energy too. It's a manifestation of energy. The red traffic light, it has an aliveness too. It sounds weird, but it does. And so there's the light. And it's telling you to be present. People have worked out, I don't know who did it. If somebody reaches the age of 70 and they drive, start driving at the age of 20. Somebody worked out how many. Unfortunately, I don't retain a lot of information in my mind. So you would have spent like a year or so or more of your life sitting in traffic lights. And for most people, that is something they don't like. But it's. Why not choose that, be present. Also another thing I mentioned, little activities, washing your hands. Be there completely takes you out of your mind. Sensory perception. Ah, water. Beautiful, maybe scent of soap. And you give it complete attention, which means you're not thinking. You're just experiencing elevator lift, elevator. You're waiting for it. You can either get out your phone or you can just be choosing presence. And the more you choose it, the easier it gets and the deeper you go into presence. And then you realize after a while, you didn't really choose presence, chose you. Presence wanted to come through you. Because sometimes people ask me, well, who is choosing presence? Well, it's just one way of looking at it. Presence. When you get out of the way as a person, presence is there. That is so. Use all those things to transform your life. Use the opportunities of obstacles when they arise, seeming obstacles. Accept each moment as if you had chosen it. That's vital. So I've given you these portals out of the mind and into presence. And of course, a primordial portal into presence is the present moment. So that is always there. Coming into the present moment is an aspect of every practice that I have given. It always involves coming into the. Whether you go into the body, whether you are aware of your breathing, whether you practice sensory perception without labeling, it always involves being more conscious and more fully in the present moment. So therefore, an associated practice is to simply become aware of the present moment. And that's an amazing thing too, because. And it's so vital because there is nothing else. So if you never fully acknowledge the isness of this moment, you miss the whole thing, which is called your life. You miss the whole thing. If you are not aware of the present Moment. But how to be aware of the present moment encapsulates all that we have spoken about. First step. It has first level of being aware of the present moment is to be aware of your sense perceptions. That brings the first step into the present moment. Then perhaps you are aware of your breathing and your inner body and sense perception at the same time. So first you become where you are, what's around you, or what you're doing. And then you go deeper into the present moment. And the essence of the present moment is you. So if you get the essence of what we call the present moment is consciousness. And consciousness is the space in which everything happens. Consciousness is the one thing that never changes, is the present moment. It's always now. It's always now. And what is the present moment in essence? In essence, the present moment is not what happens in the present moment. The deeper essence is the present moment is the space for whatever happens. And there's the space like the canvas, however you want to call it. So you are aware of yourself ultimately as the present moment. And this realization that ultimately you are the present moment. Those words had not come to me when I was writing the Power of Now. So it never got into the book because the words came to me after I'd already written the book. Oh, I should have put that in. Oh no, why didn't I put that in? Oh, you're no good. I didn't do that. So you can you sense the essence of what present moment really means as consciousness? The one thing that is beyond any doubt that you are right now conscious. And that's not the right way of putting it. If I say you are conscious, you are. Consciousness is better. You are consciousness. Everything else could be a dream or an illusion, including this room and me talking. Am I dreaming this? He's talking. He's saying, I may be dreaming this. Okay, maybe you are. Maybe all of sensory, perceived, so called reality, is a kind of dream, some way of looking at it. Certainly everything dissolves quickly. And then where was it? Where has it gone? It's gone. And the dream dissolves too. But what remains beyond any doubt, even if it is all a dream, there needs to be a consciousness for the dream to be perceived. And you are that. But what scientists don't look at is their own consciousness. So you have the two realms, the two mysteries, the outer space and then the macrocosm. And you have the microcosm, the most fundamental mystery, the fact that, that the universe is conscious. That is the most amazing miracle. It.