Eckhart Tolle's Simple Guide to Living in the Present Moment

So here you practice being. And one of the very helpful practices here in order to avoid adding to the clutter of your mind and in fact letting go of the clutter is practice awareness of the simplicity of the present moment, the sense perceptions of the present moment. Acknowledge the isness of all things, give it attention and refrain as much as possible from labeling your sense perceptions. That is not impossible. It is of course, it is of course a deep seated habit to continuously have to label your sense perception what you're seeing. Oh, look at that. Isn't that nice? Oh, this was something I thought last year my aunt had that. Oh, I wish I had that in my book. Where can you buy that I wonder, isn't this interesting? I wonder what the tree is called. There's nothing wrong with finding the names of trees. But don't lose yourself in that. There is another way of being in the world that is non conceptual, that awakens the non conceptual dimension, the non conceptual intelligence in you. Because there is a vast intelligence waiting to be awakens it. And I call it non conceptual intelligence. It cannot be measured in IQ tests so you might have a high iq. Doesn't mean you're closer to awakening. In fact if you identified with all the knowledge then you are further away from awakening if you are identified with it. Practicing sense perception without labeling mentally. And this is beautiful and this is part of the beingness of the practice being sense perception is visual, auditory. The birds, visual sky, amazing things to see, vegetation, plants, even feeling the breeze on your skin, the warm air. Sometimes the wind can get quite strong here it's we added on first day I came here there's a trade winds that sometimes blow across the ocean, can last for hours and days and it's a continuous and you can feel it on your skin, it's not unpleasant and so you can feel that and breathe whatever scent there may be in the air. All senses and experience that be there as the awareness for the sense perceptions. And that awareness is the space. So you are the space for whatever arises but knowingly right now, here we can practice that. Sit here aware of the room, the totality of it. You can look around, ceiling. There's a man sitting on the chair up here. Who is that? The body. Okay, quite pleasant. But I'm already labelling it. But there's no need to label it, just let it be. So in this moment there are your sense perceptions. Mostly visual probably and auditory because that's the sound of my voice. Sense perceptions. And yes of course you might feel the weight of your body on the chair, all that? Yes. And what else is there? That which enables the sense perceptions to be. We could call that consciousness. But that is the essence of you. That is the deep I. So can you be aware of that deep I at the same time as you perceive through your senses whatever is there? So there are two dimensions here. Now one dimension is the world, whatever it contains. And you take that in through sensory perception. And then you are aware of the awareness that makes sensory perception possible. You feel that you are, you can sense the I am. And here things happen. But in the depths of your being, nothing is happening. It's beyond any happening because there's no time there. There's time here, everywhere. Time is the thing that enables you to do everything that you do. Time does that and then it takes everything away. Time gives you all kinds of stuff and it makes you grow and they get stronger and then it starts eroding you and then in the end it kills you. Oh my God. Time is killing me. Some people, I already realized that a long time ago that time is killing. But the older one gets, the more you realize that time is engaged in killing you. That's scary. If all that you know of yourself is the physical body and the personality, then there's great fear. That's all you know. You've never gone any deeper. Oh, so the timeless dimension, present moment, present moment is the portal into that dimension, transcendent dimension. Now this is a beautiful practice. Sense perceptions without let go of labels when they arise, just don't become too interested in the labels. They are thoughts, just let go. And then while you are here especially the practice is to be as present moment centered as possible. Because your life otherwise, normally your life usually consists of your past, the present moment and your called future. Now for most people, either future or past completely, almost completely occupy their attention. For younger, until you get old, it's usually future. When you reach a certain age and you realize you don't have much future left, then you become more interested in the past and you can't thinking about it. Oh, that was then. Oh, I remember that. Yeah. But the present moment is rarely fully acknowledged. It's always, it's just a stepping stone to the next moment, which is the future. Or you actively hate it. That's not uncommon too. There are people who live in an antagonistic relationship with the present moment most of their lives. And sometimes some older people, they get the cantankerous old men. Don't talk to me about that. I know it all. It's all rubbish, nonsense. So here you practice living in the two dimensions, the deep I and the surface I is fine. It has its place, you acknowledge it. But practice present moment living, you don't need to. The future and the past, never. Obviously, everybody knows that. That they actually don't exist as.