How Do I Keep From Being Triggered? with Eckhart Tolle

My ego is really aggressive. It comes up without me knowing. Only after the ego is gone do I find out how can I manage my ego sooner. That is not uncommon. There's probably more than you, the questioner who has that, who experiences that as more presence arises. So first of all, it's important to invite presence into your life. In ordinary situations, when you are not being challenged by another person, the anger mostly is probably with people or situations. But most situations involve people. So be present when you're out in nature by not labeling things, by observing in that state of alert attention and presence then emanates more and more through you. This doesn't mean that necessarily you will. Next time the ego comes up being aggressive, it comes up so quickly that you can't catch it in the moment. But as the presence in you grows, manifests more strongly. Usually what happens is the time period that elapses after you've been taken over by anger gets shorter until you reach a point where a few seconds after it's happened, you suddenly realize it's happened again. Be aware as before. You might have read it several minutes or even an hour in some cases. The next day you realize, what was that? When you had a huge drama with somebody, probably involving the pain body. Your pain body is probably predominantly has the anger vibration predominantly. And pain body that is not recognized as pain body becomes part of the ego. In the same way that any thought that you completely identify with becomes part of the ego. In the same way, an emotion that you completely identify with becomes part of the ego. Once you recognize the pain body as the pain body, then it is an energy field in you that still operates. But strictly speaking, it's no longer your ego. Ego can only operate as long as you're unconscious. So although sometimes people say to me, I'm able to observe my ego now in the way I use the term ego, that's no longer true. The moment you become aware of your ego, it's not really ego anymore. It is still behavioral or mental emotional pattern that operates in you, but you are present. When you know that there is this pattern operating in you, then you are not operates in you, and you are the space around it, which is the consciousness. You know it's there. Then before it was ego. Yes, but when you recognize it through what it is, it's no longer ego. Ego means unconsciousness. Ego means complete identification. So whatever you recognize in yourself isn't really ego anymore. And so then as presence grows in you reach a point when immediately after this episode, pain body episode, anger episode, has just happened, you suddenly realize, oh, it happened again. And then I predict if it hasn't happened to you yet, it will. A time comes perhaps very soon, when in the middle of already has taken you over and you're shouting at someone, and in the middle of it you realize what's going on, that you've been taken over by, that you still may not be able to stop it, don't have to. But the awareness is there in the middle of it. And that may happen many times. And then you may find the awareness is there just the moment it begins to arise, the moment the anger pattern wants to come in. The awareness is also already there. Now, whether or not at this moment you can stop it, we don't know, and never stop it. By suppressing it, you stop it simply by. By shining the light of awareness on it. That eventually stops it. And then when the presence is strong enough for that, then you actually begin to have a choice. Do I choose to engage in the same way through my pain body in this situation? Is this the best way of dealing with the situation? You may not literally ask yourself that question, but it is implied. In that state of awareness you have a choice. You can no longer at the mercy of the old condition pattern. And then it begins to dissipate. So I predict that this will happen, that presence more and more will come in at earlier stages and then in the middle of it, and then at the beginning of it. But you need to cultivate or invite presence into your life in ordinary situations, in helpful situations, so that it can be there in challenging situations. Don't rely on challenging situations alone. That's not going to work. Invite it into your life in situations where it's easy. Situations that lend themselves to presence, nature, walking in nature, looking at the sky, or if you can't get out into nature, look at a flower just for half a minute, a minute. And not just look while you look at a flower. And this is just one example, could be anything natural. While you look at a flower, not only aware of what it is you're looking at, the sense perception, you don't need label the name of the flower is irrelevant. All that you don't need for this. You look at a flower, you can not only see whatever it is that you see with your visual sense, your sight, but there's more to the flower than what you see with your visual sense. And that is an alive presence. Very hard to talk about it. Remember the I believe I quoted it the other day, the saying from Saint Exupery, all that is essential is invisible to the eye. All that is essential is invisible to the eye. So although the flower is beautiful, within the flower there's hiding a presence that is invisible to the eye. The flower has a presence there. It is not by accident that in many spiritual traditions, flowers are sacred symbols. In Buddhism, for example, in other traditions, certain flowers are sacred symbols. The mandala itself, the sacred mandala paintings, basically, many of them are based on flower designs. Flowers are naturally occurring mandalas. And so what is essential about the flower? Yes, there is the external beauty. But the real meaning of beauty is there is an inner essence there. But you cannot sense that when you are looking at the flower through the screen of conceptualization. So you have to drop the string of conceptualization which is thought, and look at the flower and give it a little bit of time. And then you begin to sense something. But where do you sense that you sense it? In yourself. What is it that you sense in yourself when you look at the flower? It's both in the flower and in you. It is the essence, the animating consciousness. Behind this manifestation of this beautiful manifestation of form, there is beyond the form, there is, we could call it the animating spirit. And that is the same animating spirit, which is consciousness. That is in you. When you have access to it in yourself, you can sense it there. But giving complete attention, for example, to a flower can be very helpful in deepening the access you have to it in yourself. So the flower can teach you stillness, because the flower is very still, and teach you other things, because stillness is only one particular signpost that we use to speak of it. So you sense the basic. The essence of the flower, which is sacred. And you can sense the essence of yourself, which is sacred. And you can somehow sense that the essence of the flower and the essence of yourself are one and the same. And that is the recognition of oneness, which is all the ancient mystics and so on spoken about this. And that is just you love it. Basically, that means that is what love is. You recognize yourself in the other. It doesn't have to be another human being or it's beautiful when you recognize yourself in another human being, but you also recognize yourself in nature. So this is important because that brings. So allow nature to teach you stillness. Now, nature, of course, embodies a completely different degree of consciousness from yours. I will now make a mystical statement. You don't have to believe it. The flower loves it when you give it attention. Because you add something enormous to the flower by giving it attention. The flower is not aware of its own beauty. It just is. And when you unite your consciousness with the flower through you, because ultimately you're not, the separateness that we see in the physical is not really there. Through you, the flower gets a glimpse of self recognition. The flower recognizes itself. So when nature is waiting for you to recognize it, and what nature alone is also involved in is part of the evolving universe that is becoming more conscious. And humans are an essential part of that on this planet. So when a human becomes conscious of nature, nature through the human, becomes conscious of itself. And it's an amazing process. Whether or not this is true, you have to kind of find out for yourself by being more attentive in nature and giving, honoring what's there. And as much as possible, relate to nature without the screen of knowledge. When you need it, it's fine. If a child asks you what's the name of this flower? You tell the child what the name is. But hopefully you don't say, this is a rose. Hopefully, you say to the child, it's called a rose. There's a very big difference between saying this is a rose. Because that would be saying to the child that this concept is what it is, that the sound rose is that. No, it's only a name. The name of it is rose. And so to prevent the child from getting lost in concepts at an early age, always, once you've taught a word, always bring the child back to the actual experience of it, so that the child does not come to the misperception that the name of the flower is the flower. There's a depth to the flower that gets totally covered up when you mistake the name for the flower. So that's why, when you truly want to see it, you have to remove the mental label. And you can only do that by being present. The alertness rises and then you communicate. You relate to the flower without the screen of concepts. So this was something to do with presence. This part of the answer, although I went some distance away from the answer of anger arising and catching it. So it's vital to generate presence in normal life in nature and so on, so that it's there when the pain body arises.