Practical Tips to Stay Present and in Stillness | Eckhart Tolle

At least put aside just maybe once a day, 15 minutes when you check your Tinder, it's all very important, but there's something more important, and that's why you're here. And a few more practical tips so that you don't get distracted too much while you take your attention more deeply while you're here, take your attention more deeply into being or into attention itself. Purely practical. Don't turn on the TV in your room, please. I have not installed hidden cameras to check on you. Second, limit your interaction, the interaction with your devices. If you cannot eliminate interaction with your devices completely, and I understand that you may not survive if you do at least put aside just maybe once a day, 15 minutes when you check your whatever it is that comes through, whatever text, email, Facebook, Snapchat, Tinder, it's all very important, but there's something more important, and that's why you're here. So now, let's see. I suggest to you that you make an agreement with yourself not to go there unless any more than is absolutely necessary. And I mean, if you occasionally you get it out and to take a photo is okay, but also don't interact with things around you, only through imagining what it would look like as a photo on your phone. And then say, okay, I'm going to fully experience this beautiful thing when I get home and look in my photos. In the meantime, I'm more interested in taking this photo because that's what the. There's a species that has developed out of Homo sapiens, a branch species called Homo turisticus. And they walk around continuously with either camera or things. You see them every day, they come in buses. And then in the evening, the Homo turisticus goes home mostly, and then you are left here. And you might notice it becomes quite still outside at this time. And the days are very, very long here. You may find it unusual if you come from a more southern place that there's still daylight around. Even at 10:30, there's still light in the sky. So then it becomes very still here. So you can walk along the lake or just wherever you are and just become aware of that surrounding stillness. And as you become aware of the surrounding stillness, of course you become still yourself. And if you are still, it means you are not thinking or very little thinking. And it means you are aware, it means you are present. It means you are living through the deep I so use nature that is around you live through the deep I. And during the daytime, if you are walking and there's lots of. There's a Long weekend here and tomorrow is a holiday in Canada here. So there's more tourists, homo touristicus than usual. And if you get upset by the fact that there are so many tourists walking around, then you just practice this beautiful spiritual practice of acceptance of the isness of this moment. And immediately you become still too, without needing external silence, complete acceptance of this moment, including the tourists. And you still, oh, I don't know how tourists will develop in the future as a species. In Thailand, just near Bangkok, somebody they interviewed some near Buddhist monastery, they interviewed some farmers and farm workers. They would give food to the monks. That's the tradition in Buddhism, entire in the South Theravada tradition of Buddhism, the monks come with their begging bowls every morning. They just stand there. And then the local people come and put food. They are dependent, it's done on purpose. There's a wisdom behind it. Or the Westerner would say, why don't they work for a living? The monks stand there with their begging bones and then the poor people who hardly have enough, who hardly have enough themselves, they come and put some food, a bit of rice, whatever, in the begging bolt. And the monks just stand. They don't say thank you because it's a privilege for you to give food to the monks. That's part of the tradition. So the Westerners interviewed the farm workers. Why do you give your food to the monks when you have so little yourself? And they began talking to each other and say, well, because we want a better incarnation next time. So we are accumulating merit, so next time we come, we are born into a better condition. And then the Westerner asked, so what do you want to come back as in your next lifetime? And then they talked amongst each other. And finally the agreement was we want to come back as tourists. Because they observe these people, they step out of their buses, they're well dressed, and some are obviously so privileged that they are quite big bodies, which means they have plenty of money, they can eat as much as they like, so that's a great thing. And then they do all kinds of things. They seem to have sex all the time. And so it's a great thing. Wouldn't it be great in my next lifetime to spend my whole lifetime as being a tourist? They don't realize it would be a dreadful nightmare. Oh yes, one more practical thing, intoxicating beverages. There's no prohibition here on anything. There's just a recommendation, and that is to refrain as much as possible from intoxicating. If English is not your native language, it means alcohol refrain as much as possible from intoxicating beverages. However, if you cannot enjoy dinner without a glass of wine, then you can have a glass of wine. It one glass of wine would not unduly interfere with the arising presence in you, but two might, and three, it will, unless you are really already deeply engaged in presence, deeply rooted in presence, in which case you wouldn't even want to drink too much, and you certainly wouldn't get drunk. So as little as possible, I recommend none at all would be great. But since everybody here is spiritually advanced, if you do have a glass of wine, you will not be judged. I'm not one of these spiritual teachers who have very unconventional ways of teaching. I know of two or three that did that. They give their students as much alcohol as they want and say, drink, drink up, in order to observe if they can stay conscious even while they are intoxicated. A very questionable practice, but I won't do that here with you. I think one or two are feeling sorry now. So we've talked about the distractions on the external level, television devices, intoxicating beverages, or other intoxicating substances. I would advise against it, at least here, and never indulge, even when you're not here. As you probably know, I've already mentioned I tried it a couple of times. I have to, because people ask me questions about it. I cannot answer if I haven't tried. Wasn't that great? I prefer my normal state of consciousness. It felt a little bit almost oppressive. But I can see a person who is tortured on a daily basis by their mind. It can be a relief to have a smoke. But here we have something better. We are not falling below thinking, we are rising above thinking. And that is the next step in human evolution. As you rise above thinking, you don't need to fall below thinking anymore because you become liberated from your mind in the dimension that is transcendent to thought. So, and another practice, of course here is the daily, the moment to moment practice of accepting the isness of the present moment. That's a powerful way of and a quick way of going beyond the surface self, the egoic self, which means stop complaining either internally or externally. Of course, if there's something that needs to be changed, of course you go to the reception or you make a phone call. If suddenly there's water coming through the ceiling. Hopefully I'm not manifesting it by talking about it. There's water coming to the ceiling and the mattress, and you, Honor getting drenched. You don't say, except what is Stay, stay on the bed, eckhart said don't complain. So that's not the practice. But it does mean that when you finally go to the telephone and tell them what happened, it's not done in a complaining manner that says how dreadful this place is. How can you allow something like this to happen to me? This is dreadful. That strengthens the ego. No, you just explain what is and what can we do about it. And in the meantime you surrender to the fact that you are wet. That's what is it.