Eckhart Tolle explains dukkha, the unhappiness that comes from building your identity on external things like achievements and relationships. He argues that nothing outside you can give lasting fulfillment. The answer is finding your true self in what he calls space consciousness, a formless awareness beyond thought where circumstances no longer control your well-being.
You don't look to the world for completion of your sense of identity. You don't seek yourself anymore in the things of this world. So, if you remain trapped in the mental conditional The conditioned energy field of the personality, then you are condemned to perpetual dissatisfaction, to put it mildly, or to use an even more generic term, unhappiness. That's a translation of a generic term that the Buddha used when he used the term dukkha. Dukkha. Which can be translated, it's usually translated as suffering, but in more generic terms it means unhappiness, misery, unease. Let's stay with unhappiness in whatever form. So you're condemned to that, every situation turns into eventually something turns up to mar the situation in some way, whether it's a person or place. Or an activity or something that you add to your life, that you obtain. There's always something, and that's in the nature of things. But it only happens— and that's the positive part of the Buddha's teaching, is never really spoken of because he doesn't want you to believe in something. So whatever happens, There's always something that goes wrong, so to speak. But that's not a pessimistic statement. That is— that only applies if you are dependent for your sense of well-being, your sense of who you are, if you are dependent on all those external factors for your sense of who you truly are, your sense of identity, your sense of well-being, because nothing can satisfy you for long. And that's— if you leave it at that, it sounds a little pessimistic or nihilistic. Okay, so what's the point in anything? says the person who superficially studies Buddhism or other teachings. So if nothing can satisfy, what's the point in anything? I might as well get drunk and then experience Briefly that, and then the next hangover, and then get drunk again, and then eventually I'll kill myself. But that's all— that is only the first part. He says, if you seek yourself in all those things that you think will bring you salvation, if you seek yourself in those things of the world, that the world offers, then you will be unhappy. But now, the unspoken part is, but if you find yourself in the formless realm of transcendent consciousness, then the world is actually no longer such a bad place because you don't look to the world, which means other people, achievements, situations and places and acquisitions. You don't look to the world for completion of your sense of identity. You don't seek yourself anymore in the things of this world. Then the things of the world are no longer as frustrating as they were before, and you can allow things to be. You can participate in the play of form, in manifesting. You can even enjoy relationships. Because you're no longer looking for completion of your sense of self through those things. Why are you no longer looking for completion of your sense of self through those things? Because you have found yourself not in the realm of object consciousness, not in the realm of thought, Or sensory perception, you have found a deeper dimension within yourself, which we call temporarily space consciousness. I also sometimes call it the deep I.
Why alcohol feels like relief, and what it is really giving you | Eckhart Tolle
