Stillness Speaks
by Eckhart Tolle
Silence and Stillness:
Do you need more knowledge?
Is more information going to save the world, or faster computers, more
scientific or intellectual analysis? Is it not wisdom that humanity
needs most at this time? What is wisdom and where is it to be found?
Wisdom comes with the ability to be still. Just look and just listen.
No more is needed. Being still, looking, and listening activates the
non-conceptual intelligence within
you. Let stillness direct your words and actions.
Beyond the Thinking Mind:
1. The human condition: lost in thought.
2.
In you, as in each human being, there is a dimension of consciousness
far deeper than thought. It is the very essence of who you are. We may
call it presence, awareness, the unconditioned consciousness. In the
ancient teachings, it is your Buddha nature.
3.
Become at ease with the state of "not knowing." This takes you beyond
mind because the mind is always
trying to conclude and interpret. It is afraid of not knowing. So,
when you can be at ease with not knowing, you have already gone beyond
the mind. A deeper knowing that is non-conceptual then arises out of
that state.
Who You Truly Are:
1.
It matters whether you succeed or fail in the eyes of the world. It
matters whether you are healthy or not healthy, whether you are educated
or not educated. It matters whether you are rich or poor -- it
certainly makes a difference in your life. Yes, all these things
matter, relatively speaking, but they don't matter absolutely. There is
something that matters more than
any of
those things and that is finding the essence of who you are
beyond that short-lived personalized sense of self.
2.
All the misery on the planet arises due to a personalized sense of "me"
or "us." That covers up the essence of who you are. When you are
unaware of the inner essence, in the end you always create misery --
it's as simple as that. When you don't know who you are, you create a
mind-made self as a substitute for your beautiful divine and cling to
that fearful and needy self. Protecting and enhancing that false sense
of self then becomes your primary motivating force.
3.
When you know who you truly are, there is an abiding alive sense of
peace. You could call it joy because that's what joy is: vibrantly
alive
peace.
It is the joy of knowing yourself as very life
essence before life takes on form. That is the joy of Being -- of
being who you truly are.
4. Most people's lives are run by desire and fear. Desire is the need to add
something to yourself in order to be yourself more fully. All fear is
the fear of losing something and thereby becoming diminished and being
less. These two movements obscure the fact that Being cannot be given
or taken away. Being in its fullness is already within you, Now.
Acceptance and Surrender:
1.
"Doing one thing at
a time" is the essence of Zen. Doing one thing at a time means to be
total in what you do, to give it your complete attention. This is
surrendered action -- empowered action.
2.
Surrender becomes so much easier when you realize the fleeting nature
of all experiences and that the world cannot give you anything of
lasting value. You then continue to meet people, to be involved in
experiences and activities, but without the wants and fears of egoistic
self. That is to say, you no longer demand that a situation, person,
place or event should satisfy you or make you happy. Its passing and
imperfect nature is allowed to be. And the miracle is that when you are
no longer placing an impossible demand on it, every situation, person,
place or event becomes not only satisfying but also more harmonious,
more
peaceful.
3. When you completely accept this movement, when you no longer argue with what is,
the compulsion to think lessens and is replaced by an alert stillness.
You are fully conscious, yet the mind is not labeling this moment in
any way. This state of inner nonresistance opens you to the
unconditioned consciousness that is infinitely greater than the human
mind. This vast intelligence can then express itself through you and
assist you, both from within and from without. That is why, by letting
go of inner resistance, you often find circumstances change for the
better.
4.
Even within the seemingly unacceptable and painful
situation
is concealed a deeper good, and within every disaster is contained
the seed of grace. Throughout history, there have been women and men
who, in the face of great loss, illness, imprisonment, or impending
death, accepted the seemingly unacceptable and thus found "the peace
that passeth all understanding." Acceptance of unacceptable is the
greatest source of grace in this world.
5.
When you fully accept that you don't know, you give up struggling to
find answers with limited thinking mind, and that's when a greater
intelligence can operate through you. And even thought can then benefit
from that, since the greater intelligence can flow into it and inspire
it. Sometimes surrender means giving up trying to understand and
becoming comfortable with not knowing.
Nature:
1.
We depend on nature not only for our physical survival. We also need
nature to show us the way home, the way out of prison of our own minds.
We got lost in doing, thinking, remembering, anticipating -- lost in a
maze of complexity and a world of problems. We have forgotten what
rocks, plants, and animals still know. We have forgotten how to be -- to be still, to be ourselves, to be where life is: Here and Now.
2.
When walking or resting in nature, honor that realm by being there
fully. Be still.
Look.
Listen. See how every animal and every plant is completely itself.
Unlike humans, they have not split
themselves in two. They do not live through mental images of
themselves, so they do not need to be concerned with trying to protect
and enhance those images. All things in nature are not only one with
themselves but also one with the totality. They haven't removed
themselves from the fabric of the whole by claiming a separate
existence: "me" and the rest of the universe.
Relationships:
1. To know another human being in their essence, you don't really need to know anything about them -- their past, their history, their story. We confuse knowing about with knowing that is non-conceptural. Know about and knowing are totally different modalities. One is concerned with form, the other with formless. One operates through thought, the other through stillness.
2. Most human interactions are confined to the exchange of words -- the realm of thought. It is essential to bring some stillness, particularly into your close relationships. No relationship can thrive without the sense of spaciousness that comes with stillness. If spaciousness is missing, the relationship will be dominated by the mind and can easily be taken over by problems and conflict. If stillness is there, it can contain anything.
3. True listening is another way of bringing stillness into the relationship. When you truly listen to someone, the dimension of stillness arises and becomes an essential part of the relationship. But true listening is a rare skill. Usually, the greater part of a person's attention is taken up by their thinking. At best, they may be evaluating your words or preparing the next thing to say. Or they may not be listening at all, lost in their own thoughts.
Death and The Eternal:
There is still a widespeard denial of death in Western cultures. Even old people try not to speak or think about it, and dead bodies are hidden away. A culture that denies death inevitably becomes shallow and superficial, concerned only with external form of things. When death is denied, life loses its depth. The possibility of knowing who we are beyond name and form, the dimension of the transcendent, disappears from our lives because death is the opening into that dimension.
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