Eckhart Tolle Quotes

We must especially learn the art of directing mindfulness into the closed areas of our life.

Despite not knowing if what he felt from moment to moment would pass or last forever, he entered fully into his shifting states of violent rage, self-pity, longing, heartbreak, cynicism, without losing the ability to think about what was happening to him. That took courage, I thought, living with the suffering in a mindful way, as an artifact of being, neither good nor bad.

Think... of the world you carry within you, and call this thinking whatever you want to: a remembering of your own childhood or a yearning toward a future of your own - only be attentive to what is arising within you, and place that above everything you perceive around you. What is happening in your innermost self is worthy of your entire love; somehow you must find a way to work at it.

Hold to the idea, "I am not the mind, I see that I am thinking, I am watching my mind act," and each day the identification of yourself with thoughts and feelings will grow less, until at last you can entirely separate yourself from the mind and actually know it to be apart from yourself.

Be aware that what you think, to a large extent, creates the emotions that you feel. See the link between your thinking and your emotions. Rather than being your thoughts and emotions, be the awareness behind them.

I try not to take things too personally, because most of the time, people aren't even thinking about anyone else but themselves.

After many years of training myself, strong emotions are now a trigger for me to look at something. I think that all emotions are triggers for us to grow in our level of consciousness.

When repeated difficulties do arise, our first spiritual approach is to acknowledge what is present, naming, softly saying 'sadness, sadness', or 'remembering, remembering', or whatever.

If people would just wake up to what's real, there would be no misery in the world. I guess chanting's a pretty good place to start.

I think people can find a breath and listen sometimes.

I think if people raise their consciousness and find a purpose, everybody will be helped.

I'm trying to cause people to be interested in the particulars of their lives because I think that's one thing literature can do for us. It can say to us: pay attention. Pay closer attention. Pay stricter attention to what you say to your son.

Don't drive drunk. Ever. Don't shag anyone you don't like, or who doesn't like you. Get a look at how people live in a place where you don't. Suffering is over-rated, don't pursue it. Ask for help when you need it, don't when you don't, and learn to recognize the difference. Don't confuse movement and progress. Be kind. Be forgiving. Pay attention.

All of us have special ones who have loved us into being. Would you just take, along with me, ten seconds to think of the people who have helped you become who you are....Ten seconds of silence.

Before you do anything, think. If you do something to try and impress someone, to be loved, accepted or even to get someone's attention, stop and think. So many people are busy trying to create an image, they die in the process.

All human beings have an innate desire to overcome suffering, to find happiness. Training the mind to think differently, through meditation, is one important way to avoid suffering and be happy.

Many people don't know about the power of good feelings, and so their feelings are reactions or responses to what happens to them. They have put their feelings on automatic pilot, instead of deliberately taking charge of them.

I teach people to question their thinking, and this changes their world.

But people of the deepest understanding look within, distracted by nothing. Since a clear mind is the Buddha, they attain the understanding of a Buddha without using the mind.

Somebody insults you and you feel anger. Don't miss this opportunity; try to understand why, why this anger. And don't make it a philosophical thing. Don't go to the library to consult about anger. Anger is happening to you -- it is an experience, a live experience. Focus your whole attention on it and try to understand why it is happening to you. It is not a philosophical problem. No Freud is to be consulted about it. There is no need! It is just foolish to consult somebody else while anger is happening to you. You can touch it. You can taste it. You will be burned by it.

Silence is something more than just a pause; it is that enchanted place where space is cleared and time is stayed and the horizon itself expands. In silence, we often say, we can hear ourselves think; but what is truer to say is that in silence we can hear ourselves not think....In silence, we might better say, we can hear someone else think.

I don't want to get so lost in thinking about me and talking about me all the time in interviews. It's so nice to unwind and just look at other things and get out of yourself. It's hard to detach myself from myself without neglecting myself. You know what I mean? I don't want to get in to the habit of thinking about my career because when it comes down to it, it's not really that important. I could die tomorrow and the world would go on.

Some day, the world will discover that, without thought, there can be no love.

Haven't you learned anything, not even with the approach of death? Stop thinking all the time that you're in the way, that you're bothering the person next to you. If people don't like it, they can complain. And if they don't have the courage to complain, that's their problem