Eckhart Tolle: "The beginning of an awakening for people out of their suffering is the realization that most of the psychological suffering, because this is what we're talking about, we're not talking about toothache or anything like that. We're talking about psychological suffering. The psychological suffering arises from stories that you tell yourself in your mind about situations, about your life or your life situation. 

"As a practical exercise to introduce this teaching to people, I sometimes recommend this. Next time you find yourself in a situation in which suffering arises, and suffering of course is a generic term. It can come in many forms. 

"On one end of the spectrum, suffering is just feeling irritated or upset about something. It might be a minor thing but you're irritated. The other end of the spectrum there's deep despair, deep depression and sadness, or extreme thoughts of anxiety, panic and all that. So we have the two, and in between there's a wide range of different forms of suffering that derives. Very often they are not recognized as suffering by people. If you're not conscious how your mind operates, you don't even know that you're suffering. You don't even know that there is another way, that there would be another way in which you could experience this particular situation. 

"So I recommend next time you find you become upset about something, or irritated, which is minor form of suffering, experiment I say. Let's imagine a situation that these things happen quite often to people. You're in the lineup, let's say it's at the airport. Airport is a source where often people experience psychological suffering because things don't go the way they expect them to go, especially these days. So you're in a lineup. It's not moving. You're getting more and more irritated and upset. […] I recommend the following practice, because you're standing there or waiting there, you might as well practice. 

"Ask yourself, 'How would I experience this situation if I did not add any interpretation or any thought to it? How would I experience this moment if I didn't add any thought to it, if I did not interpret it in any way, if I just allowed this to be as it is, without burdening it with this baggage of thought.' It's okay. Let's say you're standing in this lineup, and you're very irritated. 

"How would I experience this if I did not, in other words, if I did not in my mind say, 'This is bad,' and all the other thoughts that come after that? Because when you say, 'This is bad,' then the next thought comes in, 'My life is bad,' and you get a whole string of associated thoughts that are negative. 'How would I experience this moment without adding any thought to it?' Okay. So there you stand, and this would bring your attention into the present moment. And so your attention moves into the present moment, and in this present moment you're standing there, you're breathing, you're looking around, people moving. Whatever the room is you find yourself in, you're breathing, you're perceiving things, people. Suddenly you may find that this moment is actually free of suffering. 

"The suffering did not arise, was not caused by the external circumstance. It was caused by the narrative in your mind about this circumstance. That's a huge distinction, and this is begin to live consciously when you realize this. Until you realize that you live unconsciously, which means, in spiritual terms, to live unconsciously is to be totally identified with whatever your mind is saying. 

"I call it the voice in the head, the narrative in your mind, that tells you about how good, how bad things are, or how they should be, they are but they shouldn't be, they should be different. But they are as they are, always in this moment. You can't change this moment. 

"So you become aware. That was discovered, by the way, 2,000 years ago by the not-very-well-known ancient Greek philosopher Epictetus. He said that, 'Most of your suffering is derived from what your mind is telling you about the situation, but not from the situation itself.' That's an enormous realization. That can be the beginning of an awakening, to see that the narrative in your mind is mostly what called this the suffering. 

"But it is possible of course, that an external situation may cause physical discomfort. Obviously that's possible. Your legs are hurting, your back is hurting, or it's too cold or too hot, physical discomfort, of course that's possible. But that is not suffering in sense in which we use this term right here right now. 

"The psychological suffering, unhappiness is another word you could use. It's a generic term for any form of negativity inside yourself. Unhappiness, suffering. So you begin to realize that most of that arises from a mental narrative about a situation, or about your circumstances, but not from the circumstances themselves." 

@EckhartTolle with @lewishowes @ 03:13–09:47