Instead of being highly alert and free of thought, both of which are requirements of being in the present moment, we allow our consciousness to bring us into the mental noise that clutters our days. “Most people don’t know how to listen because the major part of their attention is taken up by thinking.”Ĭompulsive thinking is the norm – most of us spend the majority of our time in our heads. “Compulsive thinking has become a collective disease.” The mental noise returns the stillness is lost. The instant your conscious attention sinks below a certain level, thought rushes in. “As long as you are in a state of intense presence, you are free of thought. I use this simple framework for dealing with unpleasant realities very frequently. You either leave it, change it, or accept it for what it is. When you find yourself in an unhappy situation, you can either remove yourself from the situation, change it, or accept it. “If you find your here and now intolerable and it makes you unhappy, you have three options: remove yourself from the situation, change it, or accept it totally.” And in doing so, you will end up less happy than if you accepted the situation you’re facing and figured out a productive path forward. Instead, you are rejecting reality in favor of your expectations or thoughts about what reality should be. When you criticize, condemn, or complain, you aren’t accepting reality. “To complain is always non-acceptance of what is.” And in doing so, we fail to recognize the difference between our thoughts about reality and reality itself. Too often, we allow our mind to consume our present moment. On the other hand, your life situation – your finances, the state of your career, your relationships – those are situations that exist in your mind.

While it’s easy to forget, your life exists in the present moment, in the now. 👋 If you enjoy this summary and want to get access to a growing and searchable digital collection of 100+ book summaries like this, check out Foundations. Eckhart Tolle explores presence, thinking, and spirituality to help you understand what presence means, how thinking and non-acceptance drive a lot of human pain, and how to live a life that reduces suffering.īuy this book on Amazon(Highly recommend)

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