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Eckhart explores the powerful addiction to thinking, offering a handful of ways to put a stop to thoughts and choose presence instead.
Eckhart explores the powerful addiction to thinking, offering a handful of ways to put a stop to thoughts and choose presence instead.
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Eckhart explores the powerful addiction to thinking, offering a handful of ways to put a stop to thoughts and choose presence instead.
I’ve experienced being present and being aware of the present moment many
times. Though I valued these experiences at the time, I no longer wish to
spend much of my time being present because I feel that experiencing
presence is also experiencing memory impairment and a dangerous disconnect
from physical reality. In observing the nature of others I’ve concluded
that people (in my experience) who are generally stress-free and calm have
experienced some form of trauma in their life and are experiencing some
form of memory repression that stops them from planning ahead based on
knowledge recalled from past experiences. Perhaps it’s a question of values
and beliefs. I don’t feel that it’s very interesting to immerse yourself in
moments of unawareness.
Eckhart has a lot of very good points which he cherry picked from Buddhism,
Hinduism, Sufism and other Eastern philosophies/religions, but at one point
do you say: humans evolved this way via millions of years of natural
evolution and thousands of years of cultural evolution…our over-thinking
is in many respects natural for who we are as symbol-using animals.
You can’t simply bypass our chemical and mental natures by words alone
because it’s hardwired into us via evolution.
I think what happens is these people become too much in the present and
then their mind weakens and they become retarded. Mind and Consciousness
are separate, but if you fully focus on consciousness your mind will
deteriorate, unless when you are using it you are doing complex things like
mathematical equations, physics etc. This is why Echhart Tolle, although he
is great at being in the moment, there is no way his mind is as strong as
people who have trained it to a very high level on the logical and
mathematical side of things. For example, I doubt he’d ever be able to
programme at a high level because the brain muscles he has have
significantly deteriorated throughout the ages, from lack of use. It makes
sense if you think about it.
So much swagg
i think being in the present moment is the way, but man dealing with life,
money problems, job every single day, all the stresses come at you without
mercy, you easily fall back to overthinking and dread
I get being present in the moment but what the is the point in all this?
How would this at all benefit you not to think?
Listening. … something. .. special. .
a certain course I took suggested that humans are “meaning-making machines”
that automatically and silently name all our perceptions and/or create
meaning. It happens so automatically we are not usually aware of it.
I personally think the problem arises that is *troubling* thoughts and
*struggling* thoughts. I used to do such compulsive non-productive “worry”
and “figuring out stuff” that this was a form of attempts to control my
reality and control the world, based in underlying fears and self-hatred
that I already had adopted in the past and was existing as a background or
base of the complex super-structure of my thinking & analysis.
Thinking that is not troubling is simply not troubling, and not so
compulsive. It’s not thinking to “seek answers”.
This “not thinking” reminds me of being very very stoned or very very
drunk, such that coherent thinking ceases, except to do that sober and
fully aware of my feelings and emotions and on events around me. Being
aware of social context requires much more attention and thought, at least
for me.
I love thinking. My dedication to it, is what brings the reality of my
future to fruition. The now will be gone before I can even think about it.
Elkhart Tolle on Addiction to Think .
I live in San Francisco but have been in Bali the past 3 weeks. I swear,
being here in the tropics has significantly reduced my thinking. All the
colors, incense, nature, newness… Everything seems slower, more relaxed
including my thinking. Great way to slow the habit LOL.
Great video on being present, but did he really answer the guy’s question?
It sounded like the man’s main problem was how to apply the teachings
without thinking about them.
“How do we break the habit of excessive thinking?”
We live in an age of information and mental overload. These most often
lead to an overload of thoughts. Applying the 80:20 rule, the vast
majority of them are useless and simply make us waste away our precious
moments. This short talk gives us some simple ways to deal with this
challenge. I particularly liked the example of the dog which runs away
following his sense of smell… Great!
how do you define excessive thinking ?
I would say most people think too little – they continue opinions and
actions formed by culture, peers, family, bias or habit, which have never
been fully thought out independently.
the thinking discussed here is a particular kind of thinking that serves
indecision: as long as we are thinking about it we have a good reason not
to step ahead and do – these kinds of thoughts are usually egocentered – we
do not think endlessly about what is not involved with the “I” – perhaps
it is a form of OCD, but more simply humans hate uncertainty, and thinking
allows us to feel we are doing something useful, where in fact we use it to
allow ourselves the weakness of procrastination – the indecision is
sometimes due to complexity ,but often is due to seeing that none of the
outcomes are what we want, but if only we keep thinking we might find an
outcome that is more amenable – we sidestep reality for as long as we keep
thinking.
Does Eckhart ever talk about meditation? All of his ideas are straight from
Hindu/Buddhist spirituality but he’s talking about things that are best
realized in a state of meditation (like watching thoughts arise but not
interfering with them).
i love the whole presence thing. I can really achieve the stillness feeling
almost right away when I look and appreciate things. So grateful! Thanks
Eckhart.
……………..
i love this man.so great.
“Thinking is an addiction.”
That explains a LOT.
They call it bi-polar.
See below…
Stan P.
How do we break the habit of excessive thinking?
Concentrate on the breath going in and out … ONLY …. Simple Buddhist
meditation to calm the mind ….
You could see the person Eckhart was talking to was thinking when Eckhart
asked him, he was nodding his head and then realised that he should be
answering “no” if only for the sake of avoiding embarrassment. I feel
better advice to tell someone who is an excessive thinker and gets trapped
in the thought of trying to turn off thought is to practice meditation by
focusing only on breath, as to breath is an act which requires no thought,
you do not think “breath in, now breath out”, yet when you place your mind
on it initially you do due to excessive thinking, when this happens take
deep breaths in and then as you are breathing out do so slowly and place
awareness on the lungs contracting, in between these 5 second breathing out
stages you will realise there was a period of no thought, just awareness.
Then as you become able to frequently zone awareness only on this
contraction you can stop thinking about breathing out for so long, in for
so long, and instead let your body decide when it needs to breath in and
out, but still keep awareness on the process. This will make the breath
become very shallow as you get into a deeper state of meditation, where you
are no longer mentally distinguishing the contraction or expansion of the
lungs. Practicing this method for 30 minutes a day will allow you to enter
this same state of awareness during other periods of the regular day. Hope
this helps those who need it.
Breaking excessive thinking is easy, people think that it is a really hard
thing to do and it is like the core step to enlightenment but that is not
true. Just be aware of it, you do not have to engage with those thoughts
also thinking is not just a bad thing, the mind is a tool and when used
correctly there are no limits. Instead of being at war with yourself be at
one with yourself, the mind is not separate, it is one. Just enjoy your
life, if you have a problem solve it, if there is no solution then it is
not a problem. People are always looking for some complicated philosophy
but the truth is all the answers you need you already have, you are already
enlightened, you are already god. Just get out of your comfort zones and
live.
How do we break the habit of excessive thinking?
red the free sample of ur book
totally understood what the book was trying to tell
he is so peaceful
Thinking is ok as long as we do not lose ourselves in our thoughts. Feeling
the presence and the aliveness within us is the anchor in a stormy sea of
mental activity. If we can be grounded amidst the chaos of ‘mind stuff’, we
never lose (or confuse) our life situation and drama for who we really are
which is consciousness itself.
I have come to the conclusion, that the gurus are in theory right about
many things, but when people start practicing their teaching, it might
actually drive them further away from the state of existing they already
were in (the now). And practicing their teachings may end up as a neurosis
blocking people from actually experience the now. You start thinking about
how you SHOULD be able to enjoy the moment.
Isn`t the evolutionary process (life) actually feeding us this information
naturally. And getting the information this way may just end up as a
neurosis. This is actually what has happened to this guy. This is a
important aspect that i would want an answer to.
It feels so peaceful here
Question 2: I believe thoughts and emotions are necessary. They help us
make choices, feel pain and learn life lessons. I feel that is the way to
enlightenment-pain and healing. How does observation help you learn?
Besides there are different levels of enlightenment, there are only so many
thoughts you can just observe.
Oh, the little sweater vests..
:)
a poem of the mind must contain numbers,, when u get ready to meditate is
like u open ur office to start writing poems ! spontaneity is the magic.
I do this all the time….’follow a thought to the horizon.’ LOL
Thinking is an addiction b/c it causes pleasure. The questioner is clearly
enamored with his own insights and ideas about this topic and so the mind
keeps on regurgitating and pleasuring itself. Once you see the suffering
involved in thinking, then it’s possible to slow it down and begin moving
into contact with the present moment.
What is wrong with following your thoughts though? Is he saying to never go
into deep though, never follow through with ideas, never seek out
knowledge, just sit there living in the present??
The Addiction of Thinking