Doing One Thing at a Time with Eckhart Tolle

all the little things in so that means most of your life you can actually use them in this way so that they become help all those things that don't require that much of your attention they become use that spare attention to go within and another way of putting it become aware of that field of attention itself as the consciousness and this is why it was so pleasant when put away the clothes this morning just it wasn't the putting away it was something deeper and that's you can practice that practice it here and in the rest of your life with all the little things that make up make up most of your life whether you are so-called vip in the eyes of the world totally meaningless concept or not it's still little things that makes even and you you come most effective when you give your attention to little thing if the now if there's something that absorbs more of your attention then some attention will move more into mind and thinking and you will have less than the being awareness so to speak goes little bit into the background if you have to work something out or write something but it's vital that it's it's still there so there's or you're engaged in discussion that can very quickly pull you completely out of the being awareness when you're getting your viewpoint you need to defend your viewpoint now now there are two ways of defending your viewpoint one is losing yourself in your viewpoint and one is remaining in connection with being awareness and then just put forward your viewpoint and why you have it and then allow the other person to throw what their viewpoint and don't make them into an enemy which is much easier now when you have not you know you're no longer seeking your identity to derive your identity from your opinions and viewpoints that's dreadful state to be in because then you're surrounded by enemies or those who don't share your viewpoints or have opposite ones they are all for these people are evil the same thing happens with collective viewpoints you have collective belief system it's the same mechanism our belief is the only one obviously that's that's true all other beliefs are fallacy they are lies spread by the devil they're not our beliefs so these people are less than human who don't share our beliefs it's insane but normal and what kind of what kind of world does that produce if millions of people are trapped in that dysfunctional belief system egoic belief structures and so when talk about the little things another zen they love these zen people there was zen master who was asked what's the essence of zen and now there are many different kinds of answers the masters give none of them are answers that you would expect and he said then or the disciple of course came please explain to me again i've only been here for 10 years and i'm didn't don't get it yet what is it need fuller explanation you haven't said enough and what is then and the master said zen is doing one thing at time is that it yeah okay thank you i'm going to look for another master who gives me better explanation but if he had really listened that's all you need to know doing one thing at time attention so attention on what you're doing and attention on attention then you're no longer an egoic doer if you don't have attention on the tension the doing becomes egoic seeking and it's not empowered it's comes out of the conditioning of your mind so attention on what you're doing and attention on attention then you are in touch again that's another aspect of what we called yesterday one foot in one dimension the other foot in that dimension and then you are both human and being full human being and until you are able to live like that you are not full human being yet as confucius already said over two thousand years ago and many humans are still not evolution has not come to an end of humanity or anything we are still evolving obviously which is this is not the end product where we are at don't know not that advanced so the most important thing to get here get get it get the most money to get here is to be able to be aware of yourself as consciousness or attention on attention this means this is another zen story that just came to me the disciple said i'm going to take my leave now because i'm going to look for another monastery and another master because you actually haven't given me the full answer can you just write something down so it's just something for me to remember that is important some explanation and the zen master can you always give me paper pen he wrote there and he said it's attention okay is that all yes please add little bit more just another few more words okay give to me and then the disciple reads it attention attention what does that mean he said attention attention what does it mean the master said attention means attention so the disciple was seeking to pursue zen through conventional concepts and the master was attempting to br to help him break through mental concepts because the answer to all to who you are the answer to the secrets of the universe which are all in you of course you are microcosm of the macrocosm as above so below as the ancient philosophers already said the answer all the secrets of the universe are not to be found through conceptual thinking what conceptual thinking can do is relatively little and the human evolution which has now reached critical stage does not mean that we are going to improve conceptual thinking it's it's been helpful it's done interesting things it's created of course it has downside lots of huge problems especially if it's not connected with wisdom which comes from the being but you cannot further develop more refined conceptual thinking we've come to the kind of end of the road of conceptual thinking was what else is just putting words together in different way so we've tried so many ways of putting words together how many words there are limited number of letters in the alphabet not to mention sounds talked about that already there are limited number of letters in the outfit and the limited number of words that you can put together every book in the library or nowadays on the computer anything you read any text you read is words put together in certain order and then you jumbled and we put and then you have another text and you put different words but the number of words is limited and they're just words so the answer is not in further development of conceptual thinking or other way of putting it more information is more information because we live in the so-called information age and you can get all the information on the computer that you it is quite amazing of course it is on that level that before you had to buy the encyclopedia britannica and it was quickly out of date and now you can google and wikipedia and all those things and it's all whatever all the human knowledge is there but human evolution does not consist in finding getting more and more informed you don't evolve by getting more and more information in fact the more you stuff get information you the more confused you get if you're not connected with being so much stuff then the stuff accumulates in the head and all the devices the more stuff comes into your mind you absorb more and more stuff and you get com completely scattered human attention deficit disorder all these things can't focus on anything more for longer than 20 seconds dreadful state to be in of course yes you know more than jesus did two thousand years ago and of course you do on the level of information you know hundred more thousand times more than the buddha did but that's not vital it's knowledge but it's not knowing so human evolution is not to completely abandon conceptual thinking no to be able to use conceptual thinking without being trapped in conceptual thinking so it's to transcend conceptual thinking transcend mean it doesn't you don't remove it you go beyond it but it's still there for you to use but not for you to be used by this mind made sense of self is also much more focused on the negative than the positive to be free you awaken to who you are beyond your history and your life situation you