Bring awareness to the many subtle sounds of nature - The rustling of leaves in the wind, Raindrops falling, The humming of an insect, The first birdsong at dawn.
Eckhart TolleRead
Suffering begins when you mentally label a situation as bad. That causes an emotional contraction. When you let it be, without naming it, enormous power is available to you. The contraction cuts you off from that power, the power of life itself.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Suffering arises from our judgments of situations. By accepting things as they are, we access a deeper strength within ourselves.
In this quote, Eckhart Tolle emphasizes the idea that our mental labels and judgments about situations contribute to our suffering. When we classify a situation as 'bad,' we create an emotional contraction that limits our ability to respond positively. By choosing to let go of these labels and accepting reality without judgment, we open ourselves to the inherent power and potential of life that is otherwise obstructed by our negative perceptions.
Themes
SufferingAcceptanceEmotional PowerMindfulnessJudgment
In practice
Example use cases
In a meditation workshop, participants discussed how labeling emotions affects their mental state.
More from Eckhart Tolle
All quotes →Body awareness not only anchors you in the present moment, it is a doorway out of the prison that is the ego. It also strengthens the immune system and the body’s ability to heal itself.
Eckhart TolleRead
Whenever you become anxious or stressed, outer purpose has taken over, and you lost sight of your inner purpose. You have forgotten that your state of consciousness is primary, all else secondary.
Eckhart TolleRead
Nothing that was real ever died, only names, forms, and illusions.
Eckhart TolleRead
Suffering has a noble purpose: the evolution of consciousness and the burning up of the ego.
Eckhart TolleRead
Sometimes surrender means giving up trying to understand and becoming comfortable with not knowing.
Eckhart TolleRead
Similar quotes
Religious creeds encourage some of the craziest kinds of thoughts, emotions, and behaviors and favor severe manifestations of neurosis, borderline personality states, and sometimes even psychosis.
Albert EllisRead
All conditioning aims at that: making people like their inescapable social destiny.
Aldous HuxleyRead
What makes revolutionary thought unique is its clarity and dignity, and its clear grasp of freedom and justice: simple, clear words that are understood without the need for any help from elite writers or thinkers.
Nawal El SaadawiRead
There are worries that seem to me sustained by the love of worry. For example, that people are reading from screens, or listening to recorded books. Why scold the impulse to enjoy language and narrative in whatever form it takes?
Marilynne RobinsonRead
The existence of the soldier, next to capital punishment, is the most grievous vestige of barbarism which survives among men.
Alfred De VignyRead
I felt early on I wasn't going to be a respectable citizen.
Cormac MccarthyRead