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
Attention is the vital thing and there is no tension in attention. It just happens to be a similar word. It's not concentration or straining. Attention has the openness of a young child not yet dominated by the conceptual mind.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Attention is a natural and open state, unlike forced concentration or tension.
In this quote, Eckhart Tolle emphasizes the importance of genuine attention, which is characterized by openness and presence. He contrasts this with the common misconception that attention requires effort or strain. Instead, true attention flows naturally, much like the curiosity and unfiltered perception of a young child, free from the constraints of adult conceptual thinking.
Themes
AttentionMindfulnessOpennessConcentrationChildlike
In practice
Example use cases
During a mindfulness workshop, this quote could be shared to illustrate the difference between tension and genuine attention.
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
Doubts are the messengers of the Living One to the honest. They are the first knock at our door of things that are not yet, but have to be, understood. . . . Doubts must precede every deeper assurance; for uncertainties are what we first see when we look into a region hitherto unknown, unexplored, unannexed.
George MacdonaldRead
Effortlessness is the ability to slow down and listen for the spaces between the joints... Deep within all things there is a natural rhythm, a music of opening and closing, expansion and contraction.
Wayne MullerRead
It is no weakness for the wisest man to learn when he is wrong.
SophoclesRead
The height of foolishness is to discard an opportunity without full investigation
Benjamin FranklinRead
The Bible teaches that true joy is formed in the midst of the difficult seasons of life.
Francis ChanRead
Hear this if you can: If you want to reach him You have to go beyond yourself And when you finally arrive at the land of absence Be silent Don’t say a thing Ecstasy, not words, is the language spoken there
RumiRead