Noisy minds

“Can you feel your own presence throughout your body? An entry point into presence is the feeling of the inner energy field of your body. The cells in your body are alive. When you feel that, you cannot think very much. The moment you start to think, you loose it. See your inner body as an entry point into presence. Feel your hands, arms, feet, legs. Take a deep breath and follow with attention the breath into your body. This is your anchor for aware presence. Then you are deeply rooted into being. Then it is much more easier to go out into the world without needing to label everything, to interprete everything. You think you have a relationship with some one but you have only a relationship with your own mind. When you are present, the need to label, to judge is hardly there. In the act of perception is now the background of aware stillness. This is relatively easy in nature. It becomes more difficult when you meet humans, because most humans are noisy minds. In the interactions with humans it is essential to be there as presence and not as the labeling mind. You can do that by sensing your inner body. Then there is in the looking just stillness, no judging. That means that you really meet another human being.”

Eckhart Tolle,
The Art of Presence (audio-cd)