Eckhart Tolle comments extensively on the ways we perceive the events of our lives as good or bad, comforting or distressing. He especially focuses on how we seek to avoid challenges and often compare our present-moment circumstances unfavorably with others—both of which lead to suffering.
As you proceed through the coming month, try to be aware of those times in which you judge the form of the present moment as inadequate, ugly, or upsetting. Whenever you complain (whether out loud or in your thoughts), take a moment to consider how and why you’re responding negatively to your circumstances. Whether it’s because your office is too cold or the food you’re eating isn’t as tasty as you’d like, acknowledge that your displeasure is a product of the mind-made self.
What happens when you realize that unpleasantness is really a judgment made by the egoic self? Can you step outside that judgment and find the elements of a situation that might otherwise be pleasurable? Can you begin to see inadequate circumstances not as suffering, but as challenges meant to spark the arising of Presence?
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