(bell rings) - This ability to look at things or listen to things with other senses. Smell, taste, touch. As the awareness, rather
than the interpreting mind, practice that in your daily life. It's a primordial spiritual practice. If that's your only spiritual practice, it would be quite enough. So innocent perception which requires awareness. It requires an alertness in the background of your perception. Without the alertness, thinking will always overpower you. The alertness keeps thinking at bay. You remember the story I wrote about in the "New Earth." It's an ancient zen story where the disciple and the zen master are walking on a long journey
through the mountains. And then they stop for a little picnic. And then the disciple, who is still having problems understanding what zen is all about. He's only been there for 10 years. (audience laughing) He asks the master, I don't quite get it yet. How do I enter zen? Meaning how do I enter
the state of consciousness that is zen? How do I? And the master looks at him and says, can you hear the sound
of that mountain stream. And the disciple goes, no, I can't hear it. The master says, just
see if you can listen, see if you can hear it. And this is the point of the master to the disciple to become more alert. The master associates the alertness with the auditory perception there. So the alertness flows into
the auditory perception. And as the master tells, him, you have to listen more carefully to hear that mountain stream. And then the disciple, at that moment, the alertness, the
awareness in the disciple rises. And he goes. And, of course, at that very moment, while he's in that intense listening, he's no longer thinking
or trying to figure out what zen is all about. He's just... And then he can hear in the far distance, there's a tiny mountain stream that makes a sound and
suddenly he can hear it. And he says, yes, I can hear it. And the master says, that's it. Enter zen from there. Oh! This is a practical, to show by means of practical
example of what that means, that alertness. Jesus talks about it too. He said, be awake as if you were... He gives the parable of a
servant waiting for the master. He doesn't know when the master come. He may come in very silently. So you have to be alert. Don't go to sleep. Be alert and wait for the master. So the servant is sitting in that house. The door maybe is, in
my version of the story, the sound is on the upper floor. (audience laughing) And the master could come in any moment. And he's fairly, the master is very quiet. So you go. So the servant basically would have been continuous presence. Otherwise, he might miss the master. Again, it's an example to show what that state
of consciousness is. Again, using the analogy
with associating awareness with the auditory perception. You can associate it with
other perceptions too, or with all perception,
or with no perception. And there's no stress or
strain in that alertness. There isn't a willfulness behind it. That's not it. You can't hold your breath and make yourself be more alert. (audience laughing) I still can't hear the mountain stream. You have to. It's a relaxed alertness. That is, I'll sometimes
use the expression, vibrational frequency. And there is a truth behind it, whether or not it's scientific. I don't care, by the way. (audience laughing) I can sense when, because I also experience fluctuations. There's always a certain
alertness in the background, but sometimes there's
an increase in alertness and sometimes it's just, it
recedes, it's in the background, the awareness. And then the awareness, the light gets, like a dimmer switch. It goes (hisses). And then it goes (hums). It's still there. According to the situation. Now the so-called enlightened state, which is the destiny
of each human to reach, although many won't reach
it in this lifetime. But... (audience laughing) That's okay. That would mean there's a
continuous background awareness. And it continues. And many of you already
have it sporadically and there may be some of you who already have it
continuously in the back. And the only reason why you're
here because it's enjoyable. But there's no point in asking, oh, when is it going to
be continuous for me? Irrelevant question. The only true question is, is it there now? That's the only place
where it can be. Now. It's not... Whether it's going to be
there 10 minutes from now. Who knows? Is it going to be there
next week when I get home? Who knows? But when you get home, it's now. So the only relevant
question is, am I aware now? And if you even remember
to ask that question, which is a powerful pointer to awareness, very easily, you can
step from the question, which is still a thought. I call it a pointer. Certain thoughts are pointers that point beyond thought. That says, am I aware now? It's a powerful pointer. And after that yeah. Yes, that can immediately
bring you to that alert, heightened alertness. Am I aware now? Let me just check. And that checking creates a rise in the vibrational frequency. You can can feel that and you can observe. You can learn to observe in people. It's not judgemental. It's a simple fact. You can look at a person
and, to some extent, you can see what degree
of awareness is there. There are many humans who
might never have heard of any spiritual teaching who have some awareness in their life. They don't know what
it is, but it's there. I can... Very often... I don't like to be stopped and recognized in the street all the time,
but it does happen a lot. And when it happens, it's lovely. So it's a paradox. I try to wear sometimes
sunglasses and a baseball cap. (audience laughing) A funny incident. I was in a supermarket and I was wearing dark sunglasses
(audience laughing) and a baseball cap. And just looking at the shelves and a man came up to me and said, hi, Eckhart, may I shake your hands? Do people recognize you a lot? (audience laughing) Now, I am saying this is quite, not infrequently. I know a few seconds. I look at a person. A few seconds before they recognize me, I recognize them. I've never seen them before, but I recognize them. I know there's a fairly strong presence there and then I know, oh, this person... And this is not a thought. It's just a realization. This person is going to recognize me. (audience laughing) And, most of the time, I'm right. (water whooshing)
