[Buddha-l] Eckhart Tolle

[Richard P. Hayes]

On Mon, 2006-01-09 at 14:55 -0500, Vaj wrote:

> Potentially diverting people from what should be the fastest way to
> realization to something else, some-other potentially false path.

Eckhart Tolle claims to be able to help people reduce their suffering.
As he puts it, his seminars are not about self-growth but self-
diminishment. If anyone reads his books, watches his videos or attends
his lectures and benefits thereby, then he is not teaching a false path.
As for "the fastest way to realization," that depends entirely on the
follower of the path, not the path itself. No path is inherently swift.
A path that is fast for you could be a stumbling block for someone else.

>  What gets me is his lack of personal "here's the sadhana I used to
> get there".

He explicitly says that he does NOT recommend following the sadhana he
used to get where he is. He had what sounds like a serious emotional
breakdown. Not everyone needs to use that method to diminish the
influence of their pain-inducing constructions of self. I'm sure if
Eckart Tolle thought it was important for people to have nervous
breakdowns, he would help them find ways to do that. ("Here, young
fellow. You seem to be having a hard time having a nervous breakdown.
May I suggest you take on the job of being George W. Bush's press
secretary? That should do the trick.")

> Many of the prominent realizers in Advaita Vedanta got there through a
> tantric sadhana (e.g. Kali sadhana).

Eckhart Tolle is not an advaita vedantin. He is not pushing that
particular system at all, so it seems wrong-headed to hold him
accountable to the standards of Sankaracarya.

> Another issue is simply claiming "I'm enlightened". One thinks of the
> 50 Demonic States which often are some state of awareness mistaken for
> stable enlightenment. What does that do to the student when someone
> claims enlightenment? Is it a positive or negative dynamic that
> ensues? Can it cause negative emotions like jealousy in other
> practitioners? Can it cause them to be worshipped?

Judging from my observations of a number of religious organizations,
these are real issues. All kinds of religious people are running around
claiming realizations they have not really had. But what is the harm in
that? If someone believes she has attained nirvana and then falls into a
quagmire of duhkha, then the worst that can happen is that she'll be
disappointed. But surely one is encountering disappointment in all of
life as a result of unrealistic expectations and false appraisals of the
value of one's own treasury. What is the harm of one more minor
disappointment?

> How does he cause suffering to cease in his students?

No one causes suffering to cease in anyone other than himself. But if
one makes any kind of progress at all, sometimes telling another person
about it can be an inspiration for her to discover her own way of
bringing suffering to an end, or at least reducing its extent.

>  What qualifies him to even teach?

Nothing qualifies anyone to teach aside from having the ability to
attract students. If people listen to you, you're a teacher. Period. If
people don't find what you say useful, they'll stop listening. If no one
listens to you, you're no longer a teacher. Pretty simple, eh?

> Time is precious--if that is what someone want to spend their time on,
> that is certainly up to them. 

According to most Asian traditions, we've all been muddling along for
countless aeons. What's the rush? Even if the Asians are wrong and we
have only one lifetime, the worse that can happen is that we'll die
confused and unhappy, like everyone else. When you think about it
carefully and rationally, not becoming fully enlightened is really not
such a tragedy.

> I do not see a teaching in Tolle (or many of the Neo-advaita crowd)
> that represent full non-dual teachings. 

That's right. That's not what he is pushing. 

> For example if the Fruit of Advaita Vedanta is Videha-mukti, does
> Tolle's "path" lead to that?

Probably not. But not everyone is seeking that. But Tolle is not out
there telling people to run as fast as they can from the Advaita Vedanta
ashrams and maths. He is offering something that he hopes will help the
kinds of people who do not have the means of the inclination to attend
an ashram or a math. And people say they are being helped. So I say
hurray.

>  What DOES it lead to?

Like every other path, it probably leads different people to different
places. And if people are satisfied with where a path takes them, who
can complain? And if people are not satisfied with where a path takes
them, what's new?

> In many, many ways the path that has the most potential for abuse is
> the non-dual path because a charismatic person, with a sharp, keen
> mind and mouth can talk the talk quite convincingly. But can they walk
> the walk? Or have they? 

What difference does it make whether a teacher can walk the walk? The
only thing that matters is whether she can help someone else walk the
walk. As the Buddha said, some farmers till their own fields and help
their neighbors till their fields, and some farmers till their
neighbors' fields but neglect their own. Even if one only helps his
neighbors but neglects his own, he is no less good as a farmer.

As for Tolle, he claims he is at peace. And all he claims is that he can
help others discover their own peace. That seems pretty much like
walking the walk to me. Of course, he could be lying about being at
peace. But until we find out that he secretly tortures cats just for the
joy of watching them suffer, which I would take to be a sign that he is
not as peaceful as he says, I'm prepared to give him the benefit of the
doubt when he claims to be at peace. Why assume a man is lying?

> If we are going to relieve peoples suffering we must possess the tools
> to genuinely do that. I do not see that in this movement.

No, of course you do not. You have your own standards, which are
obviously far superior to the standards of anyone else (for which you
should be very proud of your self), but it may be worth bearing in mind
that you are looking for something very specific and will naturally not
find it in anything that is not exactly what you are looking for.

> I do feel this is a topic worthy of close investigation, discussion
> and debate among both practitioners and scholars.

What do scholars know that would be of any use to a discussion like
this? I am a scholar of Buddhism, and when I look at Tolle as a scholar
of Buddhism, then I'll say something like "Tsk! This Tolle fellow is not
explaining Nagarjuna very well at all! He's not a true Madhyamika. And
he clearly doesn't know the right way to eradicate each of the major and
minor kleshas as taught by Vasubandhu, so he's a piss-poor abhidharmika.
And he hasn't mentioned Amitabha even once, so how can I take him
seriously as a Pure Land Buddhist?" Or we could get some hotshot scholar
in the Bhamati school of Advaita Vedanta to appraise his words and
assure us that he is not even explaining Srngeri Advaita very well, let
alone the much more lofty Bhamati version. And then we could dismiss him
as someone unworthy to direct a doctoral thesis is Buddhist philosophy
or in Advaita Vedanta (a task that Tolle has no aspiration to do in any
case). 

And similarly, if we ask practitioners to conduct a close investigation,
they will point out that Tolle does not hold his thumbs correctly when
he puts his hands together in anjali or that he does not recite the same
texts or gaze adoringly at the same wooden statues as they do, so they
will surely find his practice wanting in finesse and dismiss him as a
fraud. As a practitioner of Buddhism, I can vouch for the sad fact that
Eckhart Tolle is neither an acariya nor a lama nor a zenji. So I guess
we can thrown his book in the sewer, eh?

Wait, I have another idea. How about keeping scholars and practitioners
out of this discussion? It seems as though their eyes have been swollen
shut by their own egos. Perhaps the people we should ask are people who
have been in pain and have encountered Tolle's work in some form or
other. And we should ask them whether their suffering has been reduced,
even for a while.

Oh, by the way, Vaj, as a professor of Sanskrit, I must object to your
cavalier way of truncating your adopted name. If you insist on using a
Sanskrit name, then have enough respect for the Sanskrit language to use
the full name, or at least an entire word of the full name. "Vaj" is
meaningless; "vajra," on the other hand, at least has some meaning. It
means a diamond or anything that is very hard, such as an erect penis or
a heart that has no sympathy or a head into which no new ideas can
penetrate. As an adjective it means "hard, stern, severe." And "naatha"
means a protector. (It also means a rope passed through the nose of an
ox.) It also means a beast or brute. It might be better to stick with
Steven, which means a crown or garland. Wouldn't you rather be a garland
than a hard rope passed through the nose of an ox? But don't mind me.
I'm only a scholar.

My Sanskrit name, by the way, is Dayamati. You can call me Da
(pronounced "duh").

-- 
Richard Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico