[Buddha-l] In Praise of Eckhart Tolle

[RonLeifer at aol.com]

In Praise of Tolle
 
Whether Tolle has something to contribute or not seems to me  to depend on 
whether people get anything out of reading or listening to him  which helps them 
to live their lives. 
 
It doesn’t matter whether he is descended from a particular  tradition or 
teacher. 
 
Tolle advises us to look within ourselves to understand how we  create our 
own suffering and how we can relieve ourselves of our self created  suffering. 
 
He discovered this by looking within himself at a time when he  was suffering 
and unhappy. He saw how his mind generated his pain. Through his  own 
efforts, he discovered the causes of his suffering and a path for the relief  of 
suffering. 
 
Sound familiar?
The Four Noble Truths
Suffering
The  Causes of Suffering
The possibility of relief from suffering
The means for  the relief of suffering. 
 
Tolle discovered what the Buddha discovered, which does not  make him a 
Buddha. Buddha taught that we must all take the same path. We don’t  have to listen 
to either Tolle or Buddha. Perhaps we gain a hint or two. But  there is no 
substitute for looking into ourselves, at our suffering, into the  causes of 
suffering within our own minds, and into the relief from suffering by  taming and 
training our minds. 
 
Because the Advaita Vedantists discovered this does not make  Tolle a 
neo-adviata. Because Buddha discovered this does not make Tolle a  revisionist 
Buddhist-lite. Whatever our tradition, the spiritual path is the  same – to overcome 
unhappiness and suffering and to find the path to peace and  equanimity, if 
not to bliss. 
 
In my view, Enlightenment is irrelevant. 
The search for  Enlightenment is one more ego trip. 
No one can live in a non-dual state of  mind. 
I experienced this state under the guidance of a certified  Shankarcharya 
Advaitist,  Agehananda Bharati, of whom some of you may know.  
It was wonderful, remarkable, memorable. 
But there is nothing I can say  about it that would capture the experience. 
When you are in it, you have  lost yourself completely
And do not know you are in it
As soon as you  realize you are in it, you are out of it. 
No one can live in that state. 
 
This leaves the problem of happiness and unhappiness at the  center of any 
spiritual quest. 
The path to Enlightenment involves the  amelioration of suffering – a 
clearing of the clouds away from the sun in that  famous metaphor – by means of 
tackling the habitual tendencies of our normal  minds. Tolle makes a great 
contribution if only by showing that the normal human  mind is neurotic. Alan Watts 
said the same thing. He said the normal human mind  is the breeding ground of 
neurosis. Ronnie Laing said it too, and was considered  crazy for calling normal 
people crazy. 
 
Ron Leifer

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