Eckhart Tolle

But enjoying the moment isn't shutting down your mind nor could is possibly lead to enlightenment. Likewise with quiting the voice in your head, they are passing experiences predicated on very subtle concepts.

All experiences, in fact all mental faculties are necessarily in the past and necessarily conceptual.

Direct perceptions aren't, but direct perceptions are virtually never noticed and therefore never experienced. Experiences are always second-order perceptual-conceptual products.

Tolle never comes close to addressing this and in effect never comes close to ascertaining the limits of thought and conceptual proliferation.

Without direct perception into the essence of mind, enlightenment is out of the question.

>As for oneness with all life
>feeling being in other things

The 'all is one' stuff are dead ends and are in the end nothing other than delusory deviations.

Dude, who gives a fuck about enlightenment. I just want to be a happy human and tell the voice in my head to shut the fuck up every once and a while.

I've met a few 'enlightened', nondual people, and let me tell you something: they're miserable and dying inside.

>>Dude, who gives a fuck about enlightenment. I just want to be a happy human
caring about the dispassion towards is experienced is precisely the way to stop being unhappy

Its precisely the way to stop being anything at all.

>wgafae?

Tolle does.

>I just want to be a happy human and tell the voice in my head to shut the fuck up every once and a while

So either you rely on constantly generating passing experiences, constantly organizing your environment to induce happiness, or modulating conceptual proliferation itself. The former two are notoriously unreliable routes to happiness and reducing one's existential lack/unpleasantness in a truly meaningful way.

Enlightenment (byang chub) is nothing other than taking the modulation of conceptual proliferation to a very far point, with full enlightenment (sangs rgyas) taking it to its end point.

>I've met a few 'enlightened', nondual people

No you haven't, you have met deluded people. Even byang chub is so incredibly rare that most very serious practitioners don't even get close. However, even if they are very far away from byang chub, legitimate practice still tends to lead to people much happier than the norm.

To put it into perspective, I know a guy that did 8 years and of a couple that did 9 year intensive, full time isolated thodgal retreat and in neither case did they achieve byang chub, but they got fairly close. And that is still miles away from sangs rgyas

>Its precisely the way to stop being anything at all.

But that isn't what Tolle is actually offering, he is offering a dumbed down approach based on fundamental misunderstandings that are very similar to Neo-Advaita, which eventually lead, way too often at least, to the kind of problems this user refers to:

>I've met a few 'enlightened', nondual people, and let me tell you something: they're miserable and dying inside.

>The distinction between one's own body and the rest of the material universe is a more-or-less arbitrary one based on the extent of one's nervous system.

So not at all arbitrary, then.

Tolle might, but he wrote a book about mindfulness. And if he's trying to enlighten people, he's fucking terrible at it, so I really don't think he is.

Would you agree with this assesment?

Also, out of curiosity, what is your spiritual background? You seem pretty knowledgeable

How would you define Tolle's approach?

Well on the cover of the book it says "a guide to spiritual enlightenment".

I agree he isn't very good at it. However his approach to mindfulness is misleading and founded on critical misunderstandings.

On the whole much of this 'pop-mindfulness' can lead to unfortunate outcomes. There is an increasing body of evidence bearing this out, meditation isn't a panacea, there are risks involved. If done wrong you can damage the quality of your life in a variety of ways (increased anxiety, repression and self-deceptive myth-making, dullness and lethargy etc).

>what is your spiritual background

Primarily Dzogchen through Nyingma and Drikung. I have studied under Chogyal Namkhai Norbu, Garchen Rinpoche (and his close students), and Drimed Norbu.

Chogyal Namkai Norbu in particular is one of the most incredible people I had the fortune to meet, he showed me that Indo-Tibetan culture has some incredibly sophisticated insights into the mind.

Problem is that because these systems are robust and complicated, there are very few true Dzogchen masters, and so few seriously inclined students, that popular conception of these traditions is understandably meager.

A kind of non-dualism in a similar vein as Neo-Advaita. I say this because most importantly there is a similar understanding of "non-dualism", an understanding that is totally foreign to for example all Buddhist traditions except arguably Yogachara.

Put simply, there is a huge difference between what non-dual means in buddhadharma and what non-duality means in neo-advaita and what is described by Tolle (a kind of all is oneness).

The problem is popular conceptions are still suffering from last generation's crappy scholarship on this, so most people think non-duality is this really important thing across all spiritual traditions...when it isn't and in fact is a dead end.

Isn't that was Sam Harris is into?

Sam, is that you?

I'm still confused on how he teaches nondualism desu. I thought he was just teaching mindfulness

Unfortunately, since Harris doesn't speak Tibetan and only got to spend a fairly small amount of time with Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche before he passed, he has quite a few serious misunderstandings about Dzogchen.

I wasn't expecting much when I read his book, but even then I was extremely disappointed. I have heard similar sentiments from serious practitioners.

I see. Well I appreciate you putting an end to many of these neo-advaitan non-dual spooks for me. I appreciate your knowledge on this subject.

What would your prescription be for a dude who doesn't really want to be enlightened, but just wants to enjoy life a little more and shut the asshole in his head up every now and then?

Also, one more thing. Did you read The Power of Now, his book? Would you mind pointing out the things you think he got right and the things he got really wrong? I would really appreciate it!

He fleshes out what he contrasts the "illusory sense of self" with in, I think, his book "A New Earth". He makes a variety of dualities and basically posits a homogeneous oneness between them.

So basically, you're asserting that he gets what you're NOT correct (he gets the illusory sense of self correct), but he gets what you ARE incorrect?

>What would your prescription be for a dude who doesn't really want to be enlightened, but just wants to enjoy life a little more and shut the asshole in his head up every now and then?

Samatha can help, but even the dhyanas are conceptual. Often if people don't put in a lot of work to sustain the practice they can end up reducing the flow of thoughts, while not cultivating a lot of clarity in their alertness -so they can end up "perfecting stupidity" as it's called.

Even not, merely having coarse thoughts subside leaves subtler levels of thought untouched. So people will think they are "without thoughts" but still will experience anxiety and dumbfoundedness in the face of stressors.

As such the best way, requiring no retreat, is to receive 'direct introduction' in Dzogchen and then practice atiguruyoga, which is really the easiest possible practice there is. Basically the introduction like this involves using a 'wisdom sampling', a proxy, that is introduced as a direct object of experience. You then do the practice to reintroduce yourself to this over and over and gradually you come closer to direct perception of the essence of your mind.

Chogyal Namkai Norbu gives webcasts, and if you can get passed the fact his English is somewhat poor and he holds religio-cultural views, then he gives direct introduction each webcast.

Watch a few webcasts and do the atiguruyoga and practice throughout the day. The typical version is short with white a and thigle can be as short as 20 seconds of practice. "Guruyoga" is very misunderstood term, so Ch.NN gives an entirely impersonal approach with letter and thigle to affirm that all is being discussed is your own mind's essential nature.

In Dzogchen, understanding is far more important than meditation. If you get the basics behind what you are doing in those short bursts of practice, then you don't ever have to formally sit for meditation if you are content with merely an improved life, a quieted mind, being more relaxed etc.

The most charitable way to put this would be to say he gets enough of an rough approximation of the former correct for a regular person, with no inclination towards serious practice, to get some good out of it.

As for the latter it is simply that he just has no knowledge of mind's nature, which is really the single most critical factor in improving your wellbeing in a substantial way.

Let's say you're sitting on a chair. One of the main reasons why you feel that your body is more "you" than the chair is "you" is that if someone touches your body, you will feel it, but if someone touches the chair, you won't feel it. However, if you examine the actual border where your body touches the chair, you'll just see various sorts of atoms, subatomic particles, wave functions, etc... in complex patterns. Now, your body does have a sort of distinction in that it's a more or less cohesive pattern that moves around as a unit. You can get up and sit down on a different chair, and the matter than makes up your body will all move together in a cohesive way. That said, there is no qualitative difference between the matter that makes up your body and the matter that makes up the chair. Also, although the body is a pattern that maintains itself over time, it depends for its existence on being part of a larger set of patterns. For example, you need to have the proper kind of gas available to breathe, otherwise you die within minutes. So the air around you is actually as necessary to your existence as your body is. Then there's causality. For you to exist in the way that you do requires that an enormous number of things had happened in a very specific way over the course of billions of years. The existence of your body is literally the result of billions of years of uncountable happening.
It's arbitrary in the sense that it's rooted in the desire to avoid pain, which isn't really a scientific and dispassionate perspective on the universe.

>That said, there is no qualitative difference between the matter that makes up your body and the matter that makes up the chair.

Sure there is, one is organized in a way resulting in a distinct person, the other remains inert/insentient.

We should be careful not to fall into the trap of conflating the illusoriness of a substantial self for the erasure of distinct persons.

>As for oneness with all life, feeling being in other things, etc... well, it has a real basis.

Not really, just a mass of concepts. Like experiencing Vishnu, Jesus and angels.

A decreasingly 'conditioned', if you will, nervous system doesn't correspond to more numerous experiences of 'oneness with all life' or 'feeling being in other things'. Rather, these sort of constructed experiences become less frequent. It is much better that way.

The molecular level isn't fundamental, and while organization can be considered a "real" difference between things it's a debate mereological position

Ahhhh interesting. So nonduality is constructed... Lol these nondualists are such so delusional and arrogant

>The molecular level isn't fundamental

How exactly is that meaningful to this conversation?

>and while organization can be considered a "real" difference

It is the distinction for conscious agents.

>So nonduality is constructed...

That sort of nonduality? Of course it is constructed. You're talking about experiencing second-order percepts, subtle objects of experience.

>Lol these nondualists are such so delusional

Most of the time. The truly exceptional ones are merely ignorant.

>and arrogant

Not necessarily, plenty are warm, easy going people. Still wrong.

i bet you're fun at parties

Lol it's funny that you say that, because I was wondering if Buddhist monks ever dance earlier. He seems pretty sincere and knowledgeable about this subject though, so I appreciate his ideas regardless of whether or not he's fun at parties.

Why do you say that? Alcohol and relaxing into an approximation of the dharmata of the mind actually go fucking great together.

Milarepa and Virupa etc. were drunks, and Virupa and Drukpa Kunley were notorious party animals. Nyingma lay yogis are nothing like Gelugpa monks.

>because I was wondering if Buddhist monks ever dance

Depends on the sect. You have more monastic and rule-oriented sutrayana schools within Theravada that are pretty strict about no dancing (explicitly), similarly with Gelugpa monastics in Tibetan Buddhism, even when they graduate to practice Tantra.

Shakya and Kagyu are really a mixed bag once you get into tantric sects.

While Nyingma, the least monastic group, are pretty known for sex and partying. Of each of the potential obstacles among the various major traditions, one of those explicitly listed of Nyingma is exactly that, attachment to sex and drinking.

That said, it isn't unusual for Shakya, Kagyu, and Nyingma to have dance integrated directly into their practice. So a Nyingmapa for example might both engage in formal dance in retreat as part of a strict practice, and informal dance during some get together.

The Dzogchen Community of Chogyal Namkhai Norbu and sangha surrounding the late Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche are/were criticized for too much booze, pot and hallucinogens. While Ch.NN doesn't participate in anything but moderate drink, and doesn't encourage hallucinogens, Trungpa quite regularly tripped with his students.

The point is, Buddhism is a lot broader in terms of behavior than just strict monastics. Frankly that approach is considered in the tantras to be largely useless in our era, because the afflictions and distractions of common folk (which is what Vajrayana is actually designed for, totally ordinary but sufficiently determined people) will be so pervasive.

As a quick addendum, the late Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche of all people, a extremely well regarded "real deal" Dzogchen master, upon coming to the West tried all sorts of drugs.

He noted that they (from cocaine to lsd) clearly had potential application in practice for sufficiently disciplined people.

So these things can get kind of complicated when it comes to whether or not one should avoid intoxicants in tantra/dzogchen.