Eckhart Tolle

[Kaitzilla]

Happiness should never be the goal, it should be a byproduct of what you are doing.


Otherwise, the most rational course becomes seeking out the best illegal drugs and staying on them as long as possible.

 

[Borachio]

I kind of agree with the first sentence. Though I've been asking about the causes of unhappiness, really.

I don't think I agree with the second sentence. Have you tried doing this?

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Still, your reaction wasn't what I was expecting.

That's mainly because I'm a complete pillock.

I trip over a youtube clip while there's a perfectly readable opening post to reply to. So I'm going to take your word for it when you say

It seems to me that this man is saying:

And react to that

• Unhappiness is primarily due not to circumstances themselves, but what you think about them; [1]
• The way to stop thinking - for a brief time - is to become aware of the present moment; [2]
• There are three ways of doing this:
  • Being aware of the in and out of breathing
  • Being aware of your internal bodily sensations
  • Being aware of the world around you through the senses

1. Of course unhappiness is caused by how you experience circumstances, but the way it is worded almost seems as if the circumstances only play a small role.

If the circumstances are such that you have no or little reason to feel unhappy, or n me reason to feel happy than unhappy, and you still feel unhappy, you're creating the conditions by expanding the reasons to be unhappy and ignoring the ones that'd make you happy. In that way I can see the reasoning.

But if circumstances are such that you have good reason to be unhappy, sure the unhappiness is still caused by the way you think about it, but the word "primarily" in the statement makes me judge that statement untrue. In that case the circumstances are the primary cause, not the natural reaction.

2. Those are indeed ways, since you distract your mental process by focussing on one that requires none. The 3rd is also a good way to let your mind wander. Is it considered 'thinking' when you let your thoughts run free?

 

[Kaitzilla]

I kind of agree with the first sentence. Though I've been asking about the causes of unhappiness, really.

I don't think I agree with the second sentence. Have you tried doing this?

Only with Caffeine and maybe a Prozac. Don't want to die, so the answer is nope

 

[warpus]

Happiness should never be the goal, it should be a byproduct of what you are doing.


Otherwise, the most rational course becomes seeking out the best illegal drugs and staying on them as long as possible.

I keep "happiness" as a vague/general goal in the back of my mind when making decisions.

It's just another variable that affects what sort of decision I make. I agree that looking at only 1 variable would be a bad idea, but that's not because happiness in itself is some sort of a goal that needs other things attached to it. Sometimes a happy feeling is exactly what you need.

 

[Janig]

Well!

That's says a lot about either me, or you. I really don't know which.

Is any of it true, do you think?

But why "homosexual friends who aren't totally comfortable with their sexuality"? That's quite a curious thing to say, in my opinion.

Are you suggesting that because I'm not totally comfortable with my sexuality (btw I am; but of course you don't know that - nor do you know, I imagine, what my sexual orientation is), then I'd be more at home with others who are also not comfortable?

So, if I was a nervous car driver, say, I'd be more comfortable being driven by another nervous driver? I haven't found this to be the case.

I dont

Like

Writing to

You because

You dont construct

Sentences properly nor really stay on topic.

 

[Mr. Dictator]

I dont

Like

Writing to

You because

You dont construct

Sentences properly nor really stay on topic.

How spurious, I mean, surious.

 

[Borachio]

I trip over a youtube clip while there's a perfectly readable opening post to reply to. So I'm going to take your word for it when you say

Actually, the clip in the OP is where I first stumbled across this guy. Then I looked him up on wiki and watched some other clips. So what I summarized is a bit more than what's in the first clip.

1. Of course unhappiness is caused by how you experience circumstances, but the way it is worded almost seems as if the circumstances only play a small role.

Yes, I think he is saying that. And I think he does mean that any circumstance only plays a small role.

But if circumstances are such that you have good reason to be unhappy, sure the unhappiness is still caused by the way you think about it, but the word "primarily" in the statement makes me judge that statement untrue. In that case the circumstances are the primary cause, not the natural reaction.

I'm not sure what you have in mind here. But Tolle goes on to talk about people dying of cancer. And his own mother going blind and getting progressively more disabled before she finally died. He still seems to maintain that thinking - about the future or regrets about the past - is what made these people unhappy. And that acceptance, of what the present moment is, brings people relief from this.

2. Those are indeed ways, since you distract your mental process by focussing on one that requires none. The 3rd is also a good way to let your mind wander. Is it considered 'thinking' when you let your thoughts run free?

If you pay attention to the world around you, don't your thoughts automatically stop arising? As soon as a thought comes to my mind, I realize that I stop noticing what I'm looking at or listening to, and all I have in my head is this thought.

Not that there's anything particularly wrong with a thought in my head as long as I don't get obsessed with one notion that goes round and round - never getting anywhere.

I suppose he means the thinking that makes you unhappy is the obsessional kind.

But I'm not sure what is right or wrong, true or false. Or whether this is all just mumbo-jumbo from a charlatan. Which is why I put this on CFC: to see what people here thought about it.

 

[duckstab]

Yes, it's very Buddhisty (is that a word?).

One of the things I found confusing about Buddhism is that of suffering: Man is everywhere suffering.

"Very strange", thought I. "I'm not particularly suffering, I don't think. Certainly not very much, and not most of the time."

The core of Buddhism is the Four Noble Truths, which can be summarized thus:
1) Suffering exists
2) Suffering exists because of craving (wanting reality to be other than it is)
3) There exists a state of being that's free from suffering
4) There exists a path to achieve that state

A lot of people seem to get put off by the 1st Noble Truth and stop reading after that.

But Buddhists don't claim that every waking moment is filled with suffering. The Sanskrit word dukkha, which is usually translated "suffering", originally correlated with the image of a wheel that was not properly aligned on its axle. Thus, what the Buddha was trying to point to was more an ongoing unease, agitation, or lack of contentment. And this quality is present, not only in times of intense physical or emotional pain, but often even in our reaction to very pleasurable experiences -- for the simple reason that they do not last.

The "churning" of our thoughts tends to be a big part of that. We often spend much of our time and energy figuring out how to arrange reality so that we'll be permanently happy, which is doomed to failure because as soon as we get things just the way we want them, something is almost certainly going to change. If we want to be truly at peace, we have to look within and find that peace in the midst of this impermanence.

Tolle isn't really saying anything fundamentally different. I think he had a genuine experience of psychological awakening and was capable enough to be able to share it with a wide audience. His style doesn't really speak to me but if he's helping people and not doing them any harm I don't have an issue with him.

 

[Borachio]

That's well put.

Next, in Buddhism comes the Noble Eightfold Path, I suppose. (And I'd be interested to see what you have to say about it, Duckstab.)

And doesn't that mean vegetarianism? Isn't vegetarianism a fairly important part of being Buddhist?

Here's what Tolle says about food choices:

Link to video.
For people who can't stand his quirky style (I rather like it), here's basically what he says:

You have to be present with your food choices, which have to come from within rather than without.

If you identify vegetarianism with a spiritual way of life that can be a hindrance rather than an aid.

You have to do what feels right, and corresponds with your state of mind at the time that you look at, or even think of, food.

The conscious mind, or ego, often doesn't know what the body needs.

 

[duckstab]

That's well put.

Next, in Buddhism comes the Noble Eightfold Path, I suppose. (And I'd be interested to see what you have to say about it, Duckstab.)

It's funny, because when I first came to Buddhism, my first impression was - "boy, there are a lot of lists in this religion!"

The Eightfold Path is really just an elaboration of the 4th Noble Truth. It breaks down into:

1) Right View - seeing things as they really are
2) Right Intention - having a desire to be liberated
3) Right Speech - abandoning harmful speech such as lying, insults, malicious gossip, etc.
4) Right Action - abandoning causing harm to living beings, stealing, sexual misconduct, intoxication
5) Right Livelihood - making your living doing something that doesn't tend to harm others. Specifically highlighted as occupations which Buddhists should avoid are selling weapons, poisons, and intoxicants; being involved in the production or sale of meat; and trading in living beings (e.g., selling/buying slaves or operating a brothel).
6) Right Effort - making a sincere and diligent effort on the spiritual path
7) Right Mindfulness - This is somewhat different from the sense in which "mindfulness" is usually used today. It really means keeping in mind all the other parts of the path so you don't lapse into harmful behavior.
8) Right Meditation - Having a meditation practice.

Some people get put off by the adjective "Right", because it comes across as a bit moralistic, as if everything else were "Wrong". I think some recent translators prefer to use a word like "Appropriate". "Right Livelihood" doesn't mean, for example, that all bartenders are going to hell for selling intoxicants, rather it means that, if you're a bartender you might want to consider how you might be enabling others to abuse alcohol and how that hinders your own spiritual progress.

And doesn't that mean vegetarianism? Isn't vegetarianism a fairly important part of being Buddhist?

Many Buddhists are vegetarian, particularly in the West. But many are not and it surprises many people to learn that the Buddha's own position on it was rather more nuanced.

What he was doing was building a monastic order, and he apparently thought it very important that his followers had daily contact with the lay people in the surrounding community. So his monks obtained all their food on daily alms rounds. Many Buddhist monks follow this practice even today. They're not allowed to store food from day to day and they're expected to eat whatever is offered to them. If that happens to be meat, they eat meat. By that time, any harm to the animal is done.

I've pretty much adopted this approach myself. If some meat ends up on my plate I don't turn up my nose at it. But I try to eat as low on the food chain as is practical.

However, there are some things that even lay Buddhists definitely aren't supposed to do, like order something in a restaurant that is killed and cooked to order. No lobster for me!

 

[Borachio]

1. What is the ego?

2. Is it possible to live without the ego?

3. How is it done?

 

[duckstab]

I think of the "ego" as the sense that there's an intrinsically existing being here behind this face, looking out at the world, that there's a subject of all experience which exists independent of the objects of those experiences.

Is the ego a problem? Frequently, it becomes one. So much of what we do is about protecting the ego, keeping it happy, fearing what will happen if we don't. And in the meantime the full richness of our lives is being played out, largely unnoticed and unappreciated.

Fundamentally, the issue with the ego is that we don't recognize it for what it is, a constellation of concepts that arise due to particular conditions and which ceases to exist when those conditions cease.

Those conditions, I believe, include the existence of a human brain that's functioning at a certain level. My body's been under general anesthesia several times and I can tell you, "I" wasn't there. There's just an experience of discontinuity between going under in the OR and awakening in the next moment in recovery. I just can't believe that there's anything to "me" that exists when this brain isn't active to some minimal degree.

Douglas Hofstadter has suggested that consciousness and self-awareness arise when a self-regulating system becomes so complex that it needs to create a model of itself. I think that's as valid a hypothesis as any for why the ego exists.

In the end, however, I don't think the ego is something to be gotten rid of. It's just not something to be constantly catered to. Some advanced meditators report that they can exist in a state that they describe as egoless. The only glimpse I myself have had of this is that I sometimes see thoughts arising in meditation but they're just perceived as another phenomenon that happens to be occurring, not something I'm actually "doing".

 

[Farm Boy]

Eh, this sounds very much like the meat of Christianity as well. They just bicker about words like "self" and "spirituality" when the end mental state winds up being the same thing. Competing for the same people and funds will probably do that though, the driving of false divisions and all that.

 

[Borachio]

So what does "Deny thyself" mean?

What does "Blessed are the poor in spirit" mean?

Is it that rich men can get into heaven provided they wear rags and don't look down on poor people?

 

[CivCube]

Tolle's not covering new territory but I enjoy how he phrases things. He's popular because people can understand his writing in a Western context.

 

[civver_764]

I love Eckhart Tolle, he really opened my mind up to lots of things. I still get caught up a lot in being "me", but I also know how to experience the present moment now without attaching any person to it(and try to maintain this as a permanent state of awareness, though its obviously very difficult). Things just are as they are, I think if you truly know that you can avoid unhappiness altogether.

 

[Ayatollah So]

1. Of course unhappiness is caused by how you experience circumstances, but the way it is worded almost seems as if the circumstances only play a small role.

Which is utterly ridiculous - and yet completely true. (Link points to video; if you prefer text, here.)

Tolle isn't really saying anything fundamentally different. I think he had a genuine experience of psychological awakening and was capable enough to be able to share it with a wide audience. His style doesn't really speak to me but if he's helping people and not doing them any harm I don't have an issue with him.

This, in spades.

Eh, this sounds very much like the meat of Christianity as well. They just bicker about words like "self" and "spirituality" when the end mental state winds up being the same thing.

And probably this, too.

 

[Borachio]

Tolle's not covering new territory but I enjoy how he phrases things. He's popular because people can understand his writing in a Western context.

And this is exactly why he's so important. I don't think he anywhere claims to be saying anything new. Rather the reverse.

 

[kochman]

Link to video.

It seems to me that this man is saying:

• Unhappiness is primarily due not to circumstances themselves, but what you think about them;
• The way to stop thinking - for a brief time - is to become aware of the present moment;
• There are three ways of doing this:
  • Being aware of the in and out of breathing
  • Being aware of your internal bodily sensations
  • Being aware of the world around you through the senses

So, is this what he's saying?

And is what he's saying true?

He's a pretty smart dude... I think he's got a lot of stuff right on, from the snippets I've read.

But, as with all such people, they make things sounds WAY simpler than they are, or the application of the ideas being presented are...

Good stuff though, certainly doesn't hurt.
This statement is endorsed by me, and I'm a Christian...
Some Christians will object, but I don't find anything particularly against Christ here.