Eckhart Tolle and the Pain-Body

[Jenny]

Re: Eckhart Tolle and the Pain-Body

Hi Jundo, I very much appreciate the trouble you took in offering your views on our topic and also your not unkind remarks about Eckhart Tolle. Your emphasis on the importance of our sitting practice won't go unheeded either. Books and tapes have been very helpful for me, but I know I can't eat the recipe.

You are a very good conductor of this orchestra which is Treeleaf, and if we go out of tune sometimes, as is to be expected with such a varied bunch of folk, you can always be guaranteed to tap the baton and waken us up!

Incidently, Eckhart passed a good remark on Monday night's show. He said no one can ever be liked by everybody. But it's important to know that this isn't necessary.

Gassho Jenny

[Shindo]

Re: Eckhart Tolle and the Pain-Body

Jundo - thank you so much for the essay - its an excellent piece of writing. I have read one of Mr Tolle's books (about "Now" I think) & agree with you - "fluffy" sums it up.

Best wishes

Jools

[Jundo]

Re: Eckhart Tolle and the Pain-Body

I thought some might find this Youtube interesting after the recent discussion of Eckhart Tolle and Oprah. Apparently 5,000,000 have seen the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JW4LLwkgmqA&feature=related[/video]]

... re=related

As interesting as what is said in the video by the narrator is what is not said, and how they seem to let Oprah and Tolle "damn themselves" without need for narration, as if their comments were so obviously anti-Christian that nobody needs to even point it out. I guess we are in trouble here at Treeleaf too! :|

Oh, and at the end, apparently Oprah-Obama-Tolle & the Devil are in league to take over the world. Now you know.

Gassho, Jundo

[Skye]

Re: Eckhart Tolle and the Pain-Body

Oh man, that video is really depressing. People are so controlled by their own fear that someone saying "God is love" is somehow radical and heretical??? These culture wars are so unhelpful.

The plug for the conspiracy book at the end was the cherry on top.

[Eika]

Re: Eckhart Tolle and the Pain-Body

Skye wrote:
People are so controlled by their own fear that someone saying "God is love" is somehow radical and heretical??? These culture wars are so unhelpful.

I couldn't agree more, Skye.
You hit the nail on the head . . . fear is the basis of the kind of rhetoric in the video. People identify so strongly with beliefs that anything or anyone who challenges those beliefs is a defacto challenge to their sense of self. The sad part is that as much as I see it in others, I see it in myself (I hope to less destructive degrees), but I am convinced that a nice side-effect of practice is that I am reducing the need to defend that illusory self.

Gassho,
Bill

[Skye]

Re: Eckhart Tolle and the Pain-Body

What ironic is that the same people consider their form of worship to be authentic, true and unchanging, even though it bears little if any resemblance to anything practiced before in history. Talk about a perfect example of Dukkha....

Hmm, which brings me back to thinking about the Buddha-way ... seems like its impermanent too, and it changes with the times (witness our little Zendo vs some other orthodox hardliners elsewhere), although the Buddha-nature is beyond such distinctions.

[will]

Re: Eckhart Tolle and the Pain-Body

and it changes with the times (witness our little Zendo vs some other orthodox hardliners elsewhere), although the Buddha-nature is beyond such distinctions.

Being so simple and speaking to the core of what we are, lends adaptability and expression to the path which walk. Orthodox or little Zendos. Really we're all on the same path just walking it in a different style. Referring to Bill's previous post:

Norman Fischer's Everyday Zen

I see now how one thing leads to another and institutions and establishments are set up. This is something inevitable and useful. It is what happens when people want to practice and continue practicing "suffering and the end of suffering," which is neither Japanese nor Indonesian nor Irish."

G,W

[Jenny]

Re: Eckhart Tolle and the Pain-Body

It would be difficult to have a friendly discussion or dialogue with an evangelical Christian about Zen, for instance. Well, more or less impossible here in N. Ireland where most people are either Catholic or Protestant and it would be hard to find a Buddhist to argue with!

Our small Zen group here meets weekly in what was an isolated farmhouse by a river, but is now an educational centre. A new member arrived one evening recently by taxi and mentioned that the taxi driver told him a cult met there. We were half an hour into our tea and biscuits at the end when we realised he had been talking about us!

Jenny

[Bansho]

Re: Eckhart Tolle and the Pain-Body

Our small Zen group here meets weekly in what was an isolated farmhouse by a river, but is now an educational centre. A new member arrived one evening recently by taxi and mentioned that the taxi driver told him a cult met there. We were half an hour into our tea and biscuits at the end when we realised he had been talking about us!

LOL!!! Thanks for that.

Gassho
Ken

[Undo]

Re: Eckhart Tolle and the Pain-Body

:shock: You sacrifice tea and biscuits? :shock: !!!!

[Shugen]

Re: Eckhart Tolle and the Pain-Body

:lol:

[Tb]

Re: Eckhart Tolle and the Pain-Body

It would be difficult to have a friendly discussion or dialogue with an evangelical Christian about Zen, for instance.

Hi.

Yes i find that this can be somewhat true, with a lot of different people, especially since they often don't really know what it's all about.
But mostly when you "set things straight" they are happy to talk about it.
I even have some priests here who almost "Seeks me out" to talk about things from an "buddhist perspective", it's even more fun since one is my barber (At the beginning that one was a little nervously, going there)...

Mtfbwy
Fugen

[AlanLa]

Re: Eckhart Tolle and the Pain-Body

Off topic now, but that video about the Church of Oprah reminded me of something:

I live in what has been described to me as not the Bible Belt but the Bible Belt Buckle, which means it's pretty extreme here. A student of mine recently posted a video on Scientology on Facebook saying it was interesting how slick their marketing was to attract "customers." I watched the video and all it had was some slick production values and comments about how people were unsatisfied and looking for something bigger in their lives, and at the end they promised the Truth through Scientology. A lot of the comments were about how this was Satan advertising. I commented that it was a pretty generic commercial and that any religion promised the same thing (yes, maybe even Satansim), a way to relieve suffering. It was so generic I think Buddhism could've used it (if we were ever into that sort of thing). My student agreed about that it was generic, but the other folks started screaming there is only one TRUTH and how dare I suggest anyone else might have an answer, which is just what those people in the audience got so upset at with Oprah when she suggested there was more than one way to God. I think it's sad. It makes me want to do metta practice.

[Shonin]

Re: Eckhart Tolle and the Pain-Body

Those fundies do get cranky don't they , Alan?

Dave

[Tb]

Re: Eckhart Tolle and the Pain-Body

Hi.

Back to the Tolletopic...

I somewhat encourage people to read Tolle, but i give them a "finger of warning".
He has a way of saying "A car is a thing with a steering wheel, a bike has handlebars".
Not always so.
He's a little "light" on some subjects.
And he's a little "new agey", but arent we all?
But once you see through that he can be a good wayto get people to practice, and open their mind (is that correct in english?).

I actually have the new earth lying around in a box somewhere (i'm in the movingprocess...), I'll look it up.

Now, the pain-body, He's using a "Tollean description" which is quite common in his writing, he mixes and blends stuff and comes out with something that looks good.
Can't really say what fits where, but in a neat "Tollean" description of things it does, and gives a quite nice picture.

And one can't stop oneself from wondering as Oprah get's more "new age/Buddhist" fanlike, maybe we'll even have Brad Warner on... :shock:
or not...

Mtfbwy
Fugen