Excerpted from a very long critique, by Be Scofield, of Eckhart Tolle’s Evolutionary Activism, followed by a response by Marissa Handler.

Interesting references are made to the role of ‘enlightened’ Zen Buddhism in justifying and supporting Japanese militarism in WWII:

“A friend recently told me that he believed spiritual awakening would make someone become more progressive politically. I asked him how far left would it make them go? Left-wing anarchist, liberal democrat, socialist? He didn’t know. But he believed it would make them more compassionate and likely to want to serve others. Yet, these are not domains of the “left.” I know many right-wing Christians who have dedicated their lives to serving others, but yet maintain homophobic, sexist and patriarchal attitudes. There were common citizens in Nazi Germany who volunteered and did service. There are many conservatives who are compassionate. My friend, like Tolle, confused spiritual awakening with a particular political agenda.

According to Tolle what is most urgently needed to address the thought addicted insane world is the cultivation of presence. Global transformation hinges upon awakening to our deepest, most essential being. How might one begin to discover this? As we’ve mentioned through stilling the mind or other embodiment practices. Also, “For some,” Tolle claims in A New Earth, a glimpse of awakening “will come while reading this book,” as it is “Designed to draw you into this new consciousness as you read.” He continues, “Again and again, I endeavor to take you with me into that timeless state of intense enlightenment.” If you were worried about the authenticity or truth of his teachings, he clears up the matter by stating his book “is not derived from external sources, but from the one true Source within, so it contains no theory or speculation.”

Like many others Tolle mistakenly conflates presence with justice. People can cultivate presence and and still the mind and yet live in a society that is racist, sexist and based on capitalist exploitation. Presence is not anti-thetical to a “dehumanized industrial civilization.” There can be lots of “nice” people who are calm and do things in a “sacred” manner and yet be completely oblivious to the ways in which the surrounding culture pollutes, oppresses and marginalizes people.

As was the case with Zen Buddhism in Japan during and before WWII, the cultivation of stillness, compassion and love can co-exist with the worst fascism and imperialism. The entire institution of Zen Buddhism – the masters, monks and professors supported the cruel and colonizing efforts of the state and emperor. They defended the “wars of compassion,” gorged themselves in killing and advocated merging the small self with the larger self of the state. This was all done within the monastical, academic and ethical systems of Zen Buddhism. Furthermore, most white people in the history of U.S. have believed themselves to be loving, caring, compassionate people. Many have even engaged in spiritual practices for decades now, yet have been complicit in all sorts of racist, bigoted and Imperialistic actions in America. White people aren’t more aware of their own racism or racist past because they’ve cultivated presence or live in the Now.

Certainly Tolle has transformed the lives of many people. Millions have benefited from his teachings. The physical and mental benefits of mind-body spiritual practices are clear. Yet, this just makes the point I’m trying to illustrate much clearer. It doesn’t matter what political or social persuasion one is, anyone can benefit from individual transformative practices. To suggest that engaging in these practices is thus aligning with a certain political direction of the divine will as Tolle does is simply untrue. Again, anyone who stills the mind or cultivates presence would necessarily end up at the same social and political positions. We’d all end up like Tolle. That’s not my definition of a transformed planet.

Teachings like those of Tolle are overly simplistic and irresponsible. To say that the global problems of the world will be solved if we all still the mind, connect with Being and live in joy, enthusiasm and acceptance is incredibly naive. His ideas are based on magical thinking, not unlike The Secret and many other pop-spiritual philosophies. He claims that by just allowing the present moment to be it “will miraculously transform your whole life.” Even if one addresses their shadow through therapy or other transformative work, this still won’t lead to the global transformation that Tolle speaks of. These teachings make larger than life promises and conflate inner transformation with external transformation when in reality people with varying political positions can equally benefit from spiritual/psychological growth and still maintain their perspectives and actions regardless of how harmful they are.

Claims that the divine is working through us to fulfill the evolutionary mission of consciousness are so abstract they are meaningless. Most significantly the “will of the divine” always reflects the social, political and ideological positions of those making the claims. Saying this doesn’t mean I’m against spiritual practices or individual transformation just as me saying that poetry won’t save us doesn’t mean that I’m against poetry. Rather it is important to pull these two domains of internal and external transformation apart to clearly see what has erroneously been projected onto them.

We are already facing immense global challenges, which are seemingly only going to get worse. Getting in touch with God, love, Being or Source won’t save us now. Spiritual awakening won’t solve the problems we must confront. The issue is not lack of Being or unwillingness to be in the Now. Instead of fetishizing internal transformation as a global panacea or promoting the idea that God is evolving through us let’s build the networks of relationships and communities of resistance necessary to survive the coming planetary challenges.”

Response by Marissa Handler:

“My main argument is that consciousness — awareness — is not enough. We can commit murder with perfect awareness. In Buddhism, there is the vision of the “two wings of the dove”: wisdom and compassion. Building awareness builds clear-seeing, which fosters wisdom. But it is of little use without compassion, the other wing. A heart practice is needed, too; a practice that specifically orients the heart toward an inclusive love. In the Theravadan tradition, this is metta practice; in the Tibetan, tonglen. Both are practices that orient the heart towards love, and that include not only ourselves and our families, but all being, all who suffer, in this wish. Prayer is another wonderful means to this end – but again, and crucially: it must be prayer that extends beyond ourselves and our circles.

We will get nowhere without realizing our interconnection. If we truly understand that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” as King said, then the circle of our compassion does not only extend to ourselves, or our families, or the community of likeminded — but rather to all. Glenn Beck’s religiosity may include tremendous love for those who have been saved, but it effectively excludes those beyond his walls. Indeed, it damns many of them. There may be compassion here, but clearly wisdom is lacking.

In essence, I am arguing that, as Tolle maintains, a shift in consciousness is necessary to genuine social transformation. And I believe this shift in consciousness is greatly aided by, if not dependent upon, a committed spiritual practice. However, our practice must incorporate the intention of fostering both wisdom and compassion, both clarity and love. It must incorporate a vision of interconnection. And it is most certainly not enough simply to read Tolle and trust he speaks the truth. We must find out for ourselves: we must negotiate with our own anger and fear and pain and confusion, and learn how to hold them, to allow them to transform. We must learn how to choose to act from love. We must learn, at the risk of cliché, to be the change we want to see in the world. This inner work is not rewarded in our culture — significantly less so, in my experience, than activist work. Yet our activism will change very little of true substance unless we do this work. It is this work that shows us what we are engaging with in the world, this work that leads us to understand the nature of hatred, and greed, and fear. For we are human, and these are in us. And we cannot work from love unless we have learned to hold these in ourselves.

But finally, and crucially: it’s not enough just to practice. Unless we expose ourselves to the world — to the thorny issues we wish to change, and to the often-challenging interpersonal dynamics that arise as we do engage – spiritual practice risks devolving into navel-gazing, or worse, self-righteous justification for our narrow worldview. In short: we must act. We will not evolve, spiritually or collectively, unless we negotiate with the very tricky, often humbling, issues of our times; unless we expose ourselves, and our beliefs – spiritual, social, and beyond — to the great big world out there, in all its complexity and contradiction. We cannot simply transcend. We must be immanent, too: we must choose, we must engage.”