Eckhart Tolle became famous with the help of Oprah Winfrey. He has best-selling books about his teachings about being happy by being in the present moment. His teachings have become very popular. WebMD.com has a recent article called Tips to Feel Better All Day. The tips include getting sunlight during the day (no mention of sunscreen or vitamin D), set yourself up for good sleep, eat “feel-good” foods like “fresh vegetables, fruits, and beans, and whole grains instead of refined or processed foods,” stay positive, make a spiritual connection and be around people.
One other tip that it has is “stay focused on the present moment.” It says “A practice called mindfulness can help you reduce the clutter by keeping your focus on the present moment.” Mindfulness does not mean being full of mind. It is another way of saying that you are in the present. But these descriptions are an attempt to describe something that is indescribable. It can be confusing when trying to figure it out.
A person could say how can they not be in the present since they do not have a time machine where they can travel into the future or the past. Eckhart Tolle uses this idea or concept to point to an experience that he had. This experience can be described as heaven or extreme peace and happiness. When you have an experience like this then you are not spending time thinking about past and future. But when thinking about the past or future, people are not usually aware of it since they do not have anything to compare it to. A person can think about being in the present but that is different than what Eckhart Tolle is talking about.
Some people have read his books and were very inspired by them. There was a hope from reading his book that in the future, they can be happier than they are now. But then they became disappointed when that does not manifest. Usually a teacher or coach will tell his students to do what he did when he was being taught. But Eckhart Tolle cannot do this since he did not have a teacher about this subject. He learned it from going through a great deal of depression.
After he leaned about this on his own, he learned about Buddhism to see how Buddhists taught about this to others. So he does not know how to get others to get where he got. Walking around saying to yourself “I will be in the present moment” will not help you. It is just thinking. So I feel that a better way to refer to being in the present moment is to say that you are trying to be deeper in the present moment.
People will think that they are in the present moment but not feel very happy. So instead of saying that are not in the present moment, you can say that they need to go deeper in the present moment to feel happier. Of course to do this someone should take up a particular practice that helps them to be deeper in the present moment.
Two practices that do help with this are yoga and martial arts. In fact in some Buddhist temples in China, they practice martial arts. For a more in depth view of being in the present moment to be happy, see Happiness: Being in the Present Moment. It has quotes about this from Buddha, Eckhart Tolle, psychologist Abraham Maslow and Positive Psychology.