This is less of a debate and more a general question, but since it’s about religion I figured I’d play it safe and put it in GD. Anyway…
Mrs. Homie bought one of his books at Goodwill for the lulz, and in reading the jacket, and his Wikipedia page, I must admit I still have no idea WTF he’s on about.
I have no idea WTF any of that means. Sounds to me like gussied-up Buddhism for the sake of selling books, but I could be wrong.
Can anyone give me a layman’s explanation of what he teaches?
It can be difficult to know where to begin. Although you may not realize it, you are zero-point. The quantum cycle is calling to you via meridians. Can you hear it?
If you have never experienced this uprising of the creative act, it can be difficult to believe. Have you found your story? Lifeform, look within and fulfill yourself.
I have an [otherwise intelligent] friend who is seriously into this stuff and who has tried to get me into it as well, but I’ve not been able to distinguish his philosophy from Buddhism. There are certainly some worthwhile things in Buddhism to consider, but I don’t see what Tolle brings to the table that wasn’t already there.
Eckhardt Tolle teaches a pretty accessible form of spirituality that is very close to buddhism or advaita vedanta which aims to help people see through the ego (i.e. experience what Zen buddhists call a satori).
Normally we are associated with thoughts and feelings believing them to be what we are, but through different techniques (like certain forms of meditation) you can manipulate your awareness or consciousness until you suddenly “fall out” of the story of yourself as a separate being. This is usually an intensely liberating feeling which brings an almost insane amount of bliss, gratitude and relief when it happens, and is one of the steps on the path to what buddhists call ‘enlightenment’. The idea is to dis-associate from the ego, and instead associate with the witnessing consciousness that the ego takes place in. This is basically the original purpose of most sincere spiritual practices.
His style isn’t very appealing to me personally but as far as I can tell he is legit and his insights and techniques seem valid. His focus is mainly to get people “out of their heads” by making them focus intently on the experience of the present moment (i.e. The Power of Now) which is another basic tenant of buddhism. The mind is always focused on either the past or the future, and basically denies the existence of the now, and if you’re able to calm your mind to the point that it stops jabbering your life experience will simply become a lot better.
Since his own awakening (or satori) was quite spontaneous he’s not part of any specific spiritual tradition, but pretty much everything he says and points towards can be found in the eastern mystical traditions. Personally I prefer Adyashanti, Pamela Wilson, Isaac Shapiro, Ken Wilber and Junpo Denis Kelly to him. They all teach the same thing but with different flavors and techniques.
Oh and if you want a non-religious version of the same thing you can look at transpersonal psychology, or (my current favorite) Spiral Dynamics which is another school of developmental psychology that maps out the individual development we go through. It’s even got nice colors and numbers… 
I think it describes the evolution of our ego/mind/consciousness very well, both on the individual and collective scale. You can for example see that most posters on SDMB are either at ORANGE (scientific rationalism) or GREEN (pluralistic relativism) development levels. The AQAL map gives a good overview.