Why do monastic Tibetans have a fear of an end to their self that is *twice as high* as any other group?
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Replying to @Plinz
I don’t know. The paper is worth reading: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/520cf78be4b0a5dd07f51048/t/5a661a71f9619ae2f5fa0520/1516640881471/Nichols_et_al-2018-Cognitive_Science.pdf …
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Replying to @Meaningness @Plinz
One thing I *can* say is that, in my experience, what Tibetan monastics believe has very little to do with scripture—even those who can quote it extensively. In practice, it’s a typical folk religion: mostly about spooks, gods, and magical procedures that ensure good luck.
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Replying to @Meaningness
Yes, I think saw some of this first hand. But the monasteries don't simply fail to remove fear of self annihilation, they dramatically increase it. Something is going on.
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Replying to @Plinz
I agree; but from the available data it’s hard to guess what.
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Replying to @Meaningness
Yes, which is precisely why I asked Twitter's resident expert :)
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Replying to @Meaningness
I have confidence in what you might come up with after having given it some more thought. It is really curious.
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Replying to @Plinz
Well… it’s an empirical question. I don’t think I could figure it out a priori!
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Replying to @Meaningness @Plinz
The self-annihilation subaspects they used included “decomposition of the body,” which monastics are supposed to contemplate with horror. Would be interesting to know if that comes up higher than the others. cc:
@NinaStrohmingerpic.twitter.com/eNyaAjl4mv
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I wonder if the fact that monasteries garrison people outside of a normal familial and societal context leads to an atomization that would increase their focus on the individual self?
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Replying to @Plinz @NinaStrohminger
Could be. Although they are themselves close-knit communities, like army units (which may successfully train soldiers to place unit over self). And in many cases they’re closely interwoven with secular community life as well, despite rhetoric to the contrary.
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Replying to @Meaningness @NinaStrohminger
I wonder if having children has a larger effect on losing fear of loss of individual self than education + meditation.
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