Idea of no-self doesn't translate into no-fear-of-death

Over on Slate there's an interesting piece by Nina Strohminger, Jay Garfield, and Shaun Nichols, "Buddhism and the Loss of Self." I've copied it in below for easy reading.

Surprisingly, research seems to show that Buddhists who don't believe they have (or are) a continuous self are more fearful of death than Hindus or adherents of the Abrahamic traditions (Christianity, Judaism, Islam).

Buddhists also were less generous in a thought experiment about giving away a single dose of medicine that could extend either their own or someone else's life.

But I guess this really isn't so surprising. After all, our sense of self appears to persist even though we may think we've left it behind.

The way I think about this is, how would a supposedly "selfless" person feel if someone came up behind them on a dark sidewalk, put a gun to their head, and said I'm going to kill you.

I suspect they would react as anyone else would: with fear and trembling.

However, those who believe in an eternal soul will have the comfort of expecting that even if their body dies, their soulful conscious essence won't. So this could explain why Buddhists who embrace a doctrine of no-self are more afraid of death than Hindus, Christians, Jews, and Muslims.

Here's the essay:

Buddhism and the Loss of Self
by Nina Strohminger, Jay Garfield, and Shaun Nichols

Unlike Hinduism and the Abrahamic religions, Buddhism embraces the idea that there is no self, only a sequence of ever-changing and impermanent psychophysical processes. Just as one cannot step into the same river twice, there is no such thing as a continuous self, a single “me” that persists over time. Because there is no continuous self in life, there is no self to preserve in death.

The Buddhist no-self doctrine is sometimes said to alleviate a familiar source of suffering: fear of death. By focusing early and often on how the self is continually dying, many Buddhist scholars argue, one is able to make peace with death of the physical body. Buddhists also believe that embracing the no-self doctrine is central to the elimination of suffering: when one does away with the self, egocentricity and selfishness go with it.

Though the benefits of Buddhism have been oft-repeated, until recently there had been almost no empirical work on whether Buddhists actually are less selfish or less afraid of death. Our research team recently traveled to Nepal and India to examine the impact of these religious teachings on their adherents.

We measured responses from displaced Tibetan Buddhists and Indian Hindus. We also surveyed Americans who were raised in Abrahamic religious traditions (Christianity, Judaism, and Islam). Unlike Buddhism, Hinduism and Abrahamic religions characteristically subscribe to the belief that there is a self that persists over time (an ātman or soul), which survives the body in rebirth or the afterlife.

Our data show that Buddhists have internalized the no-self doctrine. While Americans and Indians indicate a high belief in the connectedness of the self and an essential core self that persists across the lifespan, Buddhists strongly disagree with these statements. This was true whether our test subjects were Buddhist monks and nuns or Buddhist laypeople. Buddhists also believe in greater impermanence of the world and everything in it.

We also asked these populations if they coped with death by embracing the no-self doctrine. While almost all Tibetans affirmed this coping strategy, virtually none of the Americans said they did. (Abrahamic religions rely on other means for coping with death, such as belief in an afterlife.) Indian Hindus were somewhere in between.

The no-self doctrine is deeply insinuated into the Tibetan Buddhists, but how do these beliefs affect anxiety about death and selfishness? We gave our subjects the fear of personal death scale to fill out, which contains a series of statements about different kinds of reasons one might be afraid of death, to which subjects rate their level of agreement. The scale allows us to measure both the overall fear of death and the reasons for this anxiety.

We were particularly interested in the items related to self-annihilation, which include, “Dying one year from now frightens me because of the loss and destruction of the self,” and, “Dying one year from now frightens me because of the destruction of personality.” When we asked prominent Tibetan scholars how a good Buddhist ought to respond to this scale, they said that one should have little to no fear of destruction of the self.

Nonetheless, Buddhist monks and nuns—those who were steeped in these religion doctrines day in and day out—exhibited significantly more fear of self-annihilation than Americans or Indians. Buddhist laypeople, who were less versed in the details of the doctrine of selflessness, also exhibited less fear than the monastics. If we consider only the other possible reasons to fear death, such as fear of the unknown, Buddhists were no less fearful than anyone else. In short, the no-self doctrine, rather than equipping the Tibetan lamas with serenity regarding end of life, seems to provoke a deep-rooted anxiety of self-annihilation, and does nothing to reduce overall fear of death.

In another survey, we gave participants a tradeoff task to measure generosity in end-of-life decisions. Imagine, we said, that you have a terminal disease that will kill you in six months unless you take a medication. There is only one dose of the medication available. If you take it, it will prolong your life by six months. If you don’t take the medication, it will go to someone else who has the same condition and, like you, will die in six months. If the medicine would prolong his life by twelve months instead of six, would you still take the medicine? What about two years? How much more life would the stranger have to receive before you would give up your medicine?

What we found surprised us. While Abrahamic and Hindu populations chose to give their medicine away when the stranger would live an additional couple of years, Buddhists were exceedingly reluctant to give their medicine away under any circumstances. If there is a ceiling on how much Buddhists value their lives over others, we never found it. Our scale only went up to “more than five years”—more than 70 percent of Buddhists selected this option.

Much of Buddhist philosophy and religious practice is aimed at cultivating selflessness, rechanneling concerns to the larger moral universe around us. But we did not find this effect in our studies. Ironically, it seems that these teachings, instead of mitigating fear of death and nurturing generosity, engender some of the behaviors and thought patterns they seek to destroy. These effects are especially strong among monastics who have the deepest understanding of these doctrines. They are the most fearful of self-annihilation, and the least generous with their lives.

This cross-cultural research highlights that religious teachings can have a deep and lasting impact on precisely the sort of moral and existential quandaries that religion is designed to help us navigate. However, these beliefs will not always have the impact on practitioners that we intend—and may in some cases even be counterproductive.

Comments

[TonyM]

I wonder if Buddhists react that way because they don't believe in a 'soul'? The other religions convince themselves they will continue to exist in some form. It's easy to give away a million dollars if you think you'll be earning billions next week.

[777]

Brian
This is non-duality, as given by Shankar called Advaita

It is the workable re-unification with Jahweh c q Brahma
cq the Hindu trinity cq Indra cq Maria

One needs to practise perfect ascese often during many lifes in this Yuga
also lose in some way all attachments

Then a jeeva might be accepted at the top administrator pwer plant of the first of seven regions
according to swami Vivekananda c q Ramakrishna and many others
THEY call it the royal road and the exit chakras are the heart and the throat chakra tunnels
Those who succeed this unification , then, . . have to wait until Brahma will ascend in to ParaBrahm 2/7 heaven spree, region
Underway it's not easy to deny feelings like fear of death

There are on the web innumerable ( mostly fake ) organizations telling how to do all this mostly from scriptures and via pilgrimages , ascese and the like
You also have to sell your nice garden and house and give your possessions to the needy

The difficulty here is the fact that the Ego often is ONLY hypocritically lost
and not for real

This ( losing fear ) can only happen by non-hypocritical pure Love for the real Divine,
a Human who is already imbued completely in the 7th Heaven
called Saints
They help yo use the ascending TANGIBLE Sound current
to be impregnant 24/7
When Love is very intense there is no "time" left for ego tripping

777

I think you received it long ago and lost it

[observer]

Probably any research of people in religious organisations will find that the majority suffer from grasping, clinging to life, egoistic tendencies. People are obviously attracted to religions that promise an afterlife and accept the disciplines of behaviour that will bring a better life in the future, which they aspire to. Satsangis are no different, a more egotistical bunch I have yet to find. They believe that the master will save them if they rigidly adhere to the principles. This is actually quite selfish. Been there, done that.

Those practising Buddhists who are fearful of becoming ‘nothing’ haven’t yet realised the pure nature of awareness and are still clinging to self, like most of us. I am more comfortable now (after 47 years initiated into Sant Mat) with the principles of Buddhism, the wonderful feeling of being in a natural state of awareness with more of a sense of love and compassion rather than just giving all my attention and love to one being, a master, who is going to save me after I die. Ludicrous.

[Appreciative Reader]

This is a very curious line of thought. Let’s say I know for a fact (that is, I believe with cent per cent of my capacity to believe) -- either via science (the current crop of neurologists with their apparently breakthrough research along these lines, for instance), or via religious indoctrination, or some combination thereof -- that there is no self. I don’t see why that would, at all, result in my being in any way less “selfish” (in the common meaning of that term) or in any way more reconciled to death.

Taking this forward : I “am”, and that is fact (irrespective of whether “I” am simply a passing chimera), and I will one day (one day not all that distant) cease to be. Whether that thought fills me with dread, with some mild discomfort, with resignation, with indifference, or with joy : that is a function of very many things. Perhaps my belief system as regards the nature of self might be one of those very many things, but I don’t think it can be an overwhelmingly important one. Why should it, after all?

In fact, in so far as simply “knowledge” or “beliefs” can affect one’s dread of the end of one’s life, I suppose a comforting sky-daddy-waiting-with-keys-for-my-personal-luxury-villa-in-the-sky belief would likely be the most effective (even if distincly dysfunctional).

So what would help decrease that unease (or terror, as the case may be) at the prospect of dying? So much easier to ask than to answer! My own ten cents : one’s innate nature is probably the most important factor here. Which, I realize, does not answer the question.

[777]

AP wrote :
"" Perhaps my belief system as regards the nature of self . . . . """

Many times I have confirmed than to hear the sweet always growing marvelous super Sound day and night
and from time to time being drawn init , . . and really really see that YOU are the Creator and always was . . .

it's also an fantastic changement in the observation of nature including humans,
what is very stunning is How water responds to you
( I don't think this was ever told in any book or discours
it's wonderfull )
a kind of applauding , yelling even, being one with , seeing the lights and the sounds all around and in
geometric changements - it can't be explained

no need to aspire Heaven, you have it already

Believe it or not

"Even the blind will see The Path sublime" ( JapJi ) - True is that
and who want re-take,to re-have that ego, ? . . . not me
and who wants this shit , . . not me

777

[Appreciative Reader]

Quote 777 :

Many times I have confirmed than to hear the sweet always growing marvelous super Sound day and night
and from time to time being drawn init , . . and really really see that YOU are the Creator and always was

Yes, 777, you have confirmed that many times. And as long as that confirmation is made in wholly -- and admittedly -- personal and subjective terms, I find such accounts fascinating and, yes, even inspiring.

I'd love to share your certainty, 777 ; but to do that I would also need to share your experiences. And how do I do that?

I suppose you'll say : "Practice". I do that. Perhaps not your specific brand, but per systems not wholly dissimilar. And the sort of certitude you bask in has eluded me thus far, eluded me by miles and miles. (Jejune though smileys are, an ends-of-mouth-hanging-down emoticon is decidedly apposite here.)

If you have anything else to say, I'm all ears! I've come across the (alleged) phenomenon of "Shaktipat", an accelerated and assisted shortcut for arduous practice ; but again, I am yet to actually directly experience it.

[BL]

The writer attempts to prove a point through research but provides no statistics related to this research. The entire article is based on literary falacy and intends to promote the writer's agenda without fact. This is a type of rhetoric is generally referred to as propaganda. I have no comment on the actual issue, just stating the facts of this piece. This is poorly written.

[777]

Appreciative Reader

I commented so much here, . . a book almost

Try to fall in Love
Go see a Saint and cry? !!!!!

777