So how is a quiet ego measured? I understand those four facets in the article are supposed to correlate with the quiet ego, so it would be interesting how the loudness of your ego is measured before those 4 questions. Otherwise is seems like imposing your own bias to create a category that fits your per-conceived western Buddhism bias.
For example "Facet #1: Detached awareness", I don't really see what "detached" adds to the category of awareness if it only involves those 3 questions mentioned in the article. I can easily imagine people that also score low on those questions but who practice "involved awareness" feeling really attached to what they are doing in a very aware state of mind.
Same with the rest of facets, the idea that "Facet #3: Perspective taking" involves quieting your ego is a point of view that is not obvious and you will have to prove somehow. I think for a lot of people empathy intuitively involves feeling the pain of others as your own, which is not a detached feeling at all, and involves a strong involvement of the ego.
And I really can not see how the last point of personal growth is supposed to fit with the rest of them. It seems like the typical Western Buddhist marketing, they start speaking about how alienated we are in our consumerist way of life, some love and compassion follow, but the real selling point is that with their help and a little bit of detachment you can even be MORE successful on the consumerist game.
All in all I don't buy it unless there's more to it.
In our lab, we recognize is as deactivation in the PCC, some of our collaborators recognize it as deactivation in the DMN, measurable with both EEG/fMRI.
>All in all I don't buy it unless there's more to it.
I'd say it's preferable if more people don't feel like they have to "buy" into it… but as you know, there's a burgeoning industry surrounding such, but I'm mostly grateful that I get to be apart of working on the technology which I'd say will be way more useful outside of just meditation and contemplative practices…
It makes me uncomfortable too. I think they are trying to measure something that is unquantifiable.
Life is more complicated, and human interactions exponentially more so.
People don't fit into neat little boxes where one group is one way and the other group is another. People are messy.
For example "Facet #1: Detached awareness", I don't really see what "detached" adds to the category of awareness if it only involves those 3 questions mentioned in the article. I can easily imagine people that also score low on those questions but who practice "involved awareness" feeling really attached to what they are doing in a very aware state of mind.
Same with the rest of facets, the idea that "Facet #3: Perspective taking" involves quieting your ego is a point of view that is not obvious and you will have to prove somehow. I think for a lot of people empathy intuitively involves feeling the pain of others as your own, which is not a detached feeling at all, and involves a strong involvement of the ego.
And I really can not see how the last point of personal growth is supposed to fit with the rest of them. It seems like the typical Western Buddhist marketing, they start speaking about how alienated we are in our consumerist way of life, some love and compassion follow, but the real selling point is that with their help and a little bit of detachment you can even be MORE successful on the consumerist game.
All in all I don't buy it unless there's more to it.