Maybe in our achievement-driven, how-are-you-contributing-to-unrelenless-growth society. Indigenous cultures don’t exhibit self-doubt. Neither do Buddhists. I just talked about this on my podcast.
In a meeting between the Dalai Lama and a group of American psychologists in 1990, one of the psychologists brought up the concept of negative self-talk. Since there are no words in Tibetan that translate into low self-esteem and self-loathing, it took quite a long time for the psychologists to convey what they meant. But this wasn’t a translation problem. It was a problem of conceptualization. Self-loathing? People do that? The Dalai Lama was incredulous. Once the Dalai Lama understood what they were saying, he turned to the Tibetan monks in the room, and after explaining what the psychologists were suggesting, he asked, “How many of you have experienced this low self-esteem, self-contempt, or self-loathing?”
Complete silence.
Here was a psychological state of mind so ubiquitous in our culture that everyone experiences it from time to time, if not every single day. Yet the Tibetans—trained since childhood in the art of a mental exercise they call meditation—acted like they were being told about some alien life form. The Dalai Lama turned back to the psychologists and asked a simple question:
Maybe in our achievement-driven, how-are-you-contributing-to-unrelenless-growth society. Indigenous cultures don’t exhibit self-doubt. Neither do Buddhists. I just talked about this on my podcast.
Excerpt from The Awakened Ape