(Some) monks enjoy statistics and other lessons from a recent India trip

Kalden presenting our research in Allahabad

I recently went to India again to continue my collaboration with the monks of Sera Jey monastic university, who are learning to become scientists. This time, we started the visit with the International Conference on Meditation Research, at the University of Allahabad. For the first time, three of the monastic collaborators presented our joint EEG research on Tibetan monastic debate. It was amazing to see them present in a real scientific forum, which was even covered by the Times of India. As one of the monks reminisced, it was also quite historic that the presentation was held in a location quite close to the ancient Buddhist university of Nalanda. The conference also hosted many Indian and international scientists who talked about topics ranging from computational models of meditation (myself) to Hindu philosophy of meditation and its clinical use.

Video scoring in action

Getting our project overview ready

After this exciting meeting I flew to Bangalore, where I gave a few talks, followed by the most important part of the trip: a visit to Sera Jey monastic university. This time, the main goals of our journey were to start a questionnaire study and to improve the rating system of our EEG videos. When we record EEG during a monastic debate, we ask one of the monks to press buttons to indicate events such as agreement, disagreement, distraction, and more. But of course, a problem with this approach is that we do not know how reliable such ratings are. In scientific studies, it is then important to compute inter-rater reliability. We talked about this concept, and then proceeded to re-rate the videos of the EEG sessions we collected, such that it is possible to look at the agreement between raters. This turned out to be quite an interesting experience that led to a lot more discussion between the monks about how to decide when to press a certain button.

Talking about statistics

During this visit, we also had another important realization: that we actually never talked very much about project management. To accomplish a complex team project of the type we are working on, it is crucial to actually divide tasks between individuals, and to have a shared vision on what needs to be accomplished and when. Once we realized this, we put together a big scheme that is now decorating the walls of the Sera Jey science centre, which indicates what the questions are that we are trying to answer, and who is responsible for what part of the work. Such discussions are probably even more necessary when you are working with a multicultural team of Tibetan monks and Western scientists compared to when you are working in a small collaboration with a PhD student at a Western university, because there are just so many more hidden assumptions. Moreover, work cultures are very different, where the West tends to have fixed schedules and predictability, in the Tibetan monastery things happen when they happen, and it is hard to plan ahead (especially given things like power outages).

Despite all this, what was the most surprising thing I learnt this trip? Maybe it's that Tibetan monks like statistics (at least the ones we have been working with). They did not only seem to enjoy geeky conversations during the conference in Allahabad, but also were excited about statistics lessons we ran at the Science Centre.

One trick for slowing down: study Tibetan monks in India

I previously blogged about my study of monastic debate in Tibetan monks in India. Last July I returned for another research visit. It was very exciting to get to go back to these wonderful, cheery individuals. While the purpose of our first visit was just to try things out and come up with a model of what the monastic debate that these monks do might be, this time it was a matter of getting down to business and actually collecting data.

I spent the first few days of this trip in Bangalore, networking with scientific colleagues. One of the places I visited was NIMHANS, a premier mental health institution and research facility. What was very notable was that unlike in institutions in the West, here the care was not just taking into account the patient, but also his/her family. This meant that the complex had big parks and gardens where whole families could just hang out with the patient. Moreover, conventional scientific approaches to mental health were sisterly placed next to ayurvedic approaches. Similar to in the West, there was substantial interest in meditation interventions, and scientists with labs studying the basic science of, for example, decision making, often also have a research program on meditation. It was really interesting to see how things that we in the West tend to think of as separate are here were much more integrated.

Once my American colleagues arrived, we drove to Bylakuppe, the Tibetan settlement where Sera Jey monastery is. We stayed in the very quiet guest house, which has a lovely garden with tea stall. Unlike our previous visit, nothing was going on at this time, and the place looked deserted. The only thing that was busy was...us! I had made an ambitious schedule for running behavioral studies, EEG studies, and discussions. Due to some poor preparation, I was still finishing programming tasks on a tablet (it's really cool that OpenSesame allows you to program tasks that just run on a tablet!). Consequently, I was totally absorbed in my laptop, instead of hanging out with the monks. And actually, for doing research in India... this is the most crucial thing! Research in India does not primarily proceed by making a tight schedule and squeezing in as much as possible, but rather by hanging out and being in touch with what happens. Only then can you see what is really happening, and can the monks feel comfortable to approach you and share their wisdom and ideas. So, once we realized this, we actually consciously slowed down.

In the West, we are used to just showing an undergrad into a cubicle with a testing computer, letting them do the task, pay them, and get them out again. With the monks, we actually first leisurely introduced ourselves, explained why we thought their method of debating was interesting, then started with an experiment, showing how the experiment worked slowly, and afterwards had a nice chat about science, monk life, consciousness, world peace, and more. We learnt a lot, and I think the monks did so too. One important lesson was that what we find simple in using a computer may not be as simple for a monk who rarely uses one. Tasks that we administered on a tablet seemed much easier than tasks administered on a laptop. And the younger monks seemed to find the computer tasks much easier than the older monks. Something to think about in our next studies...

On the last day we were once again reminded of slowing down. While we were walking to a place to have lunch, one of the dogs that was following us around got hit by a car, ran off howling to the side of the road and died. One of those moments that brings the reality of life and death quite up close. Somehow it really touched our hearts very deeply as we watched but could not do anything. A precious reminder that life is much too short to squander it being busy doing lots of things without being present to what is.
(also posted on http://radicallyhappy.org/blog/2016/11/28/one-trick-for-slowing-down-study-tibetan-monks-in-india)

A cross-cultural collaborative study of monastic debate (aka my India adventure)

Last December I got on the plane with an exciting destination: Bylakuppe, India. It was probably the most mind-blowing journey I have made for work thus far. The primary goal of this journey was to collect pilot data for a research project on debating practices engaged in by TIbetan Buddhist monks. For those who have ever watched debate, it is quite a spectacle (see for example here). When my collaborators (David Fresco, Marcel Bonn-Miller, and Josh Pollock) and I left, we knew very little about debate (except for having read parts of this phenomenal book by Georges Dreyfus), and our objective was to learn as much as we could and collect pilot data for future studies.

picture by David Fresco

What made our study so unique is that--inspired by our work with Science for Monks last year, we wanted to make the research really a two-way street. We went to learn about debate, but also to teach our monastic collaborators about how to conduct science. To accomplish this, we had a meeting every evening with the monastics, and chatted about what debate brought them, showed our EEG equipment, while they showed us their debating practice. The first evening after our arrival we were still fairly hung-over from our flights, but nevertheless learnt a tremendous amount about debate while having a nice dinner with the monastics. They told us for example that debating is not just a dyadic practice, but involves a continuously changing group of people. As the debate heats up and interesting arguments are being made, more people may join in. Informal meetings such as this dinner turned out to be a well-spring of information for us curious scientists.

our puppy team member (picture by Marcel Bonn-Miller)

In the following days we would meet our monastic friends in the evenings in the Sera Jay science centre, a place where the monks learn about science and where we had put up our camp (i.e., the EEG that we had brought along in a suitcase). The first night we just showed our EEG equipment (we were amazed it even worked in India!), but before we knew it the monks were already playing around with the equipment, fascinated by seeing their own brain waves. Because the monks did not seem to have too many problems with the EEG equipment, we could move onto the more exciting stage the next evening: wiring up two monks, and then having them debate while they wore the caps. We were particularly curious about what would happen to the synchronization between their brains over the course of their debate. Inter-brain synchronization is a very new field, but it is thought that it reflects some sense of social connectedness. For example, it has been shown that in a prisoner's dilemma, between brain synchronization is larger when players cooperate than when they defect. Nevertheless, given that this was a very new tool, we had no idea whether this was going to work. Another challenge was that we observed this practice, but since the monks debated in Tibetan, we had little idea of what was going on. For that reason, we developed a new technology. We asked one of the monks to set at one of our computers and press a button whenever he thought and event of interest (e.g., the debaters are now getting in synch, or the debate is heating up, or there is a large amount of disagreement). I sat next to that monk and wrote down his description. What I really liked about this method--as crude as it is--was that it really included the monk's judgments and perspectives into our data analyses. The next day we would spend analyzing the just-collected data, thinking about what we found, and coming up with a plan for that evening.

One of the interesting things we learned from the monks was that debate is not only a method to sharpen your intellect (they quoted a Tibetan saying that says "don't bang your head against the wall, and don't argue with a Geshe", which means that both are not a good idea, since a Geshe will always outwit you). Debate is also a way to train emotion regulation. When the monks start debating, they can be very angry with each other. In debate, they learn to quickly move into and out of the anger, and thereby the emotion loses its intensity. They also told us that debate can help create self-confidence, because they learn how to argue well (interestingly Daniel Perdue argued the same in a book he wrote on applying debate in the Western classroom).

attending the Mind & Life meeting. Picture by David Vago

the dangerous bee nests

debate with EEG hyperscanning in course - picture by David Fresco

While every day was an amazing adventure during this visit because we learnt so many new things (and we also got to attend the Mind & Life meeting with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, doing research in India was not without challenges. Several times we wondered whether we were going to survive the auto-rickshaw ride. As a reminder of impermanence, we saw a little puppy being hit by one such autorickshaw on one of our first days in India. He was adopted by Marcel Bonn-Miller and slowly became a new member of the research team as he was nursed back to health. On one of the last days of our trip, one of the killer bee colonies that was hanging alongside the monastery broke out and preyed on several monks, as well as my colleague Marcel, who suffered 30 bee stings and had to be brought to the clinic. Thankfully he was able to get the appropriate treatment and survived, but it surely brought back the precariousness of life in India. Despite these less-pleasant adventures, I think this visit to India taught us a phenomenal amount, and I am already looking forward to the next trip!