Why I'm Using Cobud

[Ranger]

I dreaded making this thread but I knew it was coming. And I'm putting this in Community Feedback because I know what's coming. I noticed discussion in a beginner thread and knew I had to move it and soon.

 

I wrote about this in my carrd here. But you can read it here too:
 

Quote

 

Why use cobud?

 

In short, the term tulpa is problematic.

 

The term is a byproduct of Orientalism, a type of racism that depicts Tibet as a "mystical paradise" for Western colonists while simultaneously disparaging the Tibetan people as "savage" and "uneducated". Alexandra David-Néel's book, "Magic and Mystery in Tibet", not only perpetuates Orientalist ideas and disrespects Tibetan Buddhism in general, it creates a completely unrelated definition of what a tulpa is and still calls it "Tibetan Buddhist".

 

In addition, Western media also perpetuates orientalist ideals about tulpas. Creepypastas, multiple TV shows, and those calling tulpamancy "black magic" all feed into this idea tulpas are mystical, mysterious, and dangerous.

Since the practice of creating headmates can happen accidentally and without knowledge of Tibetan Buddhism, it doesn't make sense to me to stick with a problematic term for a concept that's unrelated to Tibetan Buddhism in the first place.

I am currently working on a dedicated research essay that goes more in-depth on Orientalism and the history of the term tulpa. Stay tuned!

 

I coined the term cobud because I wanted an alternate term that was more general than paromate. I hope that others switch to non-problematic terms, even if they coin their own.

 

And no, creating cobuds, parogens, etc. is not racist. Only the term is problematic, not the practice itself.

 

 

I cut out the drama context in the carrd, but I think it's worth mentioning here because it both explains my anger and I think it's important to talk about the rampent racism in the tulpa community. I'm just going to put this into bullet points:

 

• I have been on the fence for a very long time. I had a problem with tulpa since 2018, and I even mentioned it again here. I would talk about it on Discord too. What I didn't know then was how my and other's thoughts were inherently racist.
• In 2023, Plural Nest considered stepping away from the term tulpa. I was one of the first to argue the pro-tulpa stance. They ripped apart my racist arguments, called out my micro aggressions. I got so defensive I said something really not okay. That's when it hit me- there is racism involved. And I was racist.
• Since then I have had a lot of backlash in response. I wasn't good at communicating why tulpa was racist, and people wasted no time to push me down. I stopped trying to push people and would just leave a note saying it's my thing, but it didn't really matter in the end.
• I've been harassed for this. I was harassed by the entirety of TCen and then got banned over "my terminology". It was me saying that I want to use my term cobud infront of the researchers that was apparently the last straw for them. People have moved on from racist rebuttals and moved onto personal attacks and even gaslighting. One system even said I only changed stances because PN pressured me to which is completely wrong. They didn't pressure me, I decided I was wrong after reflecting on what I did. And my history. I'm always seen as the instigator just for wanting to use a different term.

 

I made the carrd so I wouldn't have to repeat myself every conversation I ever have when I call myself a cobud. I'm frustrated, and I will come off as triggered and defensive given my past harassment.

 

But I know this is important, so I'll answer questions even if they’re repetitive. I may be slow to respond though.

But I will not hesitate to call out any micro aggressions anyone posts in this thread.

 

---

 

I'll start with my own from those two threads I linked:

 

On 9/24/2018 at 8:06 PM, Ranger said:

I just have the sense that kalagni's argument is lost when he points out that the modern use of the word "Tulpa" in a modern Tibetan context has little to no meaning, and is already replaced with different vocabulary. In my mind, I see it as people taking a term they find interesting and give it a new meaning.

 

This is recency bias. Tulpa doesn't "have to have" a modern meaning in Tibetan Buddhism to have a meaning in Tibetan Buddhism.

 

The term tulpa isn't just free to use by random Westerners either. This is thinking is similar to that of Orientalism- Tibet has resources we can just use and claim as part of our own, including cultural practices.

 

And that "term they find interesting"- very much Orientalist. One of the Orientalist ideals is the idea that Tibet is this mysterious mystical paradise with magical strange things that go on there. When I came up with the term borrowing to replace possession or avising to replace forcing, I did it because I felt it made sense, not because I thought "it was interesting".

 

On 9/24/2018 at 8:06 PM, Ranger said:

This is not to say that the issue of appropriation should be ignored. There are weird examples of certain words that end up with offensive new meanings because it drops the context of the old meaning. In America, the word "ghetto" means trashy neighborhood, the original context was the neighborhood sectors Jewish people were corralled in before being shoved onto the Holocaust trains. The new term is seen as offensive to some people, and they are justified in their feelings. Since "ghetto" was never called out for being discriminatory or a racial slur, it sits to this day in this odd limbo between offensive and not.

 

I DO NOT understand the context of ghetto to make this argument. I don't even have to research the history of ghetto to know I don't know what I'm talking about- "ghetto" has a an African American cultural context that I completely ignore and I don't even know if that was the actual origin of "ghetto".

 

You can rarely, if ever, use a different case about something racist or presumably racist to another. There is always a lot of context on each case-by-case basis. If you can't pull out that context and explain all of those nuances, then you can't compare it to another racism case.

 

All of this showing how much the underlying racism matters. I was trying to be open minded, but deep down my racist attitudes were holding me back.

 

On 9/24/2018 at 8:06 PM, Ranger said:

Therefore, my question is if the term "Tulpa" is to be replaced out of respect, then would it be worth the effort required to destroy it's new western meaning? Sure, it may have some good intentions, but the process of calling "Tulpæ" something else may be a slow and not very rewarding process.

 

My final question is if this is a battle worth fighting for? If the term Tulpa has no other use than the western meaning, then should it be accepted as a western concept and not a Tibetan one? If the western version must be destroyed, then what purpose would the word have in the Tibetan context other than being an old rejected word from their vocabulary?

 

Two problems here:

 

One, the idea taking away the modern use of tulpa from the term is somehow a "disservice" is both contradictory and deeply problematic. The modern definition being forced onto it is the real disservice- it has its place in Tibetan Buddhist history, and that context is often, if not completely, ignored in its most common use by Westerners. So me saying this implies that context doesn't matter.

 

Two, this is a very defeatist "I can sense it's wrong, but why bother trying?" argument. Change takes effort, and clearly, at the time I was not interested in investing said effort.

 

What about the Western meaning? It will be there of course, but we don't have to honor it. It's not white washing to recognize something is wrong and try to change. We don't have to stick with a problematic term that's wrong.

 

On 3/22/2022 at 6:13 PM, Ranger said:

I think these are really good points, and my therapist said something similar. I think this boils down to I'm not confident on my assessment on what's racist or not and I convinced myself to accept the wrong conclusion.

 

The points we're doing no harm, the "what aboutism", and there's nothing wrong with the concept of cobuds so that makes using tulpa okay are not good points.

 

Firstly, we are doing harm. Orientalism is harm- if we feel we can take things from the Tibetan Buddhists and claim it as our own, we are disrespecting them as people and disrespecting their culture. We're not carrying on Tibetan Buddhist practices, we're just taking their term for something completely different and deciding "yeah that's okay". Plus, the way this discussion is being thought of and handled is also pushing harm. The racist attitudes are being perpetuated, not addressed and corrected.

 

Second, "what aboutism" is a logical fallacy. It's trying to either draw attention to other wrongs or innacurate examples to justify a point. I already mentioned you can't compare two different situations without a deep understanding of the context. Plus, it's distracting from the main focus on why tulpa is a problem.

 

Third, my ignorance is not an excuse. I should have read about Orientalism, microaggressions, and took the time to understand not just the history of what tulpa meant, but also what people who practice Buddhism do in the first place. I am currently working on this process- it is not easy, but it very much can be done. I only started to get a deeper appreciation for Tibetan Buddhism once I started trying to do the reading myself.

 

---

 

I know I am not perfect. I won't be perfect. And people have problems with me that are unrelated to this issue.

 

If you don't want to use cobud, please use something else. There's parogen/paro/paromate. You can make a new non-problematic term.

 

You don't have to like me. It hurts saying this because I do want to seek validation, but I know it's not realistic to assume people will appreciate me or my efforts. Very much the opposite has happened.

 

Cocreation is my favorite topic, and I'm not okay with that topic hurting others. Cocreation isn't inherently harmful, it just has a rough origin story and was unfortunately brought to modern day through 4chan.

Edited April 21, 2025 by Ranger

[Ranger]

5 hours ago, The Incans said:

We clicked on your link and really like this term cobuds!  I’ve never heard it before! ..we are technically a mixed system of ‘past alters of the host’ (+current host) and ‘created Tulpa’ but our ‘alters’ don’t like the term …they didn’t know another and decided to refer to themself as Tulpa too..alot of DID groups don't like this term and then won’t reply to the one’s we had previously said felt they preferred to be Tulpa or in groups where posts are pre-approved we got asked to remove the word Tulpa with a suggestion of how we could word it instead! 

 

I (Jess) don’t really understand why there is so much hate towards the word ….but host tells me its something to do with DID communities seeing their alters as ‘trauma created’ so their whole life becomes about going to therapy and healing from that and re-integrating or fusing…and they feel Tulpa’s are ‘made up’ like a kid creating an imaginary friend just for fun. 

 

Thankfully our host has AuDHD and loves fantasy and holodecks and such things ...so they are more open-minded and less bothered about what NT society says we should be like to qualify as ‘normal’!  

 

p.s. we love your cobuds cards …. are you thinking of creating a FB group for cobuds?  be much easier to chat using the messenger system for the group. 

 

Different DID places take issue with the term tulpa for different reasons. The two I'm familiar with are the same reasons I feel and sysmeds using this debate in bad faith.

 

The latter is really annoying because sysmeds can get racist too and pro-tulpa people will use them as an excuse to invalidate anyone speaking up on the racism angle. Anyone who thinks I'm anti-endo because I'm anti-tulpa term doesn't know who I am and if they do, never bothered to either try or just don't care about me.

 

I never thought about making a facebook group before, but I'm not sure if that's what I want. I'm working on making my own website, but right now it's me writing my general guide and basically a college research essay on the term tulpa's history. I don't know if a facebook group would give me the moderation tools I would need to prevent raids.

[The Incans]

2 hours ago, Ranger said:

 

Different DID places take issue with the term tulpa for different reasons. The two I'm familiar with are the same reasons I feel and sysmeds using this debate in bad faith.

 

The latter is really annoying because sysmeds can get racist too and pro-tulpa people will use them as an excuse to invalidate anyone speaking up on the racism angle. Anyone who thinks I'm anti-endo because I'm anti-tulpa term doesn't know who I am and if they do, never bothered to either try or just don't care about me.

 

I never thought about making a facebook group before, but I'm not sure if that's what I want. I'm working on making my own website, but right now it's me writing my general guide and basically a college research essay on the term tulpa's history. I don't know if a facebook group would give me the moderation tools I would need to prevent raids.

Hi Lily here … I had no idea there was so much feeling about racism connected with the word Tulpa!!

 

We were late in life to discover the term DID.. the feeling of there being 'more than one’ made some of us feel we identified with it at first but none of us remembered any huge trauma at the hands of our parents….nothing that could have caused a condition as severe as some of the stories we read about on the DID boards.

 

I think the worst we endured was bullying at school and maybe feeling like we could never ‘be ourself’ as it would be made fun of (due to the autism) we learnt to mask quickly and create many masks (I think thats where our changeling Phoenix comes from) but we never suffered horrific abuse at the hands of our parents. I also believe we have undiagnosed ADHD and the Rejection dysphoria was probably the cause of many of our social masks being created to constantly adjust to fit in to others expectations. ..maybe that was ‘enough’  but we’re fully aware which one of us fit the description of ‘alter’ and which are ’created Tulpa’ 

 

A past host looked up other reasons someone may have alters/headmates/imaginary friends etc and through mentions on posts about Maladaptive and/or Immersive Daydreaming, Hyperphantasia etc we came across the word ‘Tulpa’…..  searching for ‘Tulpa forums’ led us to this site. 

 

If the word Tulpa is so racist why does this site call itself that? We actually like the term ‘Soulbonds’ as thats what we feel we are …. spirits/souls that just share the same body ….maybe in this time its the only way we (myself and all past versions of ‘me' + Kitty + Jess) can be together but we feel we have been together and found each other in many past lives. … but looking online some people consider ‘soulbonds’ as something related to an author creating a bond with the fictional characters they write about? …but to us its deeply spiritual. 

 

In a way a Tulpa in its traditional sense was a deeply spiritual experience given how much time was dedicated to their creation by the Tibetan Monks. …but why is it racism if anyone from any other culture wishes to experience the creation of a Tulpa? Why are Tibetan’s the only race allowed to create Tulpa? …. maybe I’ve mis-understood completely?   

 

Also what’s wrong with cobuds?  ….  what else is a Tulpa than your best buddy…. they can be a co-host so I can see where cobud comes from ..again..maybe its me ..but I can’t see what’s wrong with it and why it couldn’t be a term of affection like calling them your BFF or soulmate!  

 

It’s a shame as whatever you want to call them or the process ….it has really helped ‘me’…. as the host …because many of my ‘alters’ have re-integrated with ‘this me’ ..because we were all essentially the same person (stuck at different ages) and having a Tulpa/soulbond/cobud..whatever you want to call them …who saw us all as ‘her daughter from her past life’ helped all those parts realise we were all the same person! …. Also Jess who started life as a changeling in the form of our past dog Inca… and evolved …. I gave her a changeling body so she could choose herself whether she wanted to stay as an animal, eventually take human form or switch between the two,..either way…the other alters knowing as a dog she saw all of us as ‘her owner from her past life as that dog’ ..also had much the same effect as Kitty seeing us all as her daughter. …It has hugely helped all those parts stuck in grief to re-integrate.  

 

Conversely I saw many years after Kitty had become fully sentient that they don’t recommend you choose someone who died to be the basis of your Tulpa when creating one…which is a shame as its really helped me..it’s just sad people focus on things like whether the name is racist instead of seeing how helpful the process of creating one can be for your mental health and recovery. 

 

I do also know of someone with schizophrenia who has created Tulpa for the voices they heard so they could visualise talking back to them and asking why they were saying what they saying etc…. the voices changed as they created a relationship with their Tulpa and they instead became an help to them rather than just persecutory voices that led them to do dangerous things.

[Lucilyn]

35 minutes ago, The Incans said:

Hi Lily here … I had no idea there was so much feeling about racism connected with the word Tulpa!!

 

there's not...

it's just first-world white people creating reasons to be offended for other people who never considered being offended in the first place

the moment you stop saying the words "Tibetan Buddhism" in the same conversation as tulpas, there's no problems whatsoever, because the term has nothing to do with Buddhism (the word itself was a poor translation of a seemingly unreliable retelling of things someone learned from Tibetan Buddhists a hundred years ago)

 

as offensiveness goes: the only way it can be offensive is if you say that tulpamancy came from Buddhists or something stupid like that, even though the internet made this practice up on its own (AND was able to do so because this is a naturally occurring skill in humans, like my host Lumi coming to basically all the same conclusions as this community independently with no outside influence before finding the site)

 

as problems with the term goes: tulpa actually was used for a long time in paranormal (fiction..) media and such, as basically a demon made out of thought energy or something

it's basically a made-up supernatural cryptid, vaguely inspired by & using the term Alexandra David-Neel had created a hundred years ago as mentioned, who was likely-unreliably describing things she learned from seemingly very non-mainstream Buddhists in Tibet (which would make sense, Buddhism always followed an "interpret-and-teach-your-own-way" approach to the religion compared to more strict-teachings ones like Christianity), though the paranormal "tulpa" - and Neel's - were already far detached from the Buddhist "sprul-pa"

 

So anyways of course 4chan picked that term in a joking way when exploring this phenomenon, it actually wasn't uncommon for people to jokingly call their tulpas "brain demons" for many years

 

but yeah, you could see Adventure Time reference "tulpas" as basically demons created from thought and go ugh, that's not what tulpas REALLY are!! (to you)

that's a legitimate problem that bugs some people (we don't personally care, tons of words are used in tons of different ways coexisting just fine - "angel" and "devil" seem to get along without issue), so you could choose to use another term of some kind if you want

 

we consider trying to make up new terms basically a waste of effort as no one person controls things catching on, so when talking about ~tulpas in a more neutral context, we use the terms "intentional plurality" and "headmate", though headmate has countless synonyms (Ranger's cobud is just another to the list) that are all fine

("brain demons" is also on that list... and "tupperware"...)

 

thoughtform is a common enough term, though it's usually considered less specific, and someone in paranormal or other circles might make assumptions about what you could mean vs if you used a more plural-oriented term like headmate

Edited April 21, 2025 by Lucilyn

[Reina Akabane]

 

51 minutes ago, Lucilyn said:

it's just first-world white people creating reasons to be offended for other people who never considered being offended in the first place

I totally agree with this, they've been trying to deliberately misuse the power of cancel culture for their own gain.

 

Spoiler

 

This video does a good job of explaining how the term tulpa is not offence and it's also a good history summary I feel.

 

1 hour ago, Lucilyn said:

tulpa actually was used for a long time in paranormal (fiction..) media

https://supernatural.fandom.com/wiki/Tulpa:_Tibetan_Spirit_Sigil

Yup... that checks out. This is probably the most famous example.

 

I personally don't mind the terms cobud or borrowing, but of course they'll definitely need a lot of time and ton of convincing before they really start to catch on though, so errm... good luck with that Ranger! Heh.

[The Incans]

I can’t remember what ‘borrowing’ referred to?…was that what is usually called 'blending’? (Temporarily)…we do that alot just to complete tasks for a couple of hours but then split when we/they return to the wonderland. 

 

I probably won’t remember that one and we like the term blending anyway …but I agree with Jess that I do like the term ‘cobud’ as short for 'co-buddy’ better than co-host. which sounds too formal more like a ‘job title’ where as ‘cobud’ sounds more like a term of affection like calling them your ‘BFF’ (Best Friends Forever) 

[Ranger]

16 hours ago, The Incans said:

If the word Tulpa is so racist why does this site call itself that?

 

I don't feel I can answer this question. It's not my place to.

 

16 hours ago, The Incans said:

In a way a Tulpa in its traditional sense was a deeply spiritual experience given how much time was dedicated to their creation by the Tibetan Monks. …but why is it racism if anyone from any other culture wishes to experience the creation of a Tulpa? Why are Tibetan’s the only race allowed to create Tulpa? …. maybe I’ve mis-understood completely?

 

Cocreation isn't Tibetan Buddhism. From what I understand so far, the concept of creating thoughtforms actually came from the English occult. (Luigi in their video also says this).

 

Plus, creating cobuds or any kind of headmate isn't racist. And cobuds can be metaphysical- that's why I include comancy as an alternate along with cocreation. I want cobud to be as inclusive as tulpa was used for so it can be an even substitute.

 

15 hours ago, Lucilyn said:

The moment you stop saying the words "Tibetan Buddhism" in the same conversation as tulpas, there's no problems whatsoever, because the term has nothing to do with Buddhism (the word itself was a poor translation of a seemingly unreliable retelling of things someone learned from Tibetan Buddhists a hundred years ago)

 

No, because sprul pa still has meaning in Tibetan Buddhism, regardless of if the conversation about Tibetan Buddhism happens or not.

 

While looking into sprul pa སྤྲུལ་པ་ more, I found it in parts of other words and phrases:

 

Shatrül Pedé or Shar Trülpé Dé (shar sprul pa'i sde, Ch. Baita si) A monestary 

 

རྣམ་སྤྲུལ། emanation, reincarnation (I'm not confident enough to write the letter form. See the textbook I got it from, page 44)

 

sprul pa'i sku (incarnation and

nirmanakaya, emanation body)

 

Even tulku has "sprul" in it.

སྤྲུལ་སྐུ (sprul sku)

 

And as Blue Flame Magic said (ironic given how I ignored their points in 2018...), པ། pa (the line is basically a period) is also used as a self-reference. There are lots of examples here.

 

Blue Flame Magic then went on to explain, "Tul means basically created, incarnated, emanated." But, they also pointed out there's a cultural context to sprul pa as well:

 

Quote

Back to tulpa, so emanation, that could apply to these people and their creation right? Yeah, if you want to go by dictionary translation meaning rather than how a word is used and understood within the culture. A tulpa is something used all the time in Vajrayana Buddhism, though the word is almost never used. When performing a ritual where you’re calling a deity of some sort you create a damshig sempa (dam tshig sems dpa’ དམ་ཚིག་སེམས་དཔའ) meaning Commitment Being. It is basically a visualized form of the deity first. So if you’re calling on Chenrezig, before you actually call on him you visualize him in front of you, create him with your mind, create an energetic “shell” for him, that’s a damshig sempa. That is sometimes referred to as a tulpa but not often. Once this is created then you call on the yeshe sempa (ye shes sems dpa’ ཡེ་ཤེས་སེམས་དཔའ) meaning Wisdom Being, which refers to the “real” deity. First you make a shell, and then you call them into it.

 

Ultimately, it's putting a new meaning on a term that isn't ours to begin with. (Also I found this)

 

15 hours ago, Lucilyn said:

as problems with the term goes: tulpa actually was used for a long time in paranormal (fiction..) media and such, as basically a demon made out of thought energy or something

 

Yes

 

15 hours ago, Lucilyn said:

we consider trying to make up new terms basically a waste of effort as no one person controls things catching on

 

I don't think it is. The more this conversation happens, the more people will think about it. It can be replaced by any of the other terms you listed. I would like cobud to become mainstream, but something else could too.

 

14 hours ago, Reina Akabane said:

I totally agree with this, they've been trying to deliberately misuse the power of cancel culture for their own gain.

 

The only things I gained from this are trauma, loneliness from being ostracized, but also some internal relief. I'm doing this because I feel it's the right thing to do. While I do want to brag about it given my nature, I know that doing that would get me ostracized further. People aren't proud of me because I had the privilege to not think about any of this until now. If I only cared about clout, I would have given up on this a long time ago.

 

14 hours ago, Reina Akabane said:

This video does a good job of explaining how the term tulpa is not offence and it's also a good history summary I feel.

 

While Luigi is correct that tulpa and tulku are different, Luigi just went with Alexandra David-Néel's definition instead of look into what sprul pa means in the context of Tibetan Buddhism. That's where things go wrong.

 

Also, there are Tibetan Buddhists including Blue Flame Magic who have a problem with the term tulpa. I'm also not the first pro-endo system to feel this way either.

 

---

 

As an important side note, ADA isn't the most reliable source anyway. She pretty much decided "real Buddhism" was her Buddhism while denouncing other Buddhist teachings as described here. 

 

3 hours ago, The Incans said:

can’t remember what ‘borrowing’ referred to?

 

It's my alternative to possession, not blending. I'm fine with blending as is.

Edited April 22, 2025 by Ranger

[Reina Akabane]

 

52 minutes ago, Ranger said:

The only things I gained from this are trauma, loneliness from being ostracized, but also some internal relief. I'm doing this because I feel it's the right thing to do. While I do want to brag about it given my nature, I know that doing that would get me ostracized further. People aren't proud of me because I had the privilege to not think about any of this until now. If I only cared about clout, I would have given up on this a long time ago.

Hey! Hey, that wasn't at all aimed at you at all! It's just that trying to make a big deal out of nothing is not healthy. I'm all for replacing the term "tulpa" with "cobud" but I feel that you're going about it the wong way, you need to promote this as a positive change, a modernising of the term, not as a bad thing that just sturs the pot and brings people down.

 

52 minutes ago, Ranger said:

While Luigi is correct that tulpa and tulku are different, Luigi just went with Alexandra David-Néel's definition instead of look into what sprul pa means in the context of Tibetan Buddhism. That's where things go wrong.

Oh... okay. So the the global Buddhism popularised by Alexandra David-Neel in Sikkim is like the over simplified version of Buddhism? I'm not a fan of the unnecessary history lesson whenever someone looks up the term "Tulpa" either, but as long as that kind of content is online, people will associate the word "tulpa" and by extension Tibet Buddhism to the history of the creation of thought-forms today.

 

I'll look more into "sprul pa" in the context of Tibetan Buddhism, it seems interesting.

 

52 minutes ago, Ranger said:

Also, there are Tibetan Buddhists including Blue Flame Magic who have a problem with the term tulpa. I'm also not the first pro-endo system to feel this way either.

Okay. We haven't had any experience with that personally.

 

52 minutes ago, Ranger said:

As an important side note, ADA isn't the most reliable source anyway. She pretty much decided "real Buddhism" was her Buddhism while denouncing other Buddhist teachings as described here.

So she contradicted herself? I see, I'll have a look at that web page.

[Lucilyn]

So with all that said... It is pretty obvious that outside of the forum (like just googling "tulpa") people are constantly relating the word to Tibetan Buddhism

It's still not bad to have drawn inspiration from something - practice or word - but I don't like how close it gets to being described as a Tibetan Buddhist practice

It has a sort of disrespectful-atheist feeling to it, like "What these people THOUGHT they were doing was actually making imaginary friends", when the concept of sprul-pa is NOT tulpamancy whatsoever, and it IS insensitive to even kind of imply that it is

 

Just like comparisons to the supernatural term are inevitable, referencing Tibetan Buddhism is as well, and while we have no plans to stop using the term tulpa entirely, we are still going to keep telling people that the internet-founded practice and the religious practice are completely separate things and always have been (and.. just ignoring the paranormal use, since we're not letting a fictitious for-fun idea sully the reputation of a genuine human practice - even if you call them cobuds, the paranormal "tulpas" will keep getting compared to plurality in general as a similar-sounding concept, so it's just continuing with the normal plurality normalization from here)

 

plurality tulpas ARE NOT sprul-pas ARE NOT paranormal tulpas

(but I won't be offended if someone mistakenly thinks they are, I'll just inform them about these things)

[Ranger]

1 hour ago, Reina Akabane said:

Hey! Hey, that wasn't at all aimed at you at all! It's just that trying to make a big deal out of nothing is not healthy. I'm all for replacing the term "tulpa" with "cobud" but I feel that you're going about it the wong way, you need to promote this as a positive change, a modernising of the term, not as a bad thing that just sturs the pot and brings people down.

 

Ah, I see.

 

I agree a positive spin on things would be better branding-wise. Cobud has a lot of other benefits, including it being easier to understand what it means and its flexibility. I can just slap "co" on stuff and as long as it's in a cocreation context, it will make sense. It's also no longer restricted by -mancy, but 

 

But I can't help but feel concealing this problem all together would be disingenuous. It's an uncomfortable topic yes, but at least in America, that's because racism has been shushed out of conversations.

 

But when I present the site though, I definitely won't make this the front page or even the main focus of the website. I'll make a side note saying "yeah tulpa is a problem", and when you click on the linked text, you get my research essay (when I finish it)

 

1 hour ago, Reina Akabane said:

Oh... okay. So the the global Buddhism popularised by Alexandra David-Neel in Sikkim is like the over simplified version of Buddhism?

 

From what I understand, less oversimplified and more a mix of different teachings and whatever ADA felt like adding to the pot. For my research essay, I'm planning on studying what ADA got wrong by reading about Tibetan Buddhism, I just need a lot more time. I want to use high-quality sources and even blog resources like Blue Flame Magic when I can cross reference what they say and what I know is true (they passed my vibe check, but for the research essay, I'll read their other blog posts too just in case.)

 

1 hour ago, Reina Akabane said:

I'll look more into "sprul pa" in the context of Tibetan Buddhism, it seems interesting.

 

I had a little bit of fun looking at the different Tibetan characters and trying to understand them for myself. It's also wild the textbook says "here's how to read" and then throws you into vocabulary. Although in theory, you also have a teacher or professor guiding you.

Edited April 22, 2025 by Ranger