Sam Gentile:
10 min Concentration / 30 min Noting PM Sit #2
The concentration practice was good but I started developing Doubt that I'll ever achive Access Concentration or Jhanas. Noting was really restless in which i applied relaxation but I noticed my foot tapping and tremors. Actually the Neurologist told me today that I have the real Parkison's. The rest of my noting was Boredom in which I applied Energy. Then I got the Big Doubt(I don't think my whole practice/noting is working. Nothin's happening. I'm not moving. Not producing any results). I wish I could afford Abre right now.
I was really fornuate to get a reply back from Abre, even though we are not teacher/student right now on the Big Doubt that I thought I would share in it's entirety:
This is the day after. Is doubt still there today? No need to build a lot of drama around it upon one instance of it. Does it persist on day two, on day three?
- Take advantage of what is present to work with it, work on it. Go to your Mindfulness book by Goldstein and read the short chapter on the hindrance of doubt. Copied below. Work with it.
- Second factor of awakening: Investigate the "I" that is so disturbed with what is happening.
You write: "I am not getting anywhere... I am not moving... I am not getting any results..."
Investigate the nature of this "I" thoroughly.
Warmly
Abre
Doubt
AS WITH EACH OF THE other hindrances, the Buddha outlines five steps
for contemplating doubt:
“If doubt is present, one knows ‘there is doubt in me’; if doubt is
not present, one knows ‘there is no doubt in me.’ And one knows
how unarisen doubt can arise, how arisen doubt can be removed,
and how a future arising of doubt can be prevented.”1
As a side note, it is interesting to highlight the Buddha’s use of language.
Although from the ultimate perspective, there’s no self, no “I,” still, in
conventional, everyday usage, he is saying, “Is doubt present in me or not?”
Right here is an integration of relative and ultimate truths. On the
conventional level, we speak of “I,” “me,” and “self” even as we understand
on a more ultimate level the selfless nature of all phenomena.
Before exploring how to recognize doubt, we need to distinguish two
general usages of the word. The first kind of doubt is helpful. It is an aspect
of inquiry and investigation, and it motivates us to examine things carefully.
Just as we don’t want to dogmatically believe everything we hear, we don’t
want to automatically disbelieve something simply because it doesn’t fit our
current view. The beauty and power of the Buddha’s message is his
reminder that we shouldn’t believe something because we read it in books
or because some teacher said it. There is a need to investigate all the
teachings for ourselves to see whether they are of benefit or not. It is the
second kind of doubt that is considered a hindrance. This is the mind state
of uncertainty, wavering, and indecision. It is like coming to a crossroad
and not knowing which way to go. The mind simply wavers back and forth
between alternatives, and we end up not going anywhere.
Unnoticed, doubt is the most dangerous of the hindrances because it
can bring our practice to a standstill. When doubt is strong and paralyzes us
with indecision, it doesn’t even give us an opportunity to take a wrong turn
and then to learn from our mistakes. With doubt, we’re always checking
ourselves, vacillating, trying to decide. Yann Martel, in his wonderful book
Life of Pi, expresses the effect of doubt very well: “To choose doubt as a
philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of
transportation.”
MANIFESTATIONS OF DOUBT
In the context of satipaṭṭhāna, doubt refers specifically to doubt about the
Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. These terms have broad implications, and in
meditation practice, doubts about these implications take some very
particular forms. Even if we have great confidence in the Buddha and his
teachings, certain doubts can still arise.
Doubt in the Relevance of the Teachings
The Buddha lived thousands of years ago. We may wonder if what he said
is really applicable now or whether he even said it. These kinds of doubts
have a useful role when they lead to investigation; they’re not useful when
they lead to indecision and confusion or when they trigger an automatic
rejection of things we would rather not hear, that we find unpalatable for
one reason or another. We might have doubt about karma or rebirth or about
the contemplations on the nonbeautiful aspects of the body. But rather than
investigating and seeing for ourselves whether they have meaning for us,
we often use doubt as a way of simply dismissing what is beyond our
current level of understanding. Another approach to countering doubts is
expressed in a phrase by the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge: “the willing
suspension of disbelief.”
Doubt in the Path of Practice
At different times we might start to doubt the practice. “What does sitting
here watching my breath have to do with anything? It’s really useless!” This
might lead to comparing different practices or wondering about the value of
meditation in a world filled with suffering.
One of the strongest examples of doubt in my practice came as I was
just beginning to learn about Tibetan Dzogchen teachings. Having practiced
for so many years in the Burmese tradition of vipassanā, my mind was
tormented by the question, “Which tradition is right?” I would go back and
forth, playing the lawyer for both sides. Finally, after a month of this
relentless doubting mind, I realized that I was asking the wrong question. It
was not a matter of which tradition was right, but rather, coming to the
understanding that all the teachings were skillful means for liberation. If we
take teachings as statements of some absolute metaphysical truth, then
different and often contradictory teachings become a big obstacle. If,
though, we see metaphysics as skillful means, then the only relevant
question is: Does this teaching help to free the mind? With this perspective,
it’s quite possible to find different teachings helpful at different times.
Doubt in Our Ability to Practice
Perhaps an even stronger manifestation of doubt has less to do with our
confidence in particular teachings and more to do with our own ability to
put them into practice. This is the deeply ingrained pattern of self-doubt.
We hear these voices in the mind, saying, “Am I doing this right?”, “I can’t
do it,” “It’s too hard,” “It’s not the right time. I should have waited.” When
this pattern of self-doubt is strong, it is not only a hindrance to our practice,
but it also becomes a debilitating force in our lives. We get into the habit of
frequently undermining ourselves, holding ourselves back.
There is a revealing phrase in English regarding this mind state: we
say someone is “plagued by doubt.” Doubt is like a plague that weakens us.
When doubt is strong, instead of making the experiment, whether in
meditation or anything else, and engaging fully in the experience so that we
can see for ourselves whether it is beneficial or not, the mind simply gets
lost in endless speculation. Then doubt becomes self-fulfilling, because
staying lost in doubt really is useless. It doesn’t allow for the opportunity to
investigate for ourselves. This endless conjecture is exhausting. Doubt is
likened to a thorny mind. It keeps jabbing us, and we feel irritable,
dissatisfied, and discouraged.
Doubt Disguised as Wisdom
Given all these downsides of doubt, why is it such a powerful force in the
mind? The great seduction of doubt is that it comes masquerading as
wisdom. We hear these very wise-sounding voices in our minds,
questioning our ability, questioning the practices we are doing, questioning
the teachers, and they all seem so reasonable and wise that we get caught up
in believing these endlessly engaging thought loops. At these times, we are
not recognizing these thoughts as simply being the hindrance of doubt.
Know When Doubt Is Present and Not Present
So the first step is learning to see through the masquerade and recognize
doubt when it arises. As the sutta says, “ne knows ‘there is doubt in
me.’” Through a careful mindfulness of our thoughts, we become more
familiar with our own particular tapes and note them accurately: “I can’t do
it”—doubting tape. “I’I’m not doing it right”—doubting tape. “What’s the
point?”—doubting tape.
The next part of the instruction, noticing when doubt is not present, is
equally important yet often overlooked. We can notice the absence of doubt
in two ways. First, when things are moving along easily, when mindfulness
and concentration are relatively strong and steady, it would be helpful to
actually notice the quality of the mind at that time. We can notice that all of
the hindrances, including doubt, are not present. What is the experience of
the mind at that time?
A second way of noticing when doubt is not present (and this is true
for the other hindrances as well) is to be particularly mindful in times of
transition from one mind state to another. For example, suppose you are lost
in a storm of doubt. At a certain point, you recognize it and begin to be
mindful of it. Then, either quickly or gradually, under the light of
mindfulness, the doubt will disappear. Nothing lasts forever. In the moment
doubt passes away, notice the difference in your experience. What does it
feel like to be free of doubt, even for a few moments?
KNOW THE CAUSE OF DOUBT AND HOW TO REMOVE
IT
The next instructions of the sutta say that we should investigate the cause of
an arisen doubt and how to remove it once it has arisen.
More-or-Less Mindful
The Buddha pointed out that unwise attention is the proximate cause for
doubt to arise:
“There are, bhikkhus, things that are the basis for doubt:
frequently giving careless attention to them is the nutriment for
the arising of unarisen doubt and for the increase and expansion
of arisen doubt.”2
We experience unwise attention in different ways. One way is by not paying
careful attention in the moment to the moment, not seeing and recognizing
what the particular thoughts and feelings are that give rise to doubt. This
can happen when we’re being what I call “more-or-less mindful.” We’re
going along, somewhat aware of what is happening, but not in a precise and
accurate way. In this situation, unnoticed thought tapes gather momentum
and begin to dominate the mind stream.
When we bring a close attention to the moment, we can be aware of
thoughts closer to their beginning and not be seduced by their convincing
tone. We see that each of these doubts is itself just another passing thought,
and we don’t give them any power. We can then come back to the simplicity
of the moment — to the breath, to a step, to just what is arising. In these
moments, the power of doubt no longer holds sway.
Wholesome vs. Unwholesome
Another far-reaching aspect of unwise attention that gives rise to doubt is
not knowing what is wholesome and what is unwholesome. Without this
understanding and wise discernment, we’re not able to overcome the forces
of greed and aversion and delusion in the mind. Not knowing what brings
happiness and what brings suffering, we stay stuck in the quagmire of many
wrong actions, all of which are a further breeding ground for doubt.
As just one example of this lack of discernment, many people live with
the belief that the accumulation of more and more sense pleasures is the key
to happiness. This is akin to the belief that drinking salt water will quench
our thirst; the more we drink, the thirstier we get. Without an understanding
of what is skillful and what is unskillful, we end up doing a lot of things
that either don’t bring their promised results or actually bring harm to others
and ourselves. This, in turn, leads to doubt and confusion about what we’re
doing in our practice and our lives.
For this reason, there is the counterintuitive teaching that it is better to
do an unskillful act knowing that it’s unskillful than to do it without that
knowledge. If we go ahead and do that act, even as we know that it’s
unskillful, there are still the seeds of wisdom that can lead to future
restraint.
Just as unwise attention gives rise to doubt, we can overcome this
hindrance and prevent its arising by cultivating wise attention, not only in
our meditation practice but also in our lives. It’s interesting to note that the
very opposite of doubt is the beautiful mental factor of faith. Bhikkhu
Bodhi describes the function of faith as clarifying the mind, in the same
way a water-clearing gem causes muddy water to clear. Through hearing
and studying the teachings, and then through our own investigation of them,
we develop a growing confidence in the Buddha, in the Dharma, in the
Sangha, and in ourselves. At a certain point, we’re no longer beset by the
wavering of doubt, and even when we face difficulties and challenges, this
confidence gives us the strength and determination to persevere. The
gradual overcoming of doubt gives greater meaning and power to the taking
of refuge, because, at least to some extent, it is verified in our own
experience, leading onward through all the stages of awakening.
