Oswin Hollenbeck

This writing was adapted from a talk and discussion given at Shasta Abbey offered for lay residents and local sangha members. I’ve tried to retain the informal style of the original talk.

I wish to talk about and discuss four kinds of doubt. You won’t find this list among various ‘Buddhist lists’ because it’s one of my own making. Upon reflection after going through a challenging time myself with a bout of doubt, these are the types that came to mind: negative doubt, positive doubt, personal self-doubt, and great doubt.

First is negative doubt. This is looking down or askance. It’s looking for a problem, a difficulty, a fault, or someone to blame, or fostering disharmony. Its crudest manifestations are sarcasm, ridicule, and cynicism. This kind of doubt is one of the ‘ten fetters’, and one of the first three which are necessary to convert for ‘entering the stream’. This doubt is not evil, it’s simply that which binds or limits; it ties us up and prevents the flow of training and Buddha nature. Its opposite is not belief, rather faith/trust/confidence (more on this below).

What can we have doubts about? According to Rev. Master Jiyu, being a Buddhist entails faith in the Three Treasures and the law of karma; it is doubt about the first three that is traditionally considered a ‘fetter’. As for accepting the law of karma, it’s usually covered in the third of the ‘three fetters’. Essential for understanding are the Precepts, the Four Noble Truths, and the law of dependent origination. Breaking free of doubts about the law of karma is sometimes expressed as ‘no dependence on rites and rituals’, but that is not saying to jettison the practice of Precepts and ceremonies. It refers to any attachment to rules and social conventions, any belief or refuge we hold which we confusedly think can circumvent the law of karma.

I want to say just a word about the Precept on defaming the Three Treasures. This is spreading doubt about the Triple Gem. It took me a long time to comprehend this Precept. Then one day I happened to read an article by a former monk who was ridiculing our master (‘the Buddha’) and I intuitively understood the grave harm this causes, for it made my physically ill. This Precept specifically concerns giving verbal expression to doubt in order to influence others, and it’s variously translated as ‘blame,’ ‘slander,’ ‘decry,’ ‘insult’, ‘speak ill of’ or ‘spread doubt about’. I have found it to also be the case that causing doubt in the minds and hearts of those in other religions can be a case of breaking this Precept. I learned this painfully when recently going through the rough patch described below. I eventually realized that my terrible doubt could be the effect of causes which I set in motion many years ago when ridiculing other people’s faith and perhaps influencing their decision to give up on their religious vocation.

Positive doubt is inquiry and is a good thing. It means we’ve engaged with the teaching. Taking refuge in the Dharma entails first seeking instruction, then listening and studying, but perhaps most importantly, practicing what we’ve been taught. Thus we allow true learning to manifest. The Buddha himself instructed his disciples, “Don’t take my word for this. Prove it true for yourselves.”

When we wish to learn, it is with a bright and open mind and a trusting heart. It’s faith seeking understanding and moving toward certainty. We begin with what we can trust and grow our confidence from there. This trust or confidence is a continuum; it is not a system of belief with black and white alternatives. Buddhists do not profess a creed as in some religions. Buddhist practice does require faith in the four subjects mentioned above, although we need to keep an open mind and be willing to trust. Part of taking refuge in the Buddha is trusting in his enlightened state. That state is our own true nature, it is true reality, and we can realize the same. We don’t depend on an old Indian teacher of 2500 years ago: his true life, and ours, are always present. What worked for the Buddha will work for us. Accordingly, that confidence implies a strong conviction in the law of cause and effect, for it is by understanding and practicing his method ourselves that we can accomplish the same aim.

It only takes a seed to start the process of trust or confidence in our hearts and lives, and it usually grows in small increments. It’s helpful to remember that Buddhism is big. Buddhist doctrine – doctrine simply means ‘teaching’ in its details – is vast, so there is a lot to learn and assimilate. Any field of knowledge requires time, effort, and patience, so again it’s good to start small and go from there: we’re in this for the long haul. One of my favorite cartoons is the old, wizened guru telling the new aspirant at the foot of a long and winding path up the mountain, “You’d better pack a sack lunch.”

Rev. Master Jiyu employed the phrase “the back burner method” to describe this process of not rejecting any of the teaching outright, rather placing what we presently can’t accept on the ‘back burner’ of our ‘stove-top’ and allow it to simmer. Then when the time is right, we bring our ‘pot’ to a ‘front burner’ and turn up the fire under it, i.e. train actively with a given aspect of practice. In this way we don’t turn away in the present from what may someday be valuable. I’ve added to the analogy by saying some things may have to go in the ‘deep freeze’, the point being not to throw anything away entirely. Someday it may be time to thaw out and cook a particular teaching.

A practical application of this method is to take one Precept and concentrate on it for a given week, then take another the next week, and so on. And one can do this with other qualities we cultivate: the Four Wisdoms, the six Paramitas, steps of the Eightfold Path, etc. In this way we gain experience which confirms our faith and enables us to trust more.

Next is self-doubt. This kind of doubt is a spiritual problem, a koan. Great Master Dōgen teaches that the koan, our spiritual issue, arises naturally in daily life. We don’t have to create a problem or a question in the life of religious practice, the challenges are already there. When we awaken the Buddha-seeking mind, the universe seems to respond to our invitation by presenting us with ample material to work on.

This kind of doubt can be considered a ‘hindrance,’ one of a traditional set of five states of mind that hinder the development of mental concentration in meditation. I view it as an aspect of the inadequacy koan.¹ It is sometimes called indecision, or indecisiveness.

Reminding oneself of the fifth law of the universe, that all beings have an intuitive knowledge of the Buddha nature, can be helpful. Cultivate faith in yourself, your own Buddha nature, and your ability to train – and act on that. The traditional Buddhist remedy for this doubt is to cultivate overconfidence, but I don’t recommend that for those who have a complacency koan, in which one feels that one doesn’t need to practice.^1a In popular psychology and therapy this overconfidence is sometimes advocated as “Fake it till you make it”. That’s a coarse way of putting it, but it’s applicable. However, stepping out on truth doesn’t mean we won’t make mistakes and incur matching negative karma. That’s how we learn.

The ability to commit seems to be a big hurdle for many of us raised in a Western educational system which emphasizes the analytical mind and the acquisition of intellectual knowledge. We sometimes jokingly comment that commitment is the ‘big ‘c’ word’ in Buddhism, just as cancer in the 1950s was never referred to explicitly but always indirectly. It can be the thing we’re deeply afraid of and don’t even want to face or discuss. It’s the thing we’ve been taught to discount and even disparage because it’s outside the boundaries of empirical and conventional knowledge.

This doubt can frequently go hand in hand with fear and despair. I had an experience recently while on retreat when I was facing a huge wall of doubt and despair and didn’t see any way that I could go on in my practice. I had been out walking in the woods and had to muster the courage and determination to go on anyway, regardless: I went into the meditation hall and sat cross-legged, which I don’t normally do, because I felt I needed that extra strength of stability. And after a lengthy sitting period, the doubt vanished. This happened more than once, but afterwards I felt refreshed and strengthened and had the insight mentioned above about causing doubt in others. It’s sometimes said that when we don’t want to sit is when we may need to the most.

And then there’s great doubt. This is Dōgen’s “always be disturbed by the truth.” In the Zen Meditation tradition it’s one of three qualities often presented as necessary for practice: great doubt, great faith, and great determination or courage. Great doubt can be the awareness of impermanence which fuels our determination to practice. Dōgen and other eminent masters often awakened to practice early in life through a direct confrontation with impermanence, frequently by the death of a parent: Dōgen awakened the Buddha-seeking mind by observing the incense smoke rising from his mother’s funeral pyre. The Buddha himself was motivated to renounce the world by encountering old age, disease, and death. Theravada Buddhism often stresses samvega, dissatisfaction with life and an urgency to train, while Tibetan Buddhist teachings frequently emphasize the preciousness of this human rebirth and the rarity of encountering the Dharma.

Dōgen makes the same points in the first chapter of Shushogi: “It would be criminal to waste such an opportunity by leaving this weak life of ours exposed to impermanence through lack of faith and commitment.”² Included in this teaching are the two qualities we need for transforming this kind of doubt: faith & commitment. This is the entrustment of our lives to “always going on, always becoming Buddha” which concludes the Scripture of Great Wisdom. It is the determination and strength of Achalanatha, a Wisdom King of Light, who embodies the bright-minded attitude of “I will not be moved.” It is learning to make good use of the hardships and adversities that greet the sincere practicer of meditation. In this way these difficulties become the fuel and substance for our training. They are opportunities, not obstacles. As Rev. Master Jiyu determined in Japan, “I will take everything as happening for my good.”

This great doubt is also the “training as if our hair were on fire.” This teaching is offered by Dōgen, as well as by Nagarjuna, our great Indian Ancestor, and can be traced back to the Buddha himself. Note that when we seek to put out the flames we do not go running madly screaming that our hair is on fire. That kind of response can only feed the flames. No. We quietly, quickly, determinedly put out the fire with a blanket, water, or our hands if necessary.

So, four kinds of doubt. Doubtless, there may be others. These four are not distinct categories – in most people’s experience, they may likely blend and morph into each other. With all of them we train quietly and brightly with strength and determination: great doubt, great faith, and great courage. Each and every day we make the commitment with the Kesa verse after morning meditation, “I wish to unfold the Buddha’s teaching that I may help all living things.”

Notes

1. 1. & 1a Buddhist trainees are sometimes grouped into two categories according to the two ‘koans’ of inadequacy and complacency. The former looks to externals for a refuge and confirmation of their completeness, while the latter usually feels conceitedly that they lack nothing, that they are entitled to the best of everything, and thus have no need to search for a deeper purpose in life. Most of us probably have a mixture of both. See Rev. Master Jiyu-Kennett, How to Grow a Lotus Blossom, 2nd ed. (Mount Shasta,CA: Shasta Abbey Press, 1993) p. 2.
2. 2. Great Master Dōgen, Shushōgi (What is Truly Meant by Training and Enlightenment) in Jiyu-Kennett, Zen is Eternal Life, 4th ed. (Shasta Abbey Press: 1999) p. 94.