In the practice of meditation, the Buddha identified five common hindrances to concentration:
- sensual desire,
- ill will,
- restlessness & worry,
- sloth & torpor, and
- doubt.
Considering doubt is one of the hindrances to concentration, and concentration is a prerequisite for insight, it is important that we get a handle on doubt.
In his book, What the Buddha Taught, Rahula (3) makes it clear that (spiritual) progress depends on eliminating doubt, and as we have seen elsewhere, faith as the opposite of doubt is fundamental for that same progress. I am stating the obvious, but with the intention of highlighting something like a false dichotomy: as argued above, doubt is good, but faith is also good. Is this another paradox?
Another paradox to consider is that freedom from doubt depends on one seeing clearly in the first place, which would typically be understand as the source of faith: indeed, the sotapanna has eliminated doubt and arrived at ‘unshakeable’ faith because they have seen the Four Noble Truths directly for themselves.
So where do we start here? Is this a chicken, an egg, or an ouroboros? Does doubt move us toward truth, or is faith the prime mover here? If the process of truth-seeking is more like an ouroboros, then all I need to do is put my head up my arse. Instead, I guess we need to unpack the types of doubt we are talking about, because distinctions like that could make all the difference.
One kind of doubt is doubt in the Triple Gem. Another is doubt in one’s own capacity to follow the Buddha’s instructions, understand his teachings, and apply oneself to the practice of the noble ones. Another kind of doubt, mentioned above, is epistemic self-doubt, meaning doubt about ‘our ability to achieve an epistemically favourable state, for example, to achieve true beliefs’ (Roush). But the subject here is doubt in the five hindrances ~ stay with it, Bodhi.
If one has doubt in the sense of the Hindrances, it means, quite specifically, doubt about the Triple Gem: did the Buddha really become enlightened and then go on as a peripatetic pedagogue ‘asking others for their answers and making awkward observations about their replies’ the way Socrates did, which is not to say Socrates was enlightened, but 🤷 who knows; do the teachings of the Buddha really contain instructions we can follow to experience enlightenment for ourselves; and is the community of Buddha’s disciples still alive and applying themselves with sincerity to the application of those teachings?
It does sound a bit like a stretch, when I type it all out. And for a long time, I wasn’t sure. Caveat: I do happen to feel sure about this now; my faith in the Triple Gem is pretty solid. The main kind of doubt I experience is that second one: I sometimes feel unsure about whether I’ve got what it takes to understand and apply the teachings all the way to the final goal. I also have all sorts of epistemic self-doubt, but Buddha’s teaching about the Unprofitable Questions helps with that.
So that’s where we’re at with that, for now.