NOTE: This week at the group we talked about working with doubt in our meditation practice and as related to Step Two ("Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity"). Below are some quotes I shared related to this topic in case you want to read them for further reflection:
Seeking the Heart of Wisdom by Joseph Goldstein & Jack Kornfield, pg. 35:
Doubt can be the most
difficult of all (the hindrances) to work with, because when we believe it and
get caught by it, our practice just stops cold. We become paralyzed. All kinds
of doubt might assail us; doubts about ourselves and our capacities; doubts
about our teachers; doubts about the dharma itself—“Does it really work? I sit
here and all that happens is my knees hurt and I feel restless. Maybe the
Buddha didn’t really know what he was talking about.” We might doubt the
practice or doubt that it is the right practice for us. “It’s too hard. Maybe I
should try Sufi dancing.” Or we think it’s the right practice but the wrong
time. Or it’s the right practice and the right time, but our body’s not yet in
good enough shape. It doesn’t matter what the object is; when the skeptical,
doubting mind catches us, we’re stuck.
A Burning Desire by Kevin Griffin, pg. 150:
Ultimately, I think we
should be most concerned, not about the accuracy of our beliefs, but about
their efficacy. Oftentimes I can’t know if they are true, but I can usually
tell if they are helping me or not. And that’s what I want to know. Are my
beliefs leading to the end of suffering?
Twelve Steps & Twelve
Traditions, pg. 29:
Now we come to another kind of problem:
the intellectually self-sufficient man or woman. To these, many AA’s can say,
“Yes, we were like you—far too smart for our own good. We loved to have people
call us precocious. We used our education to blow ourselves up into prideful
balloons, though we were careful to hide this from others. Secretly, we felt we
could float above the rest of the folks on our brainpower alone. Scientific
progress told us there was nothing man couldn’t do. Knowledge was all-powerful.
Intellect could conquer nature. Since we were brighter than most folks (so we
thought), the spoils of victory would be ours for the thinking. The god of
intellect displaced the God of our fathers. But again John Barleycorn had other
ideas. We who had won so handsomely in a walk turned into all-time losers. We
saw that we had to reconsider or die. We found many in AA who once thought as
we did. They helped us to get down to our right size. By their example they
showed us that humility and intellect could be compatible, provided we placed
humility first. When we began to do that, we received a gift of faith, a faith
which works. This faith is for you, too.”
A Path with Heart by Jack
Kornfield, pg. 160
(The Buddha says:) You may
be puzzled, Kalamas, and in doubt, and your doubt has arisen about what should
be doubted. Do not believe me either. If you wish to know spiritual truth, you
must investigate it this way… (continues
on--click here for full sutta)
Wherever You Go, There You Are by Jon
Kabat-Zinn, pg. 8:
While it may be simple to
practice mindfulness, it is not necessarily easy. Mindfulness requires effort
and discipline for the simple reason that the forces that work against our
being mindful, namely, our habitual unawareness and automaticity, are
exceedingly tenacious.
