Small doubts lead to small realisations
-
Lectures by the Venerable Master Hsuan Hua
• With Empty Space Shattered, the Mind Is Understood
When you investigate "Who is mindful of the Buddha?" things may get vague. You keep on investigating, but you can't find out "who?" Unable to find the "who," you give rise to a "feeling of doubt." Once this feeling of doubt arises, great doubt will bring great enlightenment. Small doubt will bring small enlightenment. No doubt will bring no enlightenment. Continual doubt will bring continual enlightenment. Brief doubt will bring brief enlightenment. -
You should maintain an attitude of doubt toward the Great Vehicle. Just like Aryadeva says in verse:
"One who has little merit will not even feel doubt about the Dharma. But existence is shredded by the mere presence of doubt." - Catusataka 8.5
If one has doubt having heard all the fundamental teachings of the Great Vehicle, one's intellect will penetrate the subjects and be open to Enlightenment. One who has become open to Enlightenment will [then] simply bring about trust in the teaching, which will lead to further joyand happiness. One who brings about this joy and happiness will obtain the insight brought about by listening, pondering and meditating on the Dharma. One will then progress all the way to total understanding of the Awareness of all States [of being], just like the Buddha. -
This is the only reference I could find in the Taisho, though there are several in the Xu, including Hanshan's "Journeys in Dreamland".
Although the term ‹^ is the same character as "doubt", the meaning is different in Ch'an practice.
Usually, doubt is the negative counterpart to faith (sraddha), and faith and confidence in the triple gem, practice, etc. are necessary to the path.
The term I have translated above as "uncertainty" is different, and it does not negate faith in the triple gem, etc. Rather, it is more akin to notions of •s‰Â“¾ - "un apprehendable" (skt - na upalabhyate).
ie. when one searches for a true, inherently existent self or phenomena, the practitioner finds that they cannot find one, cannot apprehend one. This causes "uncertainty" about the existence of the self, or in fact, the existence of anything.
Such "uncertainty", not coming to fixed conclusions that XX exists or XX does not exist, is the middle way. -
Interesting.. the topic of doubt has also been discussed before in What is Koan?
26 May 2007:
Regarding the 'Great Doubt',In the Zen tradition one hears of the state of the “great doubt” that "burns like a ball of red-hot fire that one can neither swallow nor spit out". One may wonder if at least part of the meaning behind the choice of this metaphor refers to the hard inner clenching or contraction around an imaginary center that is a subjective symptom of egoity strongly felt (ie., St. John: "The living flame of love makes the soul feel its hardness and aridity."Wink. This “doubt” may also be considered as a thought or feeling-sense of the struggle with self as it begins to become clear that you yourself , as you are , are the problem, but the problem itself (the activity of contraction or false identification, which is egoity) is not entirely obvious as yet. The ordinary man in general has no such existential "doubt". He is comfortable with a self which he unconsciously identifies with the body. As practise increases, however, this natural conceit becomes undermined. Certainty and knowledge turn into doubt. One no longer knows who or what the "I" or the "world" are, yet reality itself has yet to dawn upon his consciousness. The man at this stage has been described as "an idiot", knowing nothing - and often in deep despair, of an extreme existential nature. The energy of the Great Doubt gradually is built up within his being to a critical degree. When fundamental insight finally arises to consciousness, as satori, often catalyzed by the perception of an external sight or sound, the inherent distress is released and the “doubt” vanishes. One then becomes one who has truly "entered the path". Prior to satori every ‘answer’ one comes up with for the koan is rejected, which, of course, is as it should be, for short of satori no one passes his interview with the master - assuming the master truly has fundamental insight. Without a life of discipline, purification, meditation (concentration/contemplation), and study, however, it is highly unlikely for the ‘great doubt’ to arise or for a koan to be of much use. Our unconscious tendencies or vasanas will keep us preoccupied with the world and the ego to such an extent that insight will have difficulty arising. Further, our life of "sleep" will not be interrupted sufficiently to allow the insight that does manage to arise to become stable realization.
Thusness just told me a few days ago:
(8:04 PM) Thusness: have u gone through the confusion?
(8:04 PM) Thusness: have u doubted ur own existence?
(8:04 PM) Thusness: have u faced that intense fear b4?
(8:05 PM) Thusness: otherwise how are u able to treasure isness?
(8:05 PM) Thusness: the spiritual journey is not an easy path
As my Master used to say.. small doubt, small realisation. Great doubt, great realisation.
p.s. I quoted that part for Thusness, he said that it's well said and true. -
If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.
........................................ Rene Descartes (1596-1650)
(also see, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fa4WtuR0wbY) -
There are many things that I can doubt, but I cannot doubt my own consciousness in this moment. My consciousness and even if I tried to doubt it, it would be my consciousness doubting. I can imagine that my senses are being presented with a fake reality – say, a completely virtual reality or digital reality, which looks real but is merely a series of extremely realist images. But even then, I cannot doubt the consciousness that is doing the watching…
The very undeniability of my present awareness, the undeniability of my consciousness, immediately delivers to me a certainty of existence in this moment, a certainty of Being in the now-ness of this moment. I cannot doubt consciousness and Being in this moment, for it is the ground of all knowing, all seeing, all existingÂ…
Who am I? Ask that question over and over again, deeply. Who am I? What is it in me that is conscious of everything?
If you think that you know Spirit, or if you think you donÂ’t, Spirit is actually that which is thinking both of those thoughts. So you can doubt the objects of consciousness, but you can never believably doubt the doubter, never really doubt the Witness of the entire display. Therefore, rest in the Witness, whether it is thinking that it knows God or not, and that witnessing, that undeniable immediacy of now-consciousness, is itself God, Spirit, Buddha-mind. The certainty lies in the pure self-felt Consciousness to which objects appear, not in the objects themselves. You will never, never, never see God, because God is the Seer, not any finite, mortal, bounded object that can be seenÂ…
This pure I AM state is not hard to achieve but impossible to escape, because it is ever present and can never really be doubted. You can never run from Spirit, because Spirit is the Runner. To put it very bluntly, Spirit is not hard to find but impossible to avoid: it is that which is looking at this page right now. CanÂ’t you feel That One? Why on earth do you keep looking for God when God is actually the Looker?
Simply ask, Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?
I am aware of my feelings, so I am not my feelings – Who am I? I am aware of my thoughts, so I am not my thoughts – Who am I? Clouds float by in the sky, thoughts float by in the mind, feelings float by in the body – and I am none of those because I can Witness them all.
Moreover, I can doubt that clouds exist, I can doubt that feelings exist, I can doubt that objects of thought exist – but I cannot doubt that the Witness exists in this moment, because the Witness would still be there to witness the doubt.
I am not objects in nature, not feelings in the body, not thoughts in the mind, for I can Witness them all. I am that Witness – a vast, spacious, empty, clear, pure, transparent Openness that impartially notices all that arises, as a mirror spontaneously reflects all its objects…
You can already feel some of this Great Liberation in that, as you rest in the ease of witnessing this moment, you already feel that you are free from the suffocating constriction of mere objects, mere feelings, mere thoughts – they all come and go, but you are that vast, free, empty, open Witness of them all, untouched by their torments and tortures.
This is actually the profound discovery of… the pure divine Self, the formless Witness, causal nothingness, the vast Emptiness in which the entire world arises, stays a bit, and passes. And you are That. You are not the body, not the ego, not nature, not thoughts, not this, not that – you are a vast Emptiness, Freedom, Release, and Liberation.
With this discoveryÂ… you are halfway home. You have disidentified from any and all finite objects; you rest as infinite Consciousness. You are free, open, empty, clear, radiant, released, liberated, exalted, drenched in a blissful emptiness that exists prior to space, prior to time, prior to tears and terror, prior to pain and mortality and suffering and death. You have found the great Unborn, the vast Abyss, the unqualifiable Ground of all that is, and all that was, and all that ever shall be.
But why is that only halfway home? Because as you rest in the infinite ease of consciousness, spontaneously aware of all that is arising, there will soon enough come the great catastrophe of Freedom and Fullness: the Witness itself will disappear entirely, and instead of witnessing the sky, you are the sky; instead of touching the earth, you are the earth; instead of hearing the thunder, you are the thunder. You and the entire Kosmos because One Taste – you can drink the Pacific Ocean in a single gulp, hold Mt. Everest in the palm of your hand; supernovas swirl in your heart and the solar system replaces your head…
You are One Taste, the empty mirror that is one with any and all objects that arise in its embrace, a mindlessly vast translucent expanse: infinite, eternal, radiant beyond release. And youÂ… areÂ… ThatÂ…
So the primary Cartesian dualism – which is simply the dualism between… in here and out there, subject and object, the empty Witness and all things witnessed – is finally undone and overcome in nondual One Taste. Once you actually and fully contact the Witness, then – and only then – can it be transcended into radical Nonduality, and halfway home becomes fully home, here in the ever-present wonder of what is…
And so how do you know that you have finally and really overcome the Cartesian dualism? Very simple: if you really overcome the Cartesian dualism, then you no longer feel that you are on this side of your face looking at the world out there. There is only the world, and you are all of that; you actually feel that you are one with everything that is arising moment to moment. You are not merely on this side of your face looking out there. “In here” and “out there” have become One Taste with a shuddering obviousness and certainty so profound it feels like a five-ton rock just dropped on your head. It is, shall we say, a feeling hard to miss.
At that point, which is actually your ever-present condition, there is no exclusive identity with this particular organism, no constriction of consciousness to the head, a constriction that makes it seem that “you” are in the head looking at the rest of the world out there; there is no binding of attention to the personal bodymind: instead, consciousness is one with all that is arising – a vast, open, transparent, radiant, infinitely Free and infinitely Full expanse that embraces the entire Kosmos, so that every single subject and every single object are erotically united in the Great Embrace of One Taste. You disappear from merely being behind your eyes, and you become the All, you directly and actually feel that your basic identity is everything that is arising moment to moment (just as previously you felt that your identity was with this finite, partial, separate, mortal coil of flesh you call a body). Inside and outside have become One Taste. I tell you, it can happen just like that!
(Source: Boomeritis, Sidebar E: “The Genius Descartes Gets a Postmodern Drubbing: Integral Historiography in a Postmodern Age”. More to be found in The Simple Feeling of Being, a collection of Ken Wilber’s inspirational, mystical and instructional passages drawn from his publications, based on his experiences.) -
Today I told Thusness some of my interesting experiences I came across while inquiring... to which he replied:
(2:18 PM) Thusness: I know.
(2:19 PM) Thusness: continue ur investigation.
(2:21 PM) Thusness: continue inquiring....depend on no other materials...
(2:21 PM) Thusness: purely on inquiry...till u touch your very core of pure existence.
hehe... coincidentally, just seconds before he told me these, I changed my sgforums signature to this:
"Pure knowledge is not imparted by another: it comes unasked. It is the one that is listening: it is your own true nature."
And just a moment ago, I found a great verse by Zen Master Bassui (1327-1387):
"What is the master [within you] who at this very moment is seeing and hearing?
If you reply, as most do, that it is Mind or Nature or Buddha or one's Face before birth or one's Original Home or Koan or Being or Nothingness or Emptiness or Form-and-Color or the Known or the Unknown or Truth or Delusion, or say something or remain silent, or regard it as Enlightenment or Ignorance, you fall into error at once.
What is more, if you are so foolhardy as to doubt the reality of this master, you bind yourself though you use no rope. However much you try to know it through logical reasoning or to name or call it, you are doomed to failure.
And even though all of you becomes one mass of questioning as you turn inward and intently search the very core of your being, you will find nothing that can be termed Mind or Essence.
Yet should someone call your name, something from within will hear and respond. Find out this instant who it is!" -
"Only one koan matters - you."
~ Ikkyu