Conversation: Doubt Busting

Yesterday, I felt I’d reached an impasse in my practice. Seeing was too painful but going blind impossible. I stared into space but I could not just stare into space; I had no choice but to be present for that. I felt stuck in between, unable to come out or go in. I couldn’t look but I couldn’t forget what was there. I wondered if it was better before I began, when I did not know what it was that I was experiencing; it was safer, easier. Now it felt like the burden of seeing was weighting me down, and I wanted it to go away, shut up, to turn it off.

The voice of doubt spoke loudly of the futility of everything, to every effort. But then, there was another voice, saying, ‘Don’t listen to that! That’s Mara! These are just intensely dark and painful doubts, and you are getting lost in them. But you will find your way out again. Don’t identify with this, it’s just an attitude, a frame of mind, a bunch of ideas. This is just a really unpleasant, nihilistic, depressed state, profoundly unpleasant, frightening, uncomfortable, hateful, but it’s empty like all the rest. What else is here? The sky is still blue and the grass is still green.’

But for a while, I could not believe this latter voice; it was so hard to believe this, to see this; I was so caught that I didn’t believe I was caught; I was deluded; this felt totally real to me. Sadness, such sadness, intense grief, loss, pain, disappointment, disillusionment, with no one to turn to, no one to understand, no one to offer comfort. Alone, empty, so abandoned, and maybe as I was alone then, I was feeling it, which was perhaps the reason why I felt I could never share it, because if someone had been present it wouldn’t have been that way. But even then there was still this sense of strength in the background. And then, I was in it, out of it, in it, out of it, alternating upbeat and downbeat thoughts, flitting from one to the other.

Next, today, at first things seemed to be worsening, as I fell to considering what it would be like after death, freed of all worries and burdens. Then, a profound peace arose, but of course this wasn’t death; I therefore surmised this was simply the relief of letting go. I could see that I can let go, that worrying is optional; feeling burdened by decisions and responsibilities is optional. All I need do is shed these extras. And so, after resting in peace briefly, I proceeded with my tasks without further concern.

Then I reflected, ‘Wow! How amazing is mind! --Wonderful, ingenious, unsinkable. Struggling up and down the waves like an old, beat up waterlogged but sturdily constructed schooner.’